ALLOTMENT PLOT BELONGING TO HENRICK, ITS A PRIZE WINNER

HENRICK HAS A WONDERFUL ALLOTMENT AT MERTON 

The blue squares on my friend's allotment

The plot which Henrick has created is full of delightful surprises. At one end he has a large pond with various kinds of carp, and a chalet where he entertains friends on Boxing Day!
The various buildings he has made are changing over time and on each visit I marvel at something new!
This sketch is of a blue and red square on the trellis near his greenhouse.
Through this square, you can see other squares that are cleverly built to show an impression of recession to a far distance.
Colour is also important on this allotment, everything is painted, usually blue, green and red, and everywhere are great swathes of flowers, climbing up, cascading  down.  A feast for the eye.

ALLOTMENT SOCIETY PLANT SALE - CAKE SALE TOO!

MY ALLOTMENT SOCIETY IN LONDON IS CALLED 'MAGA' - WE HAVE AN ANNUAL PLANT SALE TO RAISE FUNDS, IN MAY EACH YEAR

THE HUT, WITH HOME MADE CAKES, ENJOYABLE!

Lovely weather on May 17, and lots of plants to buy, as well as delicious cakes;  here is my sketch of the cake sale inside the Allotment Society hut, with helpers and visitors enjoying the home made cakes.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately) I left my money behind, so did not eat anything. Had to borrow some cash to buy a tray of leek seedlings, though. Thanks, Philippa!

SKETCH OF THE FROGS IN MY LONDON POND

MARCH 6 WAS THE DAY I NOTICED FROGSPAWN IN THE GARDEN POND

I usually make a note each year in my Gardening notebook, when the first spawn appears. This year it was early, due to the warm weather.  Here is my colour crayon sketch of the hopeful frogs.  It is one of my Urban Sketches which I put on the Flickr pages 
You can sign up to Flickr and see images

FROGS AND FROGSPAWN IN MARCH, GARDEN POND

The male frogs congregate in numbers in the hope of finding a female.  They pop up their heads watching out, and some of them even sit on the mass of frogspawn.  

OBSERVING THE FROGS

You have to creep up on the pond to be able to draw or sketch them, as they are very vigilant and quickly disappear under the water.


TOADS AS WELL

I was pleased to see two pair of toads in the pond last weekend, 16 March.  It is the first time I have seen toads in my pond.  We see toads in the garden, creeping about, usually hiding under a log or bit of plastic which I have not cleared away, where it is damp.  They move very slowly and I am always so pleased to see them.  They seem much rarer than frogs in London.

TOAD SPAWN

Yes there are some strands of toad spawn in the pond as well.  Some of it has black tiny dots, which I guess are the fertilised eggs, while most of it is white dots, again I am guessing these are eggs which are not fertilised.  

NEWTS

Unfortunately the newts are out in force in the pond as well, and I know they eat the tadpoles, as do my few little stickleback fishes, and herons swoop down and carry off frogs. Its a hard life being a frog!  I am on the side of the toads, but have no intention of hunting for the newts, its just a big battle, 'tooth and claw', as they say.

ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY SHOW LONDON, SCRUM TO SEE THE EXHIBITS

FEBRUARY 21 and 22 - HORTICULTURAL SHOW IN CENTRAL LONDON

I went to the RHS London Plant and Design Show yesterday, which gave me the chance to spend more money, this time on two lots of potatoes, Sharps Express and Winston, both 'earlies'.
You can buy  a wide variety of seed potatoes at the show, including some unusual ones.

SKETCH OF THE HORTICULTURAL SHOW - BLACK PEN
Here is the sketch I made of the hall, sitting on the balcony at the end at the top of of steps.

RHS Plant and Design Show, February 21

You can see that there were crowds of people milling around, admiring the snowdrops, irises, begonia, bulbs, shrubs -  all the things which seem full of promise at this dark end of the winter. It was difficult to get close to the plants sometimes because of the eager crowds.

Everywhere I looked I saw people clutching carrier bags with their leafy purchases.  Yes, I succumbed to temptation as well.

LILY

I love lilies and I bought a bag of three lily bulbs from the stand of H. W. Hyde and Son, the Lily Experts.  The stall holder advised me that on my sandy, acid soil I should  plant Oriental lilies and I bought a little bag with three nice lily bulbs, of Speciosum alba; they look lovely in the illustration on the stall,  white with curled petals, and they have a scent.  They have to be planted soon, so hope the sun returns next week and dries the soil a bit.  The Asiatic lilies do not like acidic soil so I plant them in pots.  This year I bought some more Asiatic lilies at the Pound Shop, only £1 for three, so it will be interesting to see how they compare with the more expensive ones.

Lily and spider, London garden

GARDEN MUSEUM IN LAMBETH, LONDON - VISIT THE EXHIBITION 'FASHION AND GARDENS'

THE EXHIBITION AT THE GARDEN MUSEUM, LONDON SOUNDS GOOD

I have read about this exhibition, called FASHION AND GARDENS: SPRING/SUMMER - AUTUMN/WINTER.

WHERE IS THE GARDEN MUSEUM?  THIS IS WHAT THEIR WEBSITE SAYS

The Garden Museum, formerly known as the Museum of Garden History, is based in the deconsecrated parish church of St Mary-at-Lambeth adjacent to Lambeth Palace on the south bank of the River Thames in London, located on Lambeth Road
The Garden Museum, London

Definitely will try to go along to the exhibition, it is on until 27 April this year (2014)

Below is a link to one of the articles I have read, written by Robin Lane Fox, who is one of my favourite garden writers.  He writes a column in the House & Home section of the Weekend Financial Times

Financial Times article about Fashion and Gardens, by Robin Lane Fox

The exhibition has been been assembled by curator Nicola Shulman, with support from Alexandra, her sister who is editor-in-chief of British Vogue.  If you follow the link above you will see there are some lovely colour reproductions of paintings of gardeners (female) from past centuries.

I like this comment by Robin Lane Fox in his article above: "Genuine gardeners are recognised by their rear cleavage, exposed when they bend over to attack chickeed".

I shall have to be careful what I show when I attack the chickweed, in future, but in the case of us lady gardeners, I fear it is the front cleavage we have to expose or not, as the case may be.

WHAT DO YOU WEAR IN THE GARDEN?

I guess most gardeners probably wear something fairly battered and tough.  Judging by what is to be seen on my allotment site, scruff in the order of the day.

One of my allotment friends shovels the muck

LADIES DO NOT DO SCRUFF

Remember the good old days?  I seem to recall that my mother did not wear scruffy clothes to garden, I have photos of her snipping off rose heads in a pretty cotton dress.  Maybe it is a modern custom to go gardening in ragged jeans and battered anoraks.  What do you think?

THE GARDEN YEAR OF 2014 ON THE ALLOTMENT

This is going to be the year when I photo or draw some of the best dressed gardeners!

GARDENING TO DO LIST IN FEBRUARY - ALLOTMENTS AND VEGETABLE GARDENS

Tidy the Shed!

GARDEN AND ALLOTMENT TO DO LIST FOR FEBRUARY?  I HATE TO DO LISTS!

Yes I make To Do lists myself, I am a great list-maker,  I have a collection of old notebooks littered with mouldering To Do lists which still need doing, from years back - sometimes I use the empty pages of old diaries. 

I also try MIND MAPS, thinking this would be the answer to my lack of time management, but they don't work either.

JANUARY CROCUS

TO DOS

You see I can never  make the supreme  effort to tick off all my To Dos, at any time of year, let alone in February. 

Garden writers love putting lists of what to do, in the media on or line, just to make us guilty, I guess.

There is a What to do this Week,  in The Sunday Times.  Today we are instructed to:

1 Start chitting potatoes (I think this is much too early, unless you like egg-boxes full of dusty potatoes littering up your living area).  I think outdoors in a greenhouse or shed is too cold.

2 Sow broad beans outside unless ground is too wet (well, it is)

3  Protect plants that 'pop up early' with fleece or an old sheet (should look very fetching in the back garden, this)

VEGETABLES WERE HERE!

ALAN TITCHMARSH, in Waitrose Weekend, suggests:

1 "Take time to make a potting tray now" (no, not potty, potting, as in plants)

2 Cover "rhubarb with a large tub or special rhubarb forcer" and insulate the outside the the 'forcer', which you previously insulated inside with straw or other material.

3. "Prune wisteria….check the support and repair as necessary"- good idea but you need to get the step ladder out, which is possibly in the shed which you have yet to tidy.

4 "Harvest Brussels sprouts, leeks, parsnips and turnips" (unfortunately I had some parsnips but they are now lost in wet soggy soil, and the pigeons are finishing off the sprouts, and the leeks, well they never really got going last autumn, so that lets me out of this particular To Do.

TIDY THE GARDEN SHED  !!!

The shed on the plot

Inside the shed shown above

I hate being told to tidy the shed, suggesting this is a good time of year to do it, as you are not very busy.  Of course everybody is very busy in February, just like at other times.  

Probably this is because you can catch up on stuff, stuff that never gets finished in the nice weather, like, well, in my case its looking for a very cheap and wonderful holiday bargain.  Or worrying about interest rates.

Or tidying the accumulation of newspaper cuttings about very cheap and wonderful holiday bargains, or equally wonderful recipes for delicious cheap meals.

Allotment shed to store everything

SHEDS

So I resolve every autumn to tidy the sheds, during the winter when I am not so busy.  Do I do this?  Not on your nelly.  The weather is cold, windy, wet and the days are dark.  Much nicer to stay in the warm.

FOUR SHEDS TO DO, 

TWO LITTLE ONES, TWO A BIT BIGGER

Allotment shed, tiny one

Little garden shed 

You may be surprised to see that a mess they are in.  Wait a moment, what does the inside of your shed look like in February?

Inside the striped shed for garden stuff only!

Are you one of those admirable people who wash out and stack all their empty flower pots and trays in the autumn?  Someone who clears out the overgrown plants in the pond, just when the water is freezing cold?  Who cleans and oils the handles of their spades and forks?  And washes down the glass in their greenhouse, so as to let in as much light as possible?   

Well, joint the club, I don't do these things either.

Please let me know about the state of YOUR shed this month.

The shed for everything

I MADE SOME MARMALADE IN JANUARY - HERE IS RECIPE

TWO NICE THINGS HAPPENED INDOORS THIS MONTH OF JANUARY

1  I made some marmalade and then

2  I made a second lot of marmalade because it has to last the whole year and we love it.

HERE IS THE METHOD I USE

I used my old Preserves for all Occasions book (Penguin) which I find indispensable where jams etc are concerned.

Preserves for all Occasions

The author Alice Crang (back in 1953) says you can use a pressure cooker to cook the oranges, if you have a pressure cooker.  So:

you need that, some clean jars and lids (old pickle jars is what I use), about 1 lb 8 oz Seville oranges and the same weight of sugar (plain white granulated),

Cook the whole oranges (washed of course) in about 1 and a half pints of water, in the pressure cooker for about 15 minutes.  Allow it to cool and then remove lid of cooker.

Marmalade, quantity from 1lb 8 oz Seville oranges

Take out the oranges and keep back  the water on one side.  

Next, the time-consuming bit, and you need a sharp knife and something good on the radio.

Cut the orange peel into thin strips, and also put the pips and any orange flesh in a piece of muslin cloth (which  you might have to go out and buy specially!)

Tie the muslin into a bag shape.

You can do the next bit in the pressure cooker pan but I prefer to use my old preserving pan as it is bigger, has sloping sides and a spout thing.

Add the sliced orange peel and the bag of pips and orange flesh to the water and  heat them, then

Gradually add all the sugar, stir till sugar has dissolved.  At this point you:

boil the mixture vigorously

Takes about 20 minutes till it gets to the "setting point".  Remove the muslin bag of pips

Test for setting by putting some marmalade on a cold saucer, do this several times if the first drips of marmalade do not seem to have set (the marmalade makes a film and flows very very slowly when the saucer is tilted).

Allow the marmalade to stay in the pan about 20 minutes, then stir it carefully, to mix in the peel throughout, as you don't want all the sliced peel to stay at the top of the jars.

Then you know it is OK to put in the warmed jars, and cover.  

I find it helps to put labels on with the date you made it, then you can eat up last years marmalade before you start on this years!

RAY'S WINTER SQUASH SOUP - EASY

GOOD SOUP RECIPE FROM MY PAGES 

I put this easy soup recipe in the 'Pages' section of this blog, but in case you missed it, here it is again, and it is a good winter soup, devised by 'him indoors'

RAY'S SPECIAL SQUASH SOUP FOR WINTER 

HOW TO COOK THE SOUP - MAN TYPE RECIPE

SQUASH SOUP FOR WINTER

1  Put at least 2 pints of water into a large saucepan

2  Add 2 crumbled vegetable stock cubes (preferably low salt kind)

3  Put saucepan on hob to get very hot

4  Prepare the squash,  peeling off hard outer skin, removing seeds and cutting squash into small chunks

5  Put squash chunks into the pan to boil till soft, then

6  Prepare 3 medium onions plus 3 medium potatoes. Cut into very small pieces.

7  Fry onion and potato pieces in hot oil until soft, in a frying pan

8  Crush and chop 2 to 3 small red chillies, add to onion and potato in pan

9  When vegetables are soft, tip all of them into the saucepan of squash

10 Add some more boiling water if you think there is not enough liquid (or you want a lot of soup)

11 Add to the saucepan a dessert spoon of dried mixed herbs, plus a teaspoon of Tomato Paste

12 Add one tin of chopped tomatoes

13 After simmering for say 40 mins check to see that the ingredients are cooked and assimilated

14 Take out from saucepan 1 pint of the mix of veg and liquid, put on one side (use a jug)

15 Blend the remaining soup (you can use a hand-held blender stick thing)

16 Return the 1 pint of unblended veg to the saucepan (to give chunky bits)

17 Add pepper and salt to taste. 

18 To serve, you can add a bit of single cream, grated cheddar or parmesan cheese,  sausage.

19 Or add Worcester sauce or tomato ketchup. One could use a combination of all of these.

VEGETABLE GARDENING IN LONDON 2014

GOOD THINGS HAPPENED IN 2013 - AND THE SUN SHONE

One of my best experiences was the Wild Food Walk which I participated in, at Petersham Nurseries, near Ham Common.
It was in December (which is now so last year!).  Here is a link to my two blog posts about

PETERSHAM NURSERIES  and

THE FORAGING WALK WITH CLAUDIO BINCOLETTO

The Petersham Nurseries also produces a Blog and there is an interesting post on 1st November, which I think is written by Claudio, he is writing about truffles 'Truffles - Myths, Legend & Reality".  Here is a link November's Wild Food Walk

THE ALLOTMENT SITE IS MORE OR LESS COVERED IN FLOOD WATER!

The winter vegetables I have grown are  still standing. Some brassicas: sprouts, kale and winter sprouting broccoli, which is not yet sprouting, of course.

Today I went up there, wearing wellies, and had to splash my way along the path to cut some brussell sprouts.  I also dug up some more parsnips, it was a job to lever them out of the soggy mud, I can tell you!

To wash them I doused them in a puddle on my plot, not very hygienic I know!  But have you ever tried to wash sticky clay of parsnips, or other roots, with no running water?  The water supply on the allotment is turned off every winter, and is not back on again until April. 

About half the plots on our site now have areas which are under water. One or two are almost 80% flood, very disheartening for the plot owners, that is if they bother to come over a look.

This time of year it is not usual to see more than one or two other people there, and the main task is to lug bags or barrow loads of soggy manure - the kind that is mixed with wood shavings - we do not usually have the better horse manure mixed with straw.  Apparently stables now economise by bedding their horses on sawdust.