Sowing seeds

March 24, 2009

It’s been snowing blossom. Our suburban streets have been turned into bridal avenues of trees laden with white and pink scented petals. Even the faceless housing estates look more inviting with clumps of daffodils and flowering cherries planted in the communal spaces.

Yesterday I was up early and staggering outside with a weighty bag of seed compost to get on with sowing. I tend to pick up seed packets on a whim rather than on a preordained expedition. I know more or less what I want, but like to gather together elements of my summer garden bit by bit. It gives me breathing space to mull over ideas. It’s not that I’m a procrastinator, rather that I enjoy the adventure of coming across surprises, like the chilli seeds raised by Latin American chilli lovers at the local community allotments.

When I was visiting my father in Somerset a couple of weeks ago, I wandered into a typical country high street hardware shop brimming with tools, and, inspired by the equally well stocked racks of seeds ,bought packets of zinnias the colours were so irresistible. And summer visions of salads tumbled with leaves aromatic basil, meant that there was no alternative but to ditch smelly cheese, for two varieties of basil from the artfully packed range of Italian Franchi seeds at the local deli cum cafe cum veg shop.

So back to the garden, and a balmy Sunday morning filling plastic trays with handfuls of compost and various seeds from little black specks of nicotiana ( heavenly scent on a summer evening) to peppercorn sized sweet peas. I soaked the seven year old sunflower seeds in water, gathered from our garden in Andalucia , and prized open the tough striped casings to remove the seeds. They look healthy enough, but I’ll know in the next 10 days or so, whether there’s still potential in them.

The trays are lined up, like cots in a nursery, in my office by the window on layers of newspaper and an old door so when I water them it will not soak the floor. I sit writing, glancing maternally at the potential garden offspring beside me.

I like a bit of architecture in my garden. Not waterfalls, giant urns or grand gazebos, but wigwams. Wigams of willow sticks , that is, and I’m very excited to have discovered the English Hurdle company on the net, who swiftly dispatched two bundles of willow sticks which I have bashed into the earth with a mallet and tied together at the top with all purpose hairy garden string. These twiggy structures are placed at the four corners of the flower and vegetable patch (my informal version of a traditional potager) and will support the climbing beans and nasturtiums. Until this year I’ve used cane pea sticks for my wigwams, but the willow looks more earthy and organic, and although its more expensive, will last longer than the canes.

My son is back for Easter and wants to know where to take his girl friend for lunch. Somewhere suave, mum, he says. How did I raise a boy with such expensive taste? Maybe he’s winding me up but then, he is a child of the boom time when expectations were high. Without extending his student overdraft even further , I think there may be a solution more in keeping with these straitened times. Ok, Brixton market, might not be the capital’s most romantic spot, but at franca manca wedged between stalls selling yams and Rastafarian bonnets, there’s the romance of eating the most heavenly sourdough pizzas baked in a special Naplese wood fired oven. And it won’t cost them more than ¬¨¬£20.00 to eat sumptuously, in the word’s of one reviewer ‘the best place to eat pizza in the UK’

Spring has sprung with many of the season’s new frocks decorated with pretty florals. I have always fallen for buds and blooms and they needn’t look girly if you mix them with blocks of colour. And just as you don’t want to look like a flower border so you should also use florals in moderation around the home – as accents rather than all over floralness. Sprigged prints on lampshades are a good starting point if you want to introduce some simple country style in a plainly decorated room.

Rhubarb Rhubarb

March 3, 2009

Against the park’s winter wreckage, tiny citrus-scented white and pink flowers on the witchhazel are optimistic signs of spring where only four weeks ago children whooped and played in the extraordinary snow. I marvel at how the bulbs push up new centimetres of green. We have had a few good days feeling the sun’s weak rays. After months of nature’s inertia, suddenly everything seems possible and there’s a sense of urgency to get out and start planting. But late February and March can be a dangerous and deceiving time, taunting us with false starts.

Regardless, I have been wielding the fork and spade to prepare my vegetable patch. One irritating aspect is that the cat and dog think that it’s for their benefit, a new and soft litter tray. My deterrent against the pets, and the squirrels is some fine netting. I really felt like an old time gardener as I dug in bucketfuls of our home grown kitchen compost. It’s not all perfectly rotted, but eggshells help drainage and any alien bodies, like the knife I lost last summer, and mouldy oranges which shouldn’t have been put in the compost anyway, I put aside.
In a few weeks I’ll plant out my ‘chitted’ potatoes having left them in a cool light room. Warmth and dark will only encourage your seed potatoes to start towards the light, and you want the ‘eyes’ to be firm and holding the nutrients before they go into the ground. I’ve also got some garlic and shallots which are an experiment this year.

It’s gratifying to use last summer’s French bean seeds. I collected the dessicated pods dangling from the last trailings around the cane wigwams and stored them in plates on the old kitchen dresser. I plan to germinate them on the window sills in old eggshell trays filled with compost. I shall also see what comes of my own heirloom sunflower seeds which I collected five years ago from the farm where we lived in Andalucia. The important thing will be not let the seedlings get too leggy which is what they will do if exposed too long to the light and heat.

Do you know north Norfolk? If it’s not on your agenda, then add this eastern English rural backwater to experience space: wide open skies and flat fields spreading and fanning in the distance. As the light fades, the vast horizons here glow spectacularly in the last blasts of sunset and the huge sands by the sea at Holkham will revive most spirits.

North Norfolk remains a back of beyond place where old men in caps dig bean trenches in cottage gardens, and you can walk in solitude for ages with only blackbird song or the sudden flexing of a deer as it bounds through a hedge. I have often come back loaded up with herby lavenders, which do so well in this dryer part of the country or utilitarian country things like a traditional pestle and mortar or old folding card table from one of the unassuming secondhand shops in the small towns.

Last week I was there visiting friends, and on their advice, looking for a cheap bicycle. It is so much more scenic than looking for bikes, probably nicked, in a Brixton back alley. We drove past fields where white barn owls skimmed the hedge tops, and mounds of knobbly sugar beets were piled in thick sucking mud.

At Pode’s, a cluster of wooden sheds stuffed with old bikes and unrelated parts, a woman came out of a caravan on bricks and pointed us towards the possibilities. And there it was, a burgundy Raleigh Cameo (checking the online Raleigh Fans Forum I discover it is an eighties’ model) in good shape with two new wheels. After a quick wobble around I put my money on the counter including ¬¨¬£1.49 for a bell. Back home at the local accessories shop what savings I’d made on the bike were soon swallowed up in lights, lock, helmet and so on. But I’m happy enough with the deal.

WORTH A VIST

Out and about, in between meetings, and gasping for a caffeine hit, I came across Tea’s me around the corner from Ladbroke Grove tube. This teapot-sized boudoir-style cafe with big print wallpaper, tinkly chandelier and one informal table to sit around is a joy. There are elegant white cakes stands of gingerbread men, wobbly scones and flapjacks. The espresso here is exactly strong enough.

This is the season for rhubarb and so here’s my recipe for a crumble. I add orange and lemon for some interesting flavour.

Crumble:
300g plain flour,
175g unrefined brown sugar
200g unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
Filling:
500g rhubarb cut into small chunks
150g brown sugar
juice and rind of l small orange
juice and rind of 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Mix the flour and sugar in a large bowl then rub in the butter, a few cubes at a time, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
2. Place the rhubarb, sugar, orange and lemon juice and zest in a 24cm ovenproof dish
3. Spoon over the crumble mix
4. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the crumble is browned and the fruit mixture bubbling
5. Serve with cream, icecream, fromage frais and maybe, if its the weekend or you want to be more decadent a glass of sweet moscatel wine