GARDEN PHILOSOPHY: The Garden versus Nature (and phoney nature-lovers)
21 Dec 2011 4 Comments
in Garden work, Uncategorized Tags: garden mice, garden mouse, slugs
For those who might have been worrying about the mouse in the garden shed and my attempts to catch it, you can rest easy for now. So far, if anything, that mouse has been making a fool out of me. While there likely may be more than one mouse, I shall think of them as just the one, and call it Jerry, in honour of the fact it is making me look like a right Tom.
To catch Jerry I bought some mouse traps of the killing kind, from a reputable company who shall remain nameless as their product, it turns out, is rather mediocre. These mouse traps are supposedly ready-baited with pieces of yellow plastic that apparently look like cheese to the mice. I was suspicious of this wonder gimmick, as setting a piece of bread on a mouse trap is not exactly rocket science, but I couldn’t find more basic traps anywhere. If anything, I figured the pathetic cartoon-looking piece of cheese on the traps might make Jerry die of laughter.
Unsurprisingly, the plastic cheese attracted nothing. I then began setting food on top of the plastic cheese, such as pieces of flapjack or pork pie. I would return the following day to find the food gone, but the traps otherwise undisturbed. Clearly Jerry is one agile little mouse! This has failed several times, even after securing the food tightly on the trap. Hence so far, all I have succeeded in doing is to feed Jerry.
Some may wonder, why be so cruel? Why not use humane mouse traps and release it someplace else? At the risk of offending some readers, humane mouse traps only suit people who are either in denial, own a pet snake, or are willing to make the mouse someone else’s problem.
Leaving aside the snake owners, some seem to think that upon being released in a forest or park, a mouse will rejoice at being given the opportunity to live a long and contended life in the heart of nature with its animal friends, when in fact the mouse will probably get devoured by one of its bigger ‘friends’, unless it rapidly manages to find another house to move into, at which point it becomes someone else’s problem. Mice live in human habitats for the same reasons humans do, namely shelter, safety, warmth and relative comfort. Just like you won’t find many humans willing to move out of their house to go live in the forest, most mice would also be a little pissed off at having it forced upon them.
Many urban-based nature-lovers have a somewhat Disney-fied idea of what nature is. They imagine an enchanted forest with golden rays of sunlight shinning through the branches, birds singing in tune as they whirl in the air, squirrels play acting like happy children, funny little ants busily working away in rhythm, while the trees all sway in unison as they join in the magical dance of nature. This misconception can easily be remedied by spending two or three days camping out in a forest in the rainy season, but the above mentioned nature-lovers would probably never do such a thing, as forests lack certain basic essentials, such as a roof, four walls, fitted kitchen, power sockets, central heating, wifi…
Don’t get me wrong, I do love nature, and I have spent quite a few rainy nights sleeping out in a forest with nothing but a tarp for shelter (cold and miserable yet strangely contented), but I have to somewhat leave those thoughts aside when I’m in the garden. Organic gardening still requires turning over soil, ripping up weeds, chasing off pigeons and squirrels, disposing of slugs and greenflies and other pests. Those who disagree with me are usually the same who don’t do any gardening but are still willing to eat what gardeners produce. This year I have easily killed thousands of greenflies, squashing them with my thumb, and I won’t lose sleep over them. I kill slugs by stepping on them or feeding them to the birds; some people may find this cruel, but I find it preferable to blanket spraying the garden with pesticides to kill everything, pest or not. Gardening, even organic, is not an exercise in nature loving; it requires some degree of ruthlessness as the gardener firmly dictates what can and cannot grow in a particular patch, and punishes little trespassers of the rodent or bug kind. I’m trying to discuss this idea without going down the path of mentioning extreme (and anthropomorphistic) animal rights, but the ideas are relatively similar. I certainly won’t torture the slug to get information from it (“Who sent you? Who do you work for?! We have ways of making you talk!”), but neither will I ponder over its rights to live, start a family, have access to free education and a pension for when it retires. It’s a slug.
Similarly, while I have been growing fond of Jerry’s antics, I’m not going to let him poo in the shed, or dig holes into our pumpkins, and neither am I willing to do the cowardly thing by moving him to become someone else’s problem. I’ll be a big boy about it, get my hands dirty and deal with him myself. That’s the real way of nature, it’s not an overly-friendly place, feel free to disagree.
Then again, for the time being, Jerry is winning this particular battle. I expect him anytime soon to drop an anvil on my head and set my foot on fire, before setting Spike the bulldog after me to run me out of the garden.
CG GARDEN VIDEO TOUR
19 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
For those of you who have never seen the garden for real, we have uploaded a short video tour of the garden on youtube. It’s nothing amazing, but it gives a general idea of the garden and the work we’ve undertaken in recent months. You can see it here.
Perhaps a cold and bleak day in December does not show the garden at its best, but that in some ways is just part of year-round gardening, plus we’ll hopefully have a chance in the Spring to make another video showing the garden in full bloom.
Incidentally, the celeriac soup mentioned in the video was pretty good. I said celeriac soup, but by the time we had it going we also added in a potato, two parsnips and a leek, and Leo kindly brought in some bread and chicken that he fried at home, while I prepared a salad from the garden lettuce and nasturtiums, adding some pickled onions from last summer’s crop. We ended up with a feast, feeding a party of five, and it tasted all the better for preparing and eating it out in the cold, enjoying the coming winter for what it is.
On another note, people who litter seriously need to evolve and learn how to use a bin.
ON A FORAGING TRIP
17 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Event, Food, Uncategorized Tags: foraging, learning foraging
Having already discussed how to get started with foraging, taking advantage (once again) of the unusually warm weather we had, CG organized two foraging outings in North London at the end of November, as an introduction for beginners. We went foraging along a wild path that goes over a railway tunnel, still within London and easily accessible. I had initially expected that we might be able to identify four or five edible plants and actually be able to pick one or two of them. Turns out I had underestimated what nature can offer, as well as what the warm weather had kept going in season. Here is a list of what we found, although not all were in season. The items marked with a (P) require special preparation before consuming.
Out of season
Lime tree leaves
Beech nuts
Apple tree
Plum tree
Acorns (P)
Hawthorn leaves
Wild rose flower
Still in season
Clover flowers (P)
Blackberries
Raspberries
Hawthorn berries (P)
Rowan berries (P)
Rosehip (P)
Sloe berries (P)
Nettles
Dandelion
Goosegrass
This was all done leisurely in the space of a couple of hours, including taking the time to pick sloes and hawthorns. Given a little more time and searching we probably would have found some mallow, dock leaves, fat hen, sorrel and comfrey, as well as some jew’s ear (a type of mushroom). A little further afield we may have even found some sweet chestnuts, wild strawberries and hazelnuts (if all out of season). Those who came on the outing with me may notice I have omitted one plant from the list. There was indeed another plant we found that is extremely poisonous but has one edible part, but for safety I won’t mention it by name.
Just a year ago I would probably only been able to identify about eight of these plants and only known about the edible qualities of five of them (no prizes for guessing which ones). It goes to show that a little bit of knowledge and practice goes a very long way, all the better for getting to enjoy the outdoors in the process. Bushcraft skills are there for all to learn and enjoy, the key is realising just how easy it is to do so. It sounds corny, I know, but it’s true.
GARDEN NOTES: Confessions, onions and pumpkin soup
11 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Garden work, Uncategorized Tags: November planting, planting onions
Bloody hell, we got a lot done today!
First, however, I have a small confession to make. For about a month I really thought I had cocked-up the whole garden plan, having planted the winter veg without taking into account the need to rotate the crops. Yup, I was worried, as I realised that I had planted the broad beans in last summer’s bean bed, the chard was still
where it had been this summer, and the only available bed left to plant onions and garlic was . . . well, you get the idea.
Luckily, a bit of jigging around and all was well again. Last week, as we harvested the last leeks from the onion bed, it left it free for us to transplant the broad bean seedlings there, also planting a few more that we had growing in a tray in the shed. Then, this week, having harvested the turnips and the last of the radishes, it freed up that bed into which we could move the chard. The turnips, by the way, were a complete failure, barely growing to the size of a fingernail. Perhaps I just planted them a little too late in the year, although I would have thought that the unusually warm weather this autumn would have more than made up for that. I guess I was wrong!
With both beans and chard out of said bed, we finally had a new space to plant white onions, garlic and shallots. While all this was going on today, the stove was burning away as we prepared our first on-site pumpkin soup of the season. Roshan chopped up our
smallest pumpkin which we then boiled and mashed, adding in a chopped red onion and a yam that we happened to have handy. The soup was a little too salty to my taste, so I sweetened it with a little apple and cinnamon jam I made last summer. It turned out delicious and went down well with our work team. As for the seeds I put some aside to dry – ready to plant next spring – and the rest I pan fried with a little oil and am munching on right now as I write this post.
As a final bonus, the compost bins have now been repaired and are more solid than ever, set for at least another three years. With the end of term approaching and the cold weather (finally) coming in, it is good to know that all these jobs are now done and we are more or less on seasonal track. Just three months ago I remember wondering just how we were going to fill all that space in the beds over the winter, and now we’ve pretty much got most of the garden beds with something on the go, so we must be doing something right.
COMPOST: A fine line between talking waste and talking shit
08 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Garden work, Uncategorized Tags: compost, manure
At CG we naturally love compost, and most of our soil comes from our own three-section compost bin where we put both plants and kitchen waste. But one has to be sensible about what goes in, such as making sure that meat or cooked food doesn’t slip through, unless you want to attract every rodent in the neighbourhood. Rotting food and compost waste are not the same thing. Many a bag of kitchen waste donated to us has been spoilt by the the presence of meat, bread, pasta, etc. It is neither good for the compost, nor is it pleasant to pull out when we do find it in the compost.
When making compost, a good balance needs to be struck between soft and hard waste. If you only put in kitchen slop, you will end up with a big pile of yucky poo, to quote the technical term. If you just put in brown sticks, you will end up with a pile of wood, pure and simple. Neither is particularly useful or practical for the purposes of making compost. So balance is the key. Some smaller brown materials, such as dried plants, leaves and thin twigs can be added to thicken the mix, but what you don’t want is a whole load of brown sticks and branches being added, as these will simply sit there for months if not years and clog up the compost. You could always use them as firewood and then add the ashes to the compost, but just make sure that you only add in wood ash, and not coal ash which is not good for compost. Green wood from tree branches can be added to the compost, but you need to chop and snap it into smaller pieces first and bury it in the compost where the constant moisture and warmth will help break it down. If you just leave whole green branches on top of the compost, the green wood will simply dry out and then you’re stuck with the wood problem again.
On one occasion, while turning over the compost, I noticed that it stank to high heaven. This apparently is one such indicator that the compost waste is unbalanced – too much kitchen waste and not enough green and brown materials. I hence collected a load of weeds, grass and leaves, adding them into the mix. Also, having just pruned one of the trees in the garden, I added in the green branches, chopped up into tiny pieces. These materials helped absorb the excess moisture, and within 24 hours the smell was gone, even after turning the compost over again.
In the absence of urinals in the garden, we do on occasion have a little wee-wee on the compost heap, to use another technical term, as the nitrogen content of urine is beneficial to the compost (in moderation). But that’s where we stop. Someone did ask me once about the self-sufficiency benefits of using excrement for agriculture, citing that in feudal Japan, human waste was considered a highly prized form of fertilizer (due to them not having much livestock on their land, hence not much manure). The trouble with that theory is that while the inhabitants of ancient Japan ate a very healthy diet of vegetables and some fish, what we eat these days creates a form of waste that is not comparable. In any case, leaving feudal Japan aside, one generally ought to make a clear difference between manure and poo. Think of manure as a form of fertilizer that partly comes from the carefully selected or treated waste produced by certain animals, usually herbivores, such as cows. On the other hand, think of poo as a bacteria-ridden health hazard that comes out of most humans and household pets. You can use the former to grow vegetables; you can use the latter to inadvertently create a typhoid epidemic that could wipe out half of Northern Europe. It’s a subtle distinction, I know, but an important one.
The use of kitchen waste, believe it or not, was a recent source of debate at Common Ground, as one of our members raised the issue that non-organic kitchen waste should not go into the compost bin. Their argument had some basis to it, saying that we should maintain the organic rule in every aspect of the garden, but I had my reservations. So we had a discussion about it in one of our recent committee meetings. My arguments against only having organic waste were as follows:
1) The rule had never been properly adhered to in the past, so much so that I wasn’t even aware of it until that other member mentioned it.
2) The rule is difficult to enforce, short of creating a squad of compost cops.
3) The presence of residual pesticide and fertilizer in non-organic kitchen waste is marginal, probably no greater than similar contamination through the air and tap water.
4) The earnest intentions of the rule have little to do with the reality of gardening in Central London. The production of good compost, essential to the garden, is slow enough without starting to restrict what kind of vegetables and fruits can go in.
5) The rule goes against the community spirit of the garden, I for one felt that turning people away for bringing the wrong kind of compost sent out the wrong message. (Honestly, how shitty would that be?).
I’m glad to say that other members present at the meeting agreed with me and we voted against making the compost heap organic-only. Democracy in action, ladies and gentlemen! This small incident does however raise a more serious issue about the difference between the garden’s vocal idealists and the doers. Without wanting to sound too harsh, in my time tending to the CG garden I have often had to listen to the opinions of people who tell me what I should be doing but who are not willing to come and do it themselves. This doesn’t just concern the garden, but all aspect of life; as an old colleague of mine used to say: it may sound good but it looks better. In this media and internet fuelled world, it seems that everyone has an opinion about everything and feels the need to share it with everyone else. Some refer to it as the democratization of society. I think of it more as the proliferation of hot air – everybody talking and nobody listening. While I can’t do much about the way the world is going, I can at least instill a simple rule in the garden: first show that you are willing to do, and then we can start discussing ideas.
If ideas, hollow talk and empty words were fertile, we would no longer need a compost heap.
BUSHCRAFT FOOD: ACORN OR DANDELION COFFEE?
03 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Food, Uncategorized Tags: acorn coffee, bushcraft food, dandelion coffee, wild coffee
It’s not a tough call, to be honest, but I may as well hold out the suspense for what it’s worth and mention making both, as I tried to recently.
Making acorn coffee is fairly simple if a little labour intensive. You need to pick the acorns while they are still green, but only picking the larger ones that come easily from off the tree. After the boring task of de-shelling the acorns, you have to boil them to remove the excess tannins, chop them up and then roast them until they are crumbly and brittle, ready to crush into a rough powder. You would then prepare it like you would fresh coffee.
The only trouble is that acorn coffee generally tastes horrible. It is basically just bitter brown water. And if you boil the acorns several times you end up with slightly less bitter brown water, still a million miles away from a good cup of joe. I know you can’t be too choosy when it comes to bushcraft food, but as coffee is not particularly nutritious there is no point making it unless you are going to enjoy it.
Now dandelion coffee is something else entirely. The coffee is made from the roots of the plant, which is a little more difficult to get than one might think. For one thing, make sure you find a plant that is not located anywhere likely to be directly exposed to weed killer, pesticides or excessive car fumes. Then you might notice that unless the surrounding soil is soft, dandelions roots have a pretty firm grip, and are likely to break when pulled out, so digging around the plant to extract it whole might be necessary. You are after the main thick central root. This will need a good clean after which the white root pulp needs to be hung to dry in the sun or over a heater. 
I chopped the roots up and hung them of a single piece of string to keep them together. Once dry I then roasted the roots in an oven until they were golden brown and brittle. I say, brittle, they were still tough as hell. I had hoped at that point to crush them into a powder, but they weren’t having any of it, so I had to resort to slicing them into smaller pieces using a very sharp knife. This tempts me to think that I probably should have cut them into tiny pieces before roasting them, but I’m not sure if they would have then been prone to just burning off in the oven. Anyway, I eventually had my pieces of dandelion roots. Just like for the acorn coffee, I placed the chopped dandelion roots in a percolator and prepared it like fresh coffee through the power of steam, though I’m sure boiling it in a pan would have worked too.
I was hoping it would taste better than acorn coffee, but I wasn’t prepared for something that tasted so much like coffee – instant coffee, oddly enough – that halfway through my cup I had already forgotten this was made from dandelion roots. I was even able to recycle the used roots to make another cup.
So there you have it. Dandelion coffee is the way forward, just save the acorn coffee for people you don’t like.
GARDEN NOTES: Radishes and Finding Peace in a Tidy Shed
26 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Garden work, Uncategorized Tags: garden shed, man shed, shed
It has finally started getting cold recently, though still mild for late November. The meadow near where I live still gives a few blackberries, and the absence of frost has meant that sloes are still thriving in places (all the more for me!).
We recently harvested most of our radishes and leeks, all very delicious. It is only later, as I was chomping on a radish that I realised that they were the first thing harvested from the garden that I had grown entirely myself from decision to harvest. So there’s hope for me yet! Work has started on repairing the fencing for the compost area, but that might take a while to do it properly and in sections, as I would preferably avoid having to move that muck more than once. Franco came by with a tray of planted broad beans to keep in the shed until they sprout, to add to those we planted a couple of weeks ago.
Speaking of the shed, on another triumphant note, it is now tidy(ish). The garden tools are hanging on the wall so they don’t get tangled with other items on the floor, all the wood and stove materials are tidied together in one box and the hay sack has been tied up tightly so it takes up less room. We’ve even gone to the extreme and arranged our books onto a bookshelf. I moved one of the garden benches into the shed for seating, and the table is relatively clear of crap (just needs a wipe), ready to prepare food on it. With that done, the shed has never quite looked so inviting and homely before. They say that English men become increasingly attached to their garden sheds as they get older, and I can now somewhat understand why. That little structure is more than a tool cupboard, it is a refuge from the outside world.
Last Monday after a long morning of lectures, feeling tired and weary, I went into the now tidy shed and ate some lunch, consisting of a pork pie from a shop, but accompanied by pickled onions, pickled cucumbers and pickled eggs that I made myself. It was my first time trying them; the cucumber and onions were nice but a bit strong, my fault for not sweetening the vinegar, but the egg was perfect (if I do say so myself), tasting just like the kind you would find in a traditional English pub (if such a thing still exists). Altogether, this was one of the most satisfying meals I have ever had, a hearty English lunch in a cold but well lit shed, all the better for most of it having been homemade. I then unrolled a mat on the shed floor and lay down for a nap. Although it was cold outside, I slept very comfortably for a good hour, and was woken up by the rustling of a mouse (something else I need to deal with). All that was missing – at the risk of being picky-picky – was a hot cup of tea for when I woke up.
Perhaps it is not so much a sense of refuge that I get in the shed, but more one of peaceful simplicity. With all the bells and whistles that surround us daily, there’s not many places left in Central London where you can find a little peace.
Now to deal with that mouse…
BUSHCRAFT FOOD: ROASTED BEECHNUTS
17 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Food, Uncategorized Tags: beechnuts, bushcraft food, roasted beechnuts
While I don’t want to go into every individual bit of foraging one can do in the UK, I did have a go at making roasted beechnuts over the summer, and thought I would share with you that particular experience. Beechnuts, of course, can be eaten raw, though they can taste rather sour if not fully ripe. Roasting them can overcome this little flaw, although some slight bitterness might remain.
When I picked my first batch of beechnuts, full of novice enthusiasm, I laboriously set about breaking each of them open to get at the nut part, using a brick and a hard surface, not completely crushing them, but just adding enough pressure to crack the shells, then destroying my fingertips as I forced them open. It is only through subsequent experience that I have discovered that once picked, beechnut shells tend to open up all by themselves within 12 to 24 hours, saving you a lot of effort and a few fingernails, provided you plan ahead.
I didn’t have any recipe to follow, but just fancied having a go at roasting them the same way one would roast pumpkin seeds, mixing the beechnuts in a little oil and salt and spreading them out on a tray for the oven. You have to keep a close eye on them as although it takes a little time for them to roast into a nice golden brown colour, it is then a very short step away from them turning black and charred.
Roasted beechnuts are satisfyingly crunchy, but with that in mind it is important to chew them gently and slowly, otherwise you will be flossing out bits of beechnuts from between your teeth for the rest of the day. If anything, it is nature’s way of reminding you not to eat too fast.
FORAGING: GETTING STARTED
13 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: foraging, how to forage, learning foraging, wild food
There is something very satisfying about being able to identify a plant or berry in the wild and knowing if it is edible or not. Even just the tiniest amount of foraging knowledge can make you look like Ray Mears in the eyes of others. But like any skill that is worth learning (and a few that aren’t) foraging can seem a little daunting at first, especially as it ultimately involves putting things in your mouth that didn’t come off a supermarket shelf. So here are a few tips on how to get started with foraging.
While there are foraging courses available around the country, these might not suit the keen beginner. Not only can they be expensive, the overload of new information and plant names can also leave one forgetting a lot more than they remember, ultimately not learning much from it. To learn the basics it can be much more effective and enjoyable to just do it yourself, taking your time . . . oh yes, and keeping it safe. So keeping on the earlier theme of self-sufficiency (rather than hard core survivalism, which is too exhausting to my taste), the best way to explore and develop foraging skills is by enjoying it as a leisurely hobby, you’ll end up learning much more that way.
As with starting any new hobby, the key is to keep it cheap until you can decide that this is the thing for you. So never mind the courses at this stage, just buy a book on foraging, making sure it is clear, concise, well illustrated and not overpriced. Richard Mabey’s Food for Free is something of a classic and an excellent one to start with; it usually comes in a handy pocket edition and can often be found on the internet on in second-hand bookshops for under a fiver. Whichever book you do get, look through it, you may be surprised at how many edible wild plants you already know about but either never thought of or never realized these can be found in your area. Then you just need to go for a walk in a nearby meadow, forest or wild park and just look around. Actively searching for a particular plant is often counter-productive, unless you already know where to find it – if you go to a forest randomly looking for blackberries, not only are you probably not going to find them, you will also miss a dozen other edible plants in the process. Rather, just take your time and keep your eyes peeled, looking around, appreciating the scenery until you spot something that looks familiar or interesting, and then try to identify it in the book. Don’t just identify one thing off the plant. If you find a familiar berry for example the next step is to confirm it by positively identifying the leaves and other features on the plant (like thorns, flowers, bark, etc.). Be precise! Tiny details such as whether the plant has or hasn’t dented leaves can make all the difference between two similar looking yet different plants. Whilst the foraging beginner should focus on only identifying edible plants, it is also important to know about the ‘false friends’ or ‘toxic lookie-likies’. So, if in doubt, don’t touch it. And remember that even once positively identified, make sure that the plant isn’t intermingled with any other non-edible plants.
Note that the above tips only apply to plants and berries . . . mushrooms are a different story altogether.
Foraging for mushrooms is a skill that requires proper training and very careful observation. In this case, just using a book is not good enough – chances are that in trying to identify a particular mushroom there will huge discrepancies in what you can reliably recognize. I don’t know about other people, but I have yet to find a mushroom in a book that I could positively identify growing on the ground, and vice-versa. Even when a book contains very clear pictures, they are usually difficult to compare with the genuine article. Even the rule-of-thumbs for identifying poisonous mushrooms (bright colours, spots, etc.) still leave out many dangerous varieties that can look just like edible ones. Furthermore, while edible mushrooms are delicious, they are not particularly nutritious, so even on a practical level it is not worth taking the risk, unless you absolutely know what you are doing.
As for finding a places where to forage one doesn’t have to go too far to begin with. Foraging is partly about being familiar with the terrain, so it is worth looking around one’s local park or even in wild patches along a road just to get used to spotting and identifying plants. Word of warning though: roadside plants will have been exposed to a fair bit of pollution and are best avoided. Plants found along pathways and at the foot of trees and posts might also have been urinated on by dogs, foxes and desperate humans. For similar reasons, when picking berries off a bush it is best to only pick those that are above knee height. We have to accept that nature is not a sterile environment, but it is still best to avoid some of the things it throws at us. The key is to be adventurous in where we search but cautious in what we eat.
If anyone thinks that London is no great place to learn foraging then think again. There are plenty of wild patches here and there worth looking through (even if to just find a bit of fat-hen and dandelion), lots of parks with chestnuts and lime trees, among others. As for finding fruits, just check out this amazing website: http://fruitcity.co.uk/the-fruit-map/
Happy hunting!
GARDEN NOTES: Turnips, Nasturtiums, Beans and . . . Franco
10 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Garden work, Uncategorized Tags: broad beans, nasturtium, November planting
What with it being the mid-term break (laughingly referred to as reading week) most of the students have gone home, so it was just me in the garden last Wednesday. I mainly pottered about, doing a bit of weeding and tidying the shed. The radishes, parsnips and celeriac are good to pick, though I will wait until other people turn up to share them out, or cook them in the garden. When I sowed turnip seeds a couple of months ago I didn’t actually know what young turnip plants looked like, and so when the bed grew out a whole raft of weeds I was reluctant to take them out for fear of also uprooting the young turnip plants. But the turnip plants have finally grown to a size where I can (hopefully) recognize them out of the riff-raff of weeds and sort that patch out. The lettuces are looking good, and although their bed is relatively free of weeds one end of it is full of nasturtium seeds which I am having to pull out as they grow out of the soil. This is my fault for not having properly managed the nasturtiums over the summer. Although a delicious and hardy plant, it can be quite invasive if not kept in check.
The broad beans we had planted with the winter vegetables are holding out well, but that is probably only due to the mild weather. It might be a little wetter than it was last week, but I’m still in T-shirt mode, so there is a way to go. Three weeks ago we decided to re-pot five of the bean plants to store them in the shed over the winter, and ironically two of those have died, while the other three are not looking too good either. But like I said, I am just treating these bean plants as an experiment, seen as they turned up so unexpectedly in the winter parcel; heartless as it sounds, they are expendable.
Our neighbouring gardener Franco, who grows vegetables on the balconies overlooking the garden, popped in as he regularly does to check out my handy-work. Franco is an elderly Italian who originally befriended the Common Ground founders as he saw them creating the garden. I think he respected them for their enthusiasm, ambition and skill. And by contrast, I think I amuse him with my bumbling gardening antics. I appreciate his visits, as his advice is always useful, if occasionally a little harsh.
Ever since I planted the broad beans Franco has told me to get rid of them, telling me they are useless. But although I know he is probably right, I still want to carry on with this experiment and give them a chance. Today, however, after once again telling me I should get rid of them, Franco told me that now was the time to sow broad beans in the ground, and so with his help I did so, sowing beans in the same bed as the existing bean plants. Who knows? Maybe the bigger plants can serve as big brothers for the little ones.
November is a time to plant things, such as beans, garlic and onions, that will settle nicely in the ground until the New Year when they then start pushing upwards. The mild November made me forget that now is the time to plant them, so I need to plan for that. It goes to show that proper gardening is a year-round job, and not just something for the Spring and Summer.
It also goes to show that everyone should have a Franco.
