Horticultural

A load of balls

Ross Clark is raving in the Times about the relentless march of decking, patio heaters and multicoloured pebbles. I have a lot of sympathy with his argument that it's ridiculous to find garden centres selling all kinds of expensive gewgaws, such as chimeneas and pottery frogs, but lacking a decent range of lawnmowers. My dream garden would feature a small copse of silver birch trees, an expanse of raised veg beds, a chicken coop, an orchard, a sunny corner with a camomile seat ... the list goes on. But giant coloured balls on sticks? I think not.

I don't want to go to Chelsea ...

Elvis Costello was right. I don't want to go to Chelsea. Ok, I am not sure if he was talking about the flower show, but surely the idea of stumbling around some doubtless beautiful gardens hemmed in on all sides by desperately overexcited fellow gardening enthusiasts while realising just how rubbish all my attempts at horticulture have been just doesn't appeal.

And I don't have tickets.

Seed sources

I have just stumbled across another seed merchant: the delightfully antiquated sounding Thomas Etty Esq. This one's a heritage seed specialist. I am impressed by the range of seeds on offer - three types of cardoon? Impressive.

There's also a fantastic heritage seed timetable, listing plants by probably date of introduction, plus the first literary reference to each one. There are a few species or varieties I have never heard of - bald money and elecampane among them. I've been planning a list of seed suppliers for this blog, so now is a good time to start. My other favourites currently include Vida Verde, Halcyon Seeds and Chase Organics (the HDRA catalogue).

Quenching the thirst

As the hot weather here in London starts to dry out the soil, it has turned my mind to matters of H20. In an ideal world, I'd have a reed bed water treatment system in my garden, like Kim Wilde (I think). Seeing as I don't have the money or the space, I make do with pouring the contents of my washing up bowl (cooled down, of course) on my parched lawn. People worry that the washing up liquid will damage the plants, but unless you use a hell of a lot of detergent, it'll be fine.

Other top water saving tips include applying a mulch to borders and veg patches, collecting rainwater from your via a rain butt and growing stuff that is drought resistant: more of which, later.

Weed management the cloven-hoofed way

Talking of weed control: this article on the fabulous American You Grow Girl site suggests hiring a herd of goats to munch their way through your weed-infested garden - I love that idea! The goat herd hired by the author cost a dollar a day per goat - bargain! The outcome, once the goats have trotted off to weedy pastures new:

"Here in my yard, native grass, delicate and shimmering, has begun to peek through the many lumps of residual goat poop."

I wonder if you can hire goats in the UK?

Creme brulee a la weed wand

My weed wand is a serious piece of kit: lending me a certain air of authority when blasting weeds at several hundred degrees on my front driveway of a weekend. The idea is that you kill the weeds with heat rather than using weedkillers: all very sensible, particularly when dealing with paving areas, although I am not so sure how green the non-recyclable gas cylinders are. The weed wand can also double as a cook's blowtorch for getting the sugar on top of creme brulee, as pictured tonight while preparing dinner. Probably best done outside, though. (The creme brulee, by the way, was delicious).

Signs of life

This little seedling, literally busting out of the soil for the first time today, is the first of many (I hope) germinations in my HDRA kiwano or African horned cucumber trial. The compost you can see is peat-free, natch: bought, although in an ideal world I'd make my own.

Purple sprouting prose part two

Here is a pic of the PSB, just before steaming to serve for dinner, as promised...

Purple sprouting prose

I've got purple (and white) sprouting broccoli coming out of my ears. Well, not quite, but I have so much that I offering some of my prized stash to selected office colleagues (those who I believe will actually cook it rather than leaving it to rot in the fridge: one has to be ruthlessly selective with such prime goods). It's a wonderful vegetable that encourages a smugness in all true allotmenteers, as it just can't be grown out of season to supply the mass-retailing, cookie-cutter demands of the supermarkets. This New Statesman article, supplied via Findarticles.com, offers a paean of praise to the PSB (as all true aficionados refer to it). Here's a sample:

Another thing that worshippers at the temple of the sprouting broccoli love is its bitterness. It has a more "challenging" taste and is texturally more varied than calabrese, which has a baby-food mellowness.

On a horticultural note, for an inexplicable reason, my PSB has managed to remain aphid-free from the moment I planted them: they were given to me by fellow allotment enthusiast Dave. The WSB (white sprouting brocolli, natch) bought as cut-price seedlings from a local garden centre, are constantly beset by blackfly that make them virtually impossible to eat, despite a healthy army of ladybirds on hand to graze them. Answers on the comments box, as usual, please.

If you'd like to try something more adventurous than the undoubtledly delicious option of steamed PSB with a touch of butter, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a mouthwatering PSB recipe to try ... or just try this.

I haven't posted a pic of my PSB here yet because it's been pelting rain for the past two days. I'll add some images as and when I can get down to the patch ...

Raised bed renovation

Stage one of the raised bed renovation in my back garden got under way yesterday: Rick and I spent a good few hours ripping out the rotten wooden slats that formed the raised bed and clearing thickets of mint and lilac roots, then replanting with silvery/dark red grasses (I would provide the Latin names but, ahem, I managed to chuck away the labels while clearing the rubbish) and plants that have blue or white flowers (eryngium, allium, bluebells and hyancinths for the spring...) It looks a bit minimalist at the moment, but it'll soon be growing like crazy (please!).

The wood we replaced with moulded stone that looks as if we're spent hours positioning individual Victorian bricks at exactly 45 degrees. Clever eh?

Now we have to find time to do the same to the raised bed on the other wide of the garden ...

Oh, and I guess I should make a plug for my interview on Women's Hour this morning, where I had my work hat on - I was talking about hoax emails.