Gardening 2017

One of the things I promised myself this year was to expand my garden by getting another raised bed. We have really heavy clay on our property so, short of the huge effort of digging organic material into the soil, the easiest way to grow anything is raised beds. For the last couple of years I've grown various things, particularly tomatoes and peppers, in a single 8x4 cedar plank box full of municipal compost.

This year I ordered another box, put it together (inhaling the beautiful scent of cedar as I did) and set it out perpendicular to the first box. My gardening guru, Master Gardener Bob, brought me a pickup load of the most beautiful compost I have ever seen from the Howard County (where he lives) landfill, and twenty trips from the driveway to the back yard with a wheelbarrow later, I had filled the new box, topped up the old box, and filled three new patio planters. I also filled three of the four tires I've had hanging around since the last time we got the tires changed on our car. I've been meaning to plant potatoes in them.

Since we've been travelling so much this year I didn't have the chance to plant seeds indoors this year, so I went to a local garden center and bought most of what I wanted as seedlings.

In the new box, at the front, I have eight tomatoes (four cooking and four eating), four peppers (three bell and one hot), two cucumbers (for eating and pickles), a yellow squash, a basil, and two marigolds.

In the old box, at the back, I have planted four marigolds, a line of sunflowers along the back of the box, and a patch of beets (from seed) in the left half. It was a little late for cabbage so I'll plant those in July for a fall harvest.

I've also branched out in the herb department.

 In addition to my rosemary, thyme, sage, mint and oregano...

I've added lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon basil, amethyst basil, dill, cilantro (coriander) and chives.

 I've also finally added parsley (in the middle) to my box of sage, rosemary, and thyme.

I felt a little adventurous and bought something entirely new to me - Sweet Woodruff/Sweetscented Bedstraw - just because I liked the smell of it, and because it's supposed to grow well in shade - of which I have a lot. It's supposed to make a nice sweet tea, too.

My favourite new acquisition is this:

The smallest bay tree in the world.

(I may be able to sneak a couple of leaves off this year, but I'm really going to have to wait till next year to start harvesting.)

I love cooking with bay leaves but the dry ones you buy in the grocery store really don't have much flavour, so I've wished I could have my own tree. Voila! Unfortunately they aren't hardy to Zone 7, but, fortunately, they do really well in pots, so when it freezes I'll bring it in and set it by the back door for the winter. It will be a bonsai bay.

Due to unforeseen circumstances I had to fly to California yesterday, the day after I planted everything out, and the weather forecast is for record-breaking heat. Thankfully, my dear friend Reiko has promised to keep an eye on them when she comes to feed the cats while I'm away, so hopefully they'll all be thriving when I get back.

I am so looking forward to having a few months of just being at home!

Wendy

What do you mean it's the middle of October?!

It was a weird summer.  Basically I worked, I came home, I occasionally forayed into the town centre to do some shopping, I got out of Reading exactly once per month (and actually I'm not sure about September, it's a blur), I neglected my garden, I really neglected my housekeeping, and I did some knitting.  That was my summer.  It was hot, and then it was wet, it was mostly boring, it was lonely (my other half being in the States for three months) and I felt sorry for myself a lot.  Hence the lack of views from the manor.

However, since 1 October, when the husband returned, it's been all go.  I got aforementioned husband back, lost my job and packed my daughter off to college, all within three days.  I then came down with a vicious cold that laid me out for the whole of my first week off work in eight months.  I'm now working part time in the orthopaedic department at the hospital, aforementioned daughter comes over every few days for food and laundry and husband is off to Geneva for a few days.

So, that's me caught up!

Oh, and we're moving back to the States next year.  But that's a whole separate issue.

Actually it hasn't been all bad.  At the end of July I had a wonderful day out with my knit night friends at Knit Nation in London.  I'd just got a £100 bonus from my doctor in the Renal Department so I blew it all on my day out - yarn, lovely, lovely yarn.  My Wednesday nights at Outcasts in Reading have been my salvation - the nicest bunch of people on the planet, I tell you.

Here are a few pics of Knit Nation, and some of my knitting from the last few months.

The totally awesome Wollmeise stand.

The smaller but equally awesome Renaissance Dyeing who use only natural dyes, including their speciality, woad.  How cool is that?

This was our combined haul from the day.

This was my personal haul from the day.

I was especially chuffed about the green and purple skeins in the middle from Old Maiden Aunt.  The green is called "bitter bug" and the purple is "derelict daughter".  I've wanted that one since I first heard of the name of it!  I'm going to make this shawl with them.


The yarn on the far left is from Wollmeise and I made these socks for David out of it.

He has worn them but I have yet to get a picture of them on his feet.

Here are a few more of my projects from over the summer.

 Tabi socks for the girl child.

A cardigan I did for a finishing class at knit night, which just happens to fit Bear perfectly.

 A scarf for me (modeled by the ever obliging child) made of bamboo.  It's been a steep learning curve this knitting thing.  A few months ago I didn't know you could buy yarn made from bamboo, soy, corn, milk or seaweed - and now I do!

And finally, a hat for the Child (it needs a little stretching out, yes) - my first lace project.

I've also finished the back of my birthday cardigan but I won't post pictures till it's done.

And for those few of you interested in my foray into vegetable gardening, I don't have any pictures but at the end of September I harvested a big bowl full of little potatoes, five fairly motheaten red cabbages, and two enormous courgettes that had hidden away under the leaves and which I could hollow out and use as canoes.  All in all, considering how much I had neglected it in its later stages, my garden did pretty well for me.

What to do with all that zucchini

I have six zucchini/courgette plants and two of them are presenting me with the cutest, tenderest squashes I've ever eaten.  Based on the number of blossoms on the other four, I'm going to be more than replete with squash this summer.  I'm trying to catch them when they are little but one sucker hid under the leaves and when I found it this morning it was rehearsing for a policeman's truncheon.  There was only one thing to do...make chocolate cake.

I've always been a little skeptical about cooking vegetables in desserts - even carrot cake is a little dodgy in my view, but I've been assured that you can't taste the zucchini in cake.  So I did a search and came up with this rather luscious sounding recipe on the aptly named Zucchini & Chocolate website.  Since allergy boy and vegan girl are away from home I thought I'd whip up a chocolate cake using real butter, eggs, cocoa and dark chocolate and see if it's enough to hide the squash.

The result - absolutely frickin' gorgeous.  Rich, moist, chocolaty and not a trace of zucchini to be found - it's just melted into the cake.  I made a powdered sugar glaze to top it with but it's kind of gilding the lily.  It doesn't need anything else.

[Sorry no pictures but Evie has my camera in DC - maybe next time]

...and pretty maids all in a row

I have a garden.

Everyone "ooh" and "ahh" now (and if you knew me growing up on the farm, laugh).

Seriously, I have a garden.  I admit, I'd made grandiose plans.   I had a great time poring over seed catalogues and making up longer and longer lists of veggies I wanted to grow.  In the end however, money, time and energy dictated a somewhat more modest endeavour.

The monsters at the back are my potatoes.  I'd like to say I'm proud but to be honest all I did was put them in the ground.  The two largish courgettes on the left are what's left of the six I planted and the ones in the middle were a gift today from the lovely Ralph.  I've given them a good soaking and hopefully a couple of them will make it.  The little green dots on the right are my pepper seedlings.

The big white thing in the back is a carpet I've put down to kill the lawn so I can expand the garden later in the summer.  I'd really like to put some beets, leeks and red cabbage in.  I love pickled cabbage and beets, well pickled anything really, and I'm looking forward to making my own.

Do I seem overexcited about a small patch of mostly bare ground in my lawn?  Perhaps.  But it's a first step towards my dreams...tread softly.

Update

Ok, quick recap of the last six months.  We left Angwin just before Christmas, spent Christmas in Australia, moved back to England in January and have spent the last few months looking for work.  It's been stressful and I haven't been posting because stress tends to kill off any creative impulses that might be lurking.  In fact I haven't really been in touch with anyone lately because I'm afraid all I'll do is moan.

However...despite the fact that we still don't have permanent jobs, it's spring in England, my itty bitty garden is looking good and I've discovered knitting, so blogging is on the to do list.

More when I've uploaded some photos of the aforementioned garden and knitting.