The season of unexpected warmth
Monday 30 August
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I can't remember the last time I went shopping for anything other than milk and meat. There have been marrows and the beans are now decidedly stringy, but we are eating many meals from the kitchen garden. Today was the turn of the tomatoes. Almost everyone I know has been touched by blight and I had a bit of it although it, rather strangely, did not spread. I credit the variety for this, not my husbandry. If you have had your heart broken by blight this year, I cannot recommend Crimson Crush tomatoes more. They were listed in Great Dixter’s Aaron Bertelsen's book as a good outdoor variety and I can tell you, he's not wrong. I roast them halved with thyme and elephant garlic and stir them through spell pasta with a little feta.
If you have grown cherry tomatoes, Nigel Slater's recipe for beans, burrata and tomatoes is a cracker.
Tuesday 32 August
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Roses. Just when you think they are done for the year, they just have one last hurrah. When I first started with roses, I bought one of every single one I liked. This makes for a slightly odd visual effect but the benefit is that there is almost always at least one flowering, and I pretty much have roses in every month apart from February. Today, Fighting Temeraire. Doesn't cut, but I adore it and I planted it by the path to the back door, so I get to enjoy it anyway.
Wednesday 1 September
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Another Wednesday of help in the field. Still clearing and cutting back but now also trimming the beech hedge along the edges of the kitchen garden and the box hedge in the field. If ever you needed any persuading the no-dig is the only way forward, you only have to compare the growth in the kitchen garden (was previously lawn, top dressed but not deeply) and the beds in the field. Both were moved as thinnings about two months ago, watering in once, and left to their own devices.
Thursday 2 September
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The hardest, the absolute hardest, thing about growing big-dream flowers in a small-scale space is the planning. It has taken me months to finalise the new structure (now all laid out, thanks to Naomi) and I have gone through lists, Pinterest boards, spreadsheets, seed and plant orders, maps, plans, sketches and back to lists. I think I am now completely sorted with it, although one look at a Saipua video of a pale green and sharp yellow colour scheme nearly had me ripping it all up and starting again.
Friday 3 September
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A soft pink morning and mist across the hill. Not quite a cloud inversion, just a softening of the edges and a muting of the colour of the dahlias. The dinnerplate Spartacus are fully out and they are really quite something. They are a devil to photograph though.
Saturday 4 September
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And then the sun shines and the air is thick and warm. I wasn't expecting it and I feel cheated. I'd fully committed to boots and knits. I hide inside, writing the nest seasonal ebook for Gather. I have called it Harvest; having declared there to be six seasons in a gardening year, it means I am now writing six seasonal ebooks. Hugo and I spend the lunch hour in the hammock in the orchard though. We know this is a fleeting resurgence of summer and even I am not churlish enough to not bask for a moment.
Sunday 5 September
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Every single year I swear that I will not be caught out by my slot on the church flowers rota. It is likely to come as no surprise to you that I do, and this morning is a last minute panicked race against the clock to ensure that there is a bunch of flowers next to the altar by the time the bells start to ring. I manage it, but only just. I am not helped by the fact that every single one of my pots and urns that would be suitable leaks. (And no, I was not going to use the oasis foam that had kindly been left out for me.)
Recommendations for places to get nice ones? I used to get the big resin ones from India Jane in Bath but they don't seem to do them anymore.
