mrsgarnettsgardendotcom

Maundy Thursday I was in York at a meeting learning all about gold mining in Burkina Faso. The weather in the city was scorching hot, 27C on the surface of my car, but as I drove away and drew nearer to the coast the temperature plummeted to 20 then 15 and finally at Filey to 11C, where the little town was enveloped in a deep sea fret, to the intense disappointment of little children and their parents who wanted to play on the beach. From the Crescent one could not even see the sea!

As a result, on Good Friday I abandoned it and drove up above the mist into sunshine once more,  to Glaisdale to visit my friends Neil and Denise, just back from St Helena,where Neil has been a quaint thing called “the People’s solicitor” for the last two years or so.  They are renovating an old stone house which other friends, Giles and Mary Heron, used to have, and have installed an ambitious but very interesting form of heating which invoilves sinking pipework four feet down across their little field next to the garden, and then using the natural elevation in temperature from below ground to heat an underfloor system in the house. The also have solar  electrical panels across the garage roof, which they tell me will bring them in £9000 a year in income from the electricity they will sell to the National Grid.  The only problem is that the system is terribly costly to install. apparently the “natural source “heating is guaranteed for thirty years, but solar panels need replacing after about ten.  But as we are all supposed to be living to 100 soon, I expect they will get their money back. Maybe oil based fuels will disappear completely.

The poor young gold miners of Africa have different problems. On a beautiful Spring day in one of the most lovely North Yorkshire dales, one has to think of them with a conscious conscience, to keep the world with one. Otherwise it could seem like someone else’s planet.

David and I and the two dogs enjoyed a lovely walk yesterday on Easter Monday from Baslow up through Crocodile wood and back down again. Here’s a short list of the flowers I saw in bloom, – all very common but the total effect was reminiscent of the best of Shakespearian English countryside.  wonderful names.

Herb Robert, Lesser Celandine, Dandelions, Pink Campions, White Campions, Primroses, Purple Violets, Stitchwort, Bird’s Eye Speedwell, Vetch, Gorse Blossom, Bluebells, Cuckoo Flowers, Jack-by-the-Hedge, Cow Parsley,White DeadNettle, Red Dead Nettles, Yellow DeadNettles (maybe called something else!), crab apple blossoms, remains of the blackthorn and hawthorn blossom, -lots more I probably missed. A large peacock butterfly was sunning itself on a wall. The woods were full of misty bluebells.  The sky was a deep blue with wispy clouds, and three buzzards were circling. Chiffchaffs were calling in the woods, along with a black cap and chaffinches.  I felt completely happy, which is quite rare these days of struggle and care!

Heatwave again all this week with shimmering temperatures at 20C and up. Watering the seedlings has become a daily necessity. The Park and the beach at Filey, according to David,  are both full of Easter holiday people sunbathing and paddling. I am assembling my forces to do some cream teas if the weather holds through into May. I want to raise money to help Annmarie in Sierra Leone start up her women’s bakery- and for the church lighting fund.

The need for light was obvious this morning when two men from the Forestry team turned up at Church with a display cabinet and a book of names of people who had donated trees in the park in memory of loved ones etc.   I went over with them to site the cabinet and turn on what miserable lighting I could find. They told me about the new wood they are planting up on the Warren above Beeley.  In future people will be asked to donate towards planting trees there, much more eco- diverse and sensible than individual sad trees behind fenced circles in the middle of the deer park.  During the bitter winter weather this last year many have had their bark ripped off by hungry deer.

“Would you like some little oak trees?” I asked, as I remembered the six I had grown from acorns taken from under the Major Oak in the centre of Sherwood Forest eighteen months ago. When the foresters heard where I’d picked up the acorns they became quite excited.  Genetically those trees it seems will be more than  1000 years old, or at least 700 years, as the Major Oak is one of the oldest trees in England. So I fetched the little collection from behind the greenhouse, along with a mountain ash tree seedling which has sprung into leaf, and they went off with them.

In a tiny way I felt I was part of making arborial history, as Chatsworth forestry will last a lot longer than I will, and maybe one or two of those little oaks will live for another seven hundred years.  David, when he came home later, was slightly dischuffed I’d been so generous, as he said he’d liked to have planted at least one in our little strip of woodland in Lastingham.  Nothing for it now- I’ll have to go back into Sherwood forest and collect some more acorns next autumn, before the major oak finally dies of old age.

On the domestic front, we are collecting nine or ten eggs most days. The silkie hen has hatched four welsummer chicks out of five eggs, and they all look vigorous.  I made eight jars of rhubarb and raspberry jam , – well rhubarb mainly, with just a few frozen raspberries thrown in to improve the colour, a batch of Easter biscuits, and two dozen scones, which I had promised for the Rotary croquet event on May 20th. A bit of dolly domestic which I always enjoy when David is absent, and as I’ll be away so much in the coming weeks I may not get another chance to do the scones which will go into the pantry freezer.

I spent yesterday in Leicester meeting Somalians, and am now fascinated by Somalian politics, –  the collapse of the central government, the vigour of the diaspora colonies in Europe and North America, the influences on the inter-tribal militias.  We were thinking of how to improve the educational chances of secondary school pupils, but when I emerged back into the Leicester sunshine I felt a huge sense of privilege to have been able to look into their experiences and struggles. Another country, like Southern Sudan I am now keen to visit for my next hols.  (Mother would have a fit. She thinks going to Leicester is quite scary enough!) 

A small postscript: I drove Mum up past Crocodile wood this afternoon in search of bluebells. The bluebells aren’t out yet, but the hedgerows were full of delicious blue violets and primroses. What a treat to witness them in their native home, another genuine English beech wood of ancient lineage!  (Why crocodile? well seen from afar it looks like a long crocodile lying along the hillside. I think its boring common name is Bank Wood. How prosaic is that?!)

The mini marathon of singing finished yesterday with twenty of us singing for the Devonshires’ double christening up at Chatsworth House.  This involved a Friday night rehearsal in Matlock and a pre-service run through squashed into the little gallery above the amazing Baroque chapel. Everything was dark as Chatsworth is now wrapped up like a large plastic parcel for cleaning so all the shutters are shut inside.  With the portable organ somehow installed, Roger Bristow played his usual best, and we launched into Parry’s “I was glad”, Jesu Joy of Man’s desiring, the Karl Jenkins Benedictus, and gave them “For unto us a child is born” as an anthem in the middle. Bit of a stretch with only three second sops!

But the babies were delightful, all squdgy and dressed in Victorian christening dresses which in the case of little Reginald was another bit of a stretch.  He had a hilarious bonnet on the wrong way round until I adjusted it over a canape later. Apparantly it had been Nancy Mitford’s once upon a time. The other baby called James will one day be the next-but-one Duke of Devonshire I suppose, if they still have Dukes by the time he grows up, and if they still have a men only policy, as he has a two year old sister called Maud.

 David took the service with his normal friendly and laid back approach including a few jokes, and the service was followed by a Mad Hatters’ teaparty for the 140 guests, with excellent grub.  (David once confided that he imagines the babies at christenings are puppies which explains his easy confidence in picking them up.)  I made it into the tea  as David’s other half, and was certainly ready for a drink after all those high notes, and runs.  It was a shame there was no room for the choir and organist.

My croaky voice can take a break now for a few weeks – the service this afternoon in Church was for all the scouts in the district, mainly cubs and beavers these days, but “He’s got the whole world in his arms” doesn’t tax the vocal chords too much.

Over the last few days the warm weather has returned and we have had several shimmering early mornings, awash with birdsong and the cherry trees in the churchyard bursting out into cascades of pale white and pink.  I was up soon after six yesterday, and watered the allotment, not a job for sissies as it involves hauling 50yards of hosepipe into the car, and unloading it down in the yard, untangling it, pulling it up the steps and across the allotment before going back to the tap to turn on the water.  But everything planted seemed immensely grateful. Having filled the three waterbutts I don’t think I’ll have to do all that again soon.

The Bunyard Exhibition Broad beans are now looking vigorous and about four inches tall. I planted out more spring seeds, perpetual spinach which I have just discovered is actually globeless beetroot by another name, ordinary spinach, and carrots.  They are in rows next to the parsnip/radish combinations. I know rows are a wasteful use of land in a way, but I do like howing between them, and have a peasant’s liking for the neat rows of contrasting veggies. First asparagus shoot up this morning, so we’ll soon be eating them.

The rescued daffodils I was given by Julia and only planted in March have caught up amazingly and are in bloom. They show the remarkable resilience of plants, whose urge is to grow and flower, despite all discouragement, cruelty, neglect or pure ignorance! The hyacinths I planted in the early autumn have been blooming too, in just the massed blocks I wanted, and the tulip/ forgetmenot combinations are emerging just behind them.  In the garden the mahonia blossoms of bright yellow are next to the scarlet japonica, – it seems everything has woken up and is singing out to the bees and birds, “Notice me, come to me.” 

 If only my older bones and muscles can keep up with this Spring. Where does the enthusiasm of youth go to?  The three Jacob’s ewes with their lambs in the fenced off part of the churchyard illustrate this. The lambs jump and bounce with pure happiness, while their mothers move in a stately fashion round the old graves, munching away but never playing.

Having brought up about seven trays of flowers from seeds, I succumbed and ordered geraniums, and fuchsias from Plants Direct in Jersey, as all mine died in the winter frost. The first parcel, 28 giant fuchsias, arrived yesterday and they look very well grown and strong. A nip out of the central shoot had caused them all to branch out well at about three inches tall.  I know I should do this to my sweetpeas seedlings, but somehow I can’t bring myself to do it, isn’t that ridiculous?  It feels like torturing a baby. I shall be hearing tomatoes scream next.

Don’t ask about the mice in the greenhouse.  One correspondent has suggested putting in a cat, but I have resorted to something even more horrible.  I daren’t tell you yet, but will see if the mice keep coming. In the house we have invested in those ultra sonic shriek deterrants. If I can get the socket in the greenhouse to work that might be a way of stopping future invasions. Meanwhile, be grateful you are not a mouse in mrsgarnettsgarden!   

PS chicks have hatched under the first silkie to sit. – can’t tell how many yet, as she is too ferocious to lift.  Definite smell of fox outside our gate into the park this morning. Hmm.

The mice who survived last winter must have developed extra wit and guile, as they have been at it again in the greenhouse. The same night I sowed a guttering full of peas a la the cognoscenti (sorry about mixed languages) the little fellows- or at least one,  went right along the row and dug as many up as they could carry, then hauled them over to a seed tray nearby and sat down to take off the skins. Then they made a little pile in the corner of a tomato tray! They must have eaten as much as they could and left the rest for later.

But I wasn’t defeated. Yesterday morning I resowed all the peas I could find, and resited the guttering on two towers of flower pots. I expect they will find a way up but it won’t be easy.

Penny says she always smears her pot rims with vaseline to keep the slugs at bay. Maybe that would work with mice as well!

Horrible cold weather yesterday and the promised rain hasn’t yet materialised. I want a good soaking for all the allotment, The blossom everywhere though is wonderful at the moment and rain will spoil all of that.  David and I went to a Rotary lunch at the sailing club on Carsington water yesterday and  the blackthorn bushes and hawthorn were a froth of delicate white blossom everywhere.

Sowed sweetcorn in a 7inch pot on the kitchen window.   I think the mice have eaten my tomato seedlings in the greenhouse, as only the Gardener’s Delight are up and doing anything much. I may bring them all back in later. It is time to start all the other climbing beans off inside. – a project for tomorrow.

On the TV there was a mention of bees yesterday which said that each bee in its lifetime will only produce one teaspoonful of honey.  Cause for thought as one carelessly spoons it onto the toast. Jane’s bees have been delayed so she is still waiting to set up her apiary. I have seen quite a few bumble bees round here though already which is encouraging. Just hope the cold snap does not kill them though.

A decent night’s rain last week and four or five days of really warm Spring sunshine has bucked up the allotment and greenhouse no end. In the greenhouse all the brassica seedlings are doing fine- to the point where I have started pricking them our in little family groups into four inch pots. Cauliflower, two sorts of kale, cabbages and pak choi all look very vigorous, so I am pleased with Mr Brown’s seeds, but the very cheap ones from Focus and Willco’s are good as well. The leeks have sprouted in their larger pot and have unbent their little heads now.

At last, after early disasters, I have a decent clutch of sweetpeas, and the coriander and parsley have both germinated. The flower seedlings I planted in March are now so vigourous I have put some of them outside. My mixed tomatoes are quite interesting.  Nothing yet from last year’s leftover sungold seeds, but this years gardener’s delight popped out very quickly and will be OK. I hope the rest of the tomatoes follow along soon. I always grow too many, but one can give them away. I had them in the kitchen and wonder if I should bring them back inside for a week or so longer, – nights are still decidedly chilly in the greenhouse. 

 Following the Sarah Raven and Monty Don tips I decided to sow a line of peas in a strip  of guttering inside the greenhouse. it extends all along the table and out the other end. Just hope I have succeeded in keeping Mr Mousie out, or it will be a useless exercise. 

We have two broodie hens sitting on clutches  of eggs, and I discovered a third nest this evening which one of the little silkie-cross bantams  had made under a bramble bush at the back of the copse where the hens live. She had about seven of her own eggs (infertile because the cockerel is far too big to get onto her), and surprisingly three pale green pheasant eggs as well.  So is a hen pheasant laying eggs in the nest? Or did the hen discover three pheasant eggs and decided to add her own?  Despite this very good initiative, David worries that the fox will get her if she camps out under the bush for the next three weeks, so has transferred her into the penning room and given her some fertile Welsummer eggs to sit on.  The first hen’s chicks will be out next Friday and the second on Maunday  Thursday.  It takes three weeks to hatch hen’s eggs, -just in case you didn’t know, and why should you?  David normally takes chicks into church on Easter day so he should be well  supplied.

I made a big batch of nettle and wild garlic soup last week from the weeds in the corner of the hen runs. absolutely delicious. They cook together wonderfully, – a hint from a recipe book of old Romany cooking.  – though the home made chicken stock may have helped. (not I might add concocted from our home-made chickens!)

Down on the allotment the shallots and onions are all sprouting green tops very cheerfully and seem to have rooted well.  My broadbeans Bunyard’s Exhibition I planted about four weeks ago have emerged, some with yellow tips which I must learn more about. Hope they turn green soon.  Today I planted a third row of potatoes, – these were some odds and ends we had in the pantry, – mainly little reds, so its a mystery joblot!  I also sowed a double row of parsnips and radishes – the radishes mark where the parsnip seeds are, and will hopefully be grown and eaten before the parsnips want their spaces.  I finally put in a line of perpetual spinach- found a seed packet I have had since 2007!. If they germinate it will be a miracle.

Finally I am pleased to see lots of flowers on the current bushes and gooseberries. We just need more rain now. The cherry tree half way up the park on our normal morning dog walk is quite magnificently covered in blossom. Those cherries are wonderful to eat, but you have to fight off the birds, and more nastily, all the wasps which gather on them as well. Less arduous to gather is rhubarb which is at its Spring best just now.  I made an “Edensor Mess” with it on Sunday for lunch, – like “Eton Mess” but with Rhubarb, and I think just as nice.

London last Wednesday was shimmering with sunshine. Great little mini-heatwave brought the blossom, bodies and birds out into the park. Green Park was in the F70s, with people flinging themselves down on the grass to catch the sun.  I walked from St Pancras to Covent Garden, and as soon as you duck south of the Euston Road, trees  and little glimpses of garden, old grave yards now turned into play area accost you everywhere. In Maida Vale on Thursday, the hedges of ceonothus (Californian Lilac) were blue, and buzzing with bees. Truly a gorgeous time of year when the weather behaves like this.

The sortee into Hampshire was equally lovely. At the end of a balmy day we went down to a pub on the Kennet and Avon Canal for an outdoor supper, and walked along the tow-path. Penny has a wonderful pot of parsley which has survived the winter undeterred, and has been eating spinach for the last month. They are a good four weeks ahead of us.

I came home Thursday evening and spent Friday  and Saturday morning with my mother, before going to Derby by train to rehearse Belshazzar’s Feast. The train was absolutely heaving with people, – not only our choir, but also a large group of families heading to watch Derby football club play at home. The ticket collector could not squeeze past to collect any money, so we all had to trail long distances to the front office at Derby station to pay in order to leave the station!

Sunday as well consisted of two rehearsals and two different choir events. The first was at our Sheep service where two children bring lambs to be blessed and we pray for the shepherds and sheep, local industry and local government. All very apt for Chatsworth where we have thousands of sheep and lambs everywhere. The service was recorded as part of a long term BBC project about the Chatsworth estate. They were filming Ian, the farm manager, and as he came to Church for the sheep service they followed him there. I can’t see that more than a few seconds will make it onto the screen, but it was good fun. The Church was full.  

In the evening I went back to Taddington, taking my mother for the outing, to sing with my old friends up there in the Taddington Singers. Lovely pieces all combined together in a carol type service for Passion Sunday.  When I finally made it home I fell into bed, as we’d had a lunch party as well at home, with John and Liz Bather, and Rupert and Liz Turner. The second couple came a bit late and dashed back as they are in the middle of lambing, and literally had been helping their texel ewes deliver large single lambs minutes before setting out. Twin lambs, being smaller, are often much easier to birth.  Ian the farmer told me the film makers had caught him calving one of his Limousin cows early on Sunday, with a fine bull calf. “I’m going to call him Garnett” he said. I told David to go up to the farm asap to meeet his baby namesake. 

The post was going to be  about progress on the allotment and garden, but called to supper now, so more later on all of that!

On the train again- I’m actually turning into one of those people using a lap-top at sixty miles an hour through the Leicestershire countryside.  Oh dear. But the day is set fair for an expedition- through Waterloo Station down to Basingstoke to visit the friend whom I met in Karamojo, Uganda in 2009. Very gutsy person- retired nurse who has just been over there again for four months.

The beginning of April and the world is alive with the delicate snow of cherry blossom. There is nothing more evocative of old England than the hedgerows and gardens drifting pink and white with snow. They have crept north now as far as Derbyshire, and when I went up the garden to shut the hens, showers of tiny petals danced across my face.

Abbeydale Singers concert last night. top class a capella and some new works. Mum had been here all day and stayed for the first half.  Tim, who had come from Liverpool for Mothering Sunday, drove her home. Clare, his wife, has gone to Las Vegas with her school choir for a week!  I am very busy with choirs just now. In the Derbyshire Singers we have Belshazzar’s Feast in Derby next Saturday, then a sheep service with singing on Sunday am here in Edensor.   In the evening next Sunday I have to go to Taddington to sing in thePassion Sunday carol service. This is more vital than the Walton really as there are only four of us sopranos.  Then there is a double christening up at Chatsworth on the following Saturday. I have an invitation anyway so we can expand out little choir up to 21. Joe said he was trying to explain that if they want “I was glad” then we need 4 sops in each part, let alone “Unto us a boy is born”.  All beautiful stuff. I just hope my residual growly cough disappears.   

Of all the singing traditions I love the English folk songs the most. They are so tied up with my Cotswold youth and singing as a primary school child. Deep green valleys of Gloucestershire and memories of Houseman’s poetry, achingly nostalgic. The church was packed for Mothering Sunday today. David made me give the talk, which was fine, except that I couldn’t see over the reading  stand in the pulpit, so had to lean out over the side.  I included Hagar in my story, someone I have always thought to be a fascinating and deeply theological character. So many people forget her.

Rain most of yesterday and overnight last night, so with the joy of fresh growth comes the inevitable spurt of weeds.  I will have to keep my trusty hoe handy which I think is the best way to keep on top of them, especially the dandelions which will be in full growth for the next three or four weeks. They traditionally flower on St George’s Day and I take my revenge by picking a few gallons of flowers for dandelion wine, the first brew of the year!   The nettles in the allotment corners are still babies so I intend to pick  them and make them into soup this week.

A real criminal has been secretly nibbling at the sweet pea seedlings in the geenhouse, and then not even consuming the evidence. tragic little shoots left next to the stems.  The same little beastie has also been consuming the tops of the Cosmos seedlings which had grown so well.  If I wasn’t a natural pacifist I would sit up at midnight with a torch and a horticultural equivalent of a shotgun in there. I have checked the bottom of  the pots for slugs but think the culprit might be a tiny snail I saw in a crevice of the plastic walls.

David says I should move everything out of the greenhouse which doesn’t need to be there, eg. trays of spare pots etc, which is good advice, and then wash everything down with what we call “The professor’s solution”, armillatox, which is wonderful at cleaning up most fungus and mould type things.  I will wait until after the rain and then have a go at a big clean up.

A great website from the states, the Dervaes family “little homestead in the city” had a “whackem” organic aphid killer recipe this week which read like something out of Macbeth. I’ll put in a link here if I can- garlic, onion, cayenne pepper and soft soap were just a few of its ingredients- brought tears to the eyes!

Dave and Julia finally move out today. I have bought several funky things in their yard sale, while giving them a hand, including a vintage Levi jacket, which  is something I have always wanted!  I have also gained two or three dozen more Kilner jars with the necessary screw tops of seals. – wonderful, as bottled fruit actually tastes much better than frozen, and is better fuel wise. Their best present though has been a delightful little witch hazel tree, the sort with convoluted branches. It is flying a very perky array of catkins and will look lovely at the end of the bark path in the allotment,

We had a Lent focus lunch after Church in Sunday for Libya with one of our villagers being Libyan and wanting to give an illustrated talk. More than fifty stayed and a few more people joined us so it was a successful event. We raised £400.  News from there sounds grim, and there seems no senior leadership from the opposition side. That really worries me, and I am naturally against solving any problem by sending in more weaponry. The cost of the tomahawks etc has already been huge. 

 The government priorities are all for bellicosity, while closing hundreds of theatres and arts groups by a £100 million cut just this month.. An earlier UN resolution setting up an arms embargo to Libya should be taken much more seriously, If it had been obeyed then Gaddafi wouldn’t have all the superior tanks etc he has.  same old story!

Just to say the hens have bucked their ideas up, so eggs have started coming in much better numbers and the Welsummer colour is excellent. The champion egg show will be at The Great Yorkshire show this year, so David is keen to exhibit. Its DDD of D’s 91st birthday today. I think he will give her a single W. egg as a birthday present, the same as a few years ago, when it was a great success.