Last of the Summer Vine…

 

These little greenhouse beauties are just coming to the end of their fruiting season and in the spirit of learning about running a proper Veg Patch, I've been reading up about gathering seeds.  Yes, I know I could just pop over to the garden centre next year and buy some more (in fact, lots more as the choice is so great) but then we'd miss a valuable opportunity to teach the children about that whole 'cycle-of-life' thing.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, purveyors of Gardener's World and the Chelsea Flower Show (bless 'em), have this to say about gathering seed:

• Choose a dry, windless day. Select a healthy, pest- and disease-free plant, whose seedpods look as if they're about to split. Cut off the entire seedhead.
• Invert entire seedhead upside-down into a paper bag. Close bag without crushing seedhead and label. Place bag in a dry place for the seeds to ripen. (ooh, I like this one -  nice and neat.)
  
• Check the seeds' progress regularly. When most of the seedpods have opened, tip out the contents onto a dry surface and separate seeds from any bits of seedhead still attached.
• Store the cleaned seed in a small dry envelope, seal and label carefully. Keep in a cool, dry, airy place until ready to be used.

I'm not sure how this method would work for, say, tomatoes.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm picturing bags of soggy tomatoes slowly rotting - not good.  The answer would appear to be found in this month's Garden Illustrated, in an article called Saving Seeds (pg 24).  (I hope they won't mind if I just let you in on their tips for tomatoes. Maybe you'll go and buy the magazine, like I did.)

They say that tomato seeds need to be fermented in their own juice because the seeds have a gelatinous coating.  What you have to do (apparently) is scoop out the seeds, pop them in a jar with a little water and leave to ferment. A mouldy layer appears on the top of the liquid; it will have fermented once it smells slightly (3 to 4 days later). (O-kaaay. Not tempting me so far.) At this point, clean the seeds in a fine sieve under running water and dry on a porcelain plate (it's a very posh gardening mag). And this they call fun.

On the other hand, the Edible Playground recommends laying tomato seeds out on a sheet of kitchen paper and leave to dry. Might not work, but at least there's no smell!

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If you have the time, why not find out more on these links:

BBC - collecting seeds
RHS - collecting and storing seed
The Edible Playground - Autumn in the Garden 
and, since I have your attention, please vote for us at The Little Blog Awards!

The Hanging Garden…

 

Periwinkle (aka Vinca Major); small but perfectly formed -  cheeky purple asterisks peeking through a curtain of green - and much desired by gardeners in search of good ground cover.  Especially our predecessors - or did it blow here on the wind?  Whatever the tale, we're now inundated with the stuff. 

Over the years it's swarmed over the raised borders, swamping the lilies, choking the honeysuckle and hydrangea and fighting with the ivy climbing up the back walls.  Tenacious, indeed.

The original plan was to try and preserve some of it - if only as individual plants to exchange for seeds and cuttings.  But a few weeks ago the ivy was toppled by heavy rainfall (the day it rained solely over York Rise, seemingly), leaving it dangling over the Vinca like a surfer's wave and exposing the brick wall for the first time in decades.  Which was lucky really, because a) the ivy is so heavy it could have brought the entire wall down and b) nobody was standing underneath it - which might have spoiled their day.  Naturally, this has doubled the work involved to prepare this bed, so I'm afraid it's hasta la vinca baby, because we need to clear this raised border for sowing spinach, potatoes, onion sets, garlic and broad beans (no, obviously not all in the same bed - that would be a stretch, even for novices like us).

So, take a good long look - soon all this wild, natural and abandoned greenery will become the South Section of the Urban Veg Patch. (But perhaps not quite by the end of this weekend.)

It will be missed, but I, for one, am so looking forward to lovely, yummy winter veg…

Inside The White House Garden…

(Screen grab taken from 'Inside the White House Garden' video.)

Yep. Inside the White House garden - and not manicured lawns but the little Presidential Veg Patch which has been supplying salad to state dinners these past months.  First Lady Michelle Obama talks about her beliefs in the benefits of home grown food, the tangible effects of this in her own family, and re-educating our children about food and diet so that the message is passed on for generations to come.  I love the fact that she's getting behind this message as the First Lady of Fast Food Nation - and not just talking, but doing. 

The video is also worth watching if only to see how they prepared their patch for planting (covering the essentials of soil testing and re-fertilizing), and a brief history on the Victory Garden which Eleanore Roosevelt had there during WWII and Thomas Jefferson's heritage seeds.
 
If you've got a few minutes (actually, 7.44 minutes) to spare, take a look.  I hope you'll be glad you did.  And I hope you'll be inspired to go out to your garden/balcony/windowbox/planter and sow a few seeds yourself. You'll be in good company.

I am humbled…

   Beautiful fig image found on Flickr here and used under Creative Commons Licence - thank you!

I don't usually run an entire gamut of emotions on a Monday morning - especially before 8 a.m. But this morning this is how it went:

1. Check Little Blog Awards. (Anticipation) 
2. Curiosity - Have I slipped further down the list? 
3. Satisfaction - still holding at 4th place.  (No real glory there, it's only the 7th of the month, but please Keep Voting, people!  Motivated.)  
4. Curiosity - Glance back at Dorset Cereals home page where they have a daily feature called 'Simple Pleasures' - and what is having an Urban Veg Patch all about if not to indulge in same?   
5. Pleasure (see, it works) - today's feature is Figs!  I love figs.   
6. Nostalgia - remember delightful figgy moment in South of France some years ago (it involves pie. And that's all I've got to say about that.)
7. Inspired and Relieved - struggling a bit up to this point about what to write today, previous jottings for post not really wowzy enough. (wowzy? did I just make that up?)   Possible solution now found.
   
8. But, as we're choosing fruit trees (anticipation) for November planting, decide to add this to the order. Optimism.  Check 'About Figs' link for research purposes…  
   
9. Which took me through to BBC Food website.  This course of action is not recommended before eating breakfast, you are liable to eat more toast than you had planned. With extra marmalade. And butter.   (and leads to Hunger - not really an emotion, but I do get quite emotional around food, usually along the lines of love, goodwill, pleasure.)
   
10. And this is what awaited me: (read slowly) "Figs… At their freshest, ripest best, they are lush mouthfuls of soft pink flesh, fragrant and undeniably sensual… "  … uh… more tea, Vicar?
    
11. Determination - to find an apt photo for forthcoming posting (er, actually, this one.)  Not having grown any fig trees ourselves yet, and being reluctant (Sloth) to find a farmer's market (or even, super-market) at dawn (okay, so it was really 7.30 a.m. but I think that counts),  I turned to the internet for visual help.
12. Which is when I found the beautiful photo at the top of this post (Gratitude) … 
13. swiftly followed by finding this:  

 

the totally beautiful Flickr photos of Alessandro Guerani (Respect)  

• So (Escapism) diverted through to his blog … 
• And then… Greed & Gluttony! … found his recipe for Figs with Honey, Almonds and Spices (although it sounds so much sexier in Italian). 
  

And there we have it.  Humbled.  (Not least because this man apparently has rose water in his armoire of kitchen goodness - and uses it! - but also has the most amazing eye for food photography, putting all my efforts to shame.)  I'll just stick to digging.  And eating.  It's what I do best.

Mister Blue Sky… where did we go wrong?

Image courtesy of Edible Playgrounds website (see below) - Aww, so sweet.

Rainy days, colder nights and shorter evenings signal the death of another summer. Call me stupid (err… actually, no, don't) but, yes, I am taken by surprise. Surely, this is indecently early? The last week of the school summer holidays should be filled with tantalisingly warm sunshine to taunt the children with the thought of the glorious days they'll miss once back at school. (Cackles in evil, pantomime way.) And give us gardeners a chance to bimble about happily among the fruit, veg and flowers in that beautiful late summer glow. (Instead of dashing back in to the greenhouse for warming mugs of tea.)

Thoughts of sowing for winter food seem a chilly prospect - especially as we have to prepare more raised beds before the truly wintry weather sets in (adding cold to the current lashings of wind and rain) and I'm therefore glad to have stumbled across the Gardening with Children website and their blog. (Although the blog is more up to date than the website!) The site has been created by Recycle Works to inspire food growing in schools but is also full of fact sheets and gardening tips for family or small plot growers to pull us through to next Spring. There's also an excellent and extensive page on funding options if you're inspired to start a little project of your own.

However, my Top Banana goes to The Edible Playground, a great website well worth exploring and which is given to us by yummy Dorset Cereals*. Dominic Murphy, Guardian gardening guru, gives really good advice. (Go on, try saying that out loud… I did, and it gets worse each time.) There's steps on how to start and, for the inevitable rainy days (in the UK at least), there's a trug full of creative projects to keep teachers, and parents, sane. Oh yes, it's also linked in to the National Curriculum. I'm in awe - they've thought of everything. Gold Star, chaps.

*Ahem. Your attention please while I indulge in a spot of blatant electioneering. We're nominated in the Dorset Cereals Little Blog Awards - and despite opposition from some truly great blogs (I lost half a day to reading and only got to page 5 of their list) we'd love your vote. Or click on the eggcup on the right. Mwah. Thanks lovely visitors. Have a great day!