10 Jan 2014

A tasty Quince-essential shrub...

Or, as I read elsewhere, Quince Charming.

 ~ January blossom on Chaenomeles x superba 'Crimson and Gold' ~

Why am I writing about quince now, when the season for quince harvesting has passed? Well, one of my lovely nieces is getting wed tomorrow and her fiancé proposed with the gift of a runcible spoon, so owls, pussycats, quince and spoons have loomed large in my week as I've made quince jam for the wedding feast and also had to pick up the emergency baton of designing her Order of Service and wedding breakfast menu cards after her graphic designer went awol.

An enduring memory from last January was the sight of fallen fruit under the Chaenomeles x superba shrub in the Capel Gardens. The class was trotting briskly around in the snow in mid-January doing the plant ident walk; this plant was one of the few shrubs offering winter interest with its deep red blossom but my eye was drawn to the fruit which looked very edible.

Japanese quince in November 2013 
I remarked to our tutor about the yellow fruits rotting under the bush. Oh, yes, she said, those are edible, they're known as Japanese quince. I tucked this information away in my head for further research and future use.

Spin forward to late summer and thoughts of quince resurfaced when my niece's fiancé produced the vintage runcible spoon. (The Tiffany jewel duly appeared after a trip to New York.) I kept a watch on the shrub with thoughts of making a quince preserve, otherwise known by its Spanish name of Membrillo, and was rewarded with a 2kg haul of fruit in mid-November. The fruits are usually ripe by early October but last year was a bit skewed, weather-wise.


The preparation is relatively simple but needs time. An internet search* caused confusion, particularly with regard to the ratio of sugar to pulp or liquid. Eventually, a decision was made - and it turns out quite a few folk have a sweeter tooth than me! For my second batch, I used less sugar and added spices: star anise, cinnamon, juniper berries, cardamom and a vanilla pod. I read that quince jelly is a great addition to Morrocan stews and tagines, or served with lamb in place of redcurrant jelly. Has anyone tried using it this way?  Or you can use it as a chutney, in sandwiches or with cheese. My favourite is with Manchego, a salty Spanish cheese; luckily there are a lot of crackers to be used up after Christmas.

Chopped quince fruit can also be steeped in water with a little sugar for a healthy hot drink, packed with vitamin C; it tastes surprisingly good, like apple flavoured lemon tea. (This tip came from a Lithuanian friend whose mother made the tea to keep the family healthy throughout the year.)


I've now made both membrillo and quince jelly and found that they keep very well in the fridge or sealed jars, as you'd expect.  As I used Chaenomeles fruit, rather than fruit from Cydonia oblonga, the true quince tree, I was curious to know how the taste compared so bought a slice from Waitrose (where else?). There is a very slight difference, the true quince membrillo being slightly more perfumed and that's enough for me. Naturally, I want it all, so a quince tree went onto my plant wishlist … and there's good news on that front from the veg patch's friends at Victoriana Nurseries in Kent. They are giving me a quince tree for the community garden! I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful start to 2014!


For future reference, these are the blogs I found helpful for recipes:
Edible Things - recipes for quince brandy, jam and a clear jelly.
Cottage Smallholder who recommends oven baking quince to add to pies.
Oh for the Love of Food who writes of her mum's quince chutney recipe.
Veg Plotting - writes of roasted quince with a link to quince tart.

Or there's always The River Cottage Preserves handbook. I never knew there were so many ways to preserve edibles. Excellent.

7 Jan 2014

A backward glance

First turn of the screw, all debts paid. I feel that sailor's saying would make a apt quote for the gardening new year. Last year's lessons learned, mistakes swept away, new seeds to buy, tools to sharpen and planting plans to consider. Wouldn't that be nice.

However. Rather than relaxing over the winter break, I've been busily been playing catch up in garden and home. Tulips have been planted in my parent's garden over christmas so my mum will have some spring colour to look forward to. She can't garden at all now but still takes an interest so I've been popping perennials and bulbs in when I visit.

Over a hundred tulips have also gone into the gardens here at York Rise. Our newly appointed Housing Officer likes everything in the garden to be neat and orderly. On her first visit, she had to be dissuaded from having the veg patch fruit trees chopped back into a nice neat shapes but our powers of persuasion didn't extend to the London Planes outside my window which are now birdless, ugly stumps and another mature, ivy clad tree (home to many little birds) has been felled because it leaned. For some reason she reminds me of Dolores Umbrage in the Harry Potter books.  Having safeguarded my fruit trees, I still feel the need to divert her attention and have started a plan of floral distraction with tulips, polyanthus, violas and bellis perennis. And, in due course, I'll also be planting my lettuces out in neat, but colourful, rows!

I don't have a 'garden shed' here so, falling in with the new regime, I've spent a few days moving piles of spare pots, cloches, netting, chicken manure, trug tubs and bags of compost up to the caretaker's hut at the opposite end of the flats … not exactly handy having to walk 150 metres to get a pot but, strangely, I'm rather enjoying the enforced tidiness.

College work continues apace - 5 garden elevations done before the break and another 2 garden designs to complete within the next few weeks … and an exam on garden history sometime in the coming weeks.

The seed box will be next - I'm watching Alys Fowler's 'Edible Garden' on YouTube and reading Charles Dowding's 'A Salad for all Seasons' to set the mood. Last year I didn't grow as much as I wanted to but a quick peek backwards reminds me that there were more than a few good bits of the good gardening life to gladden the heart and eyes:

In January we had a new apple tree, gifted from the London Orchard Project. This made our 9th fruit tree! The 'Core Blimey' apple has been specially bred to thrive in urban conditions and seems to have done well, despite the stakes and ties being removed by pranksters. (They'll have to be replaced as trees should be staked for the first 3 years.) It was planted into a long stretch of grass where several mature trees had previously stood - just before the snow descended.


February gave me the new experience of visting the London RHS shows where I met suppliers and brought home a tiny and very beautiful Chilean Guava which, sadly, did not make it through the year.


March, my birth month, shines out in my memory for the fabulous day out to Dixter where I met a few of my fellow garden bloggers. A deeply rewarding day on account of both the gardens and the people - bloggers and Dixter staff alike. We were lucky with the weather too, as snow and ice were lingering just 3 days beforehand but it was bright and clear for the trip. Earlier in the month, I'd been to Potato Day at the Garden Museum in Lambeth - another first that I'll be revisiting this year.


By the end of April, blossom had started to appear on the fruit trees, potatoes were planted and the first of my windowsill salad leaves were ready to be harvested. There was a quiet optimism that the endless weeks of winter might finally be over.


May! To me, this is always the month when the garden properly gets going - seeds sprout, corn and beans are planted out. This year, the fruit trees were smothered in blossom and, of course, there was the Centenary of the Chelsea Flower Show. Probably my favourite month of last year.


June was the 'almost ready' month. Everything was on the brink of ripening: raspberries, cherries, strawberries, redcurrants - even the pears and lemons looked like setting fruit (but didn't) and tiny apples and broad bean flowers were looking very promising. I did have an abundance of orach leaves and herbs to make up for it though!


By July, the garden was filling with flowers, fruit and veg… and so many strawberries, I had to make jam. This is the moment when I always want more and regret not being more organised around sowing and planting earlier in the year … now, there's a lesson to be learned.


August and September, although starting the slow decline into Autumn, brought me ripe tomatoes, tall and small sunflowers, corn, raspberries to the point of overkill, crisp Braeburn apples; there were Cape Gooseberries (physalis) until the plant got trampled by persons unknown.  I also returned to college to continue with the second year of the garden design course, this year concentrating on plants.  Bliss!


October was the month a wallaby appeared in our playground, causing huge excitement and media interest.  In the garden, the tomato fest finally drew to a close and the garden succumbed to an onslaught of nasturtium triffids and huge herbs. I also found the time to visit the RHS Harvest Festival in Westminster where I marvelled at the perfection of giant show veg and plates of perfect fruit (something to aspire to!)  and an end of season trip back to Great Dixter as an optional trip for my college studies. Inevitable comparisons were made with the gardens in spring; next year I must try and visit in the middle of the season as well!


Mild weather continued into November encouraging borage and cerinthe seeds to grow alongside the nasturtiums. A globe artichoke, nurtured from a seed, had grown too so I'm expecting great things from that plant next year and, after clearing the tomato plants, I rediscovered the perpetual rhubarb, grown from seed in early 2012 and took a few stems to try - delicious!  I also foraged for Japanese quince and learnt to make quince jelly and membrillo from the fruits.



And finally, into December, when a ground frost in the second week finally did for most of the nasturtiums and the big clear up and chop back began, tulips were planted, strawberry plants moved to another bed, tender herbs snuggled up for winter. And, after watching an Into Gardens video of Dawn Isaac from Little Green Fingers potting up her bulbs, I hastily ordered some paperwhite narcissus having discovered how easy they are to grow - something to look forward to in a few weeks!



And so, here we are. 2014. Somehow, despite omissions, 2013 was still a good year but, this year, I'm definitely putting squash, courgettes, calendula and carrots back into the veg beds. At least, that's the plan, but I've a feeling that a new batch of seed catalogues may tempt me into pastures new …


My apologies for the late posting of this look back over the year - it's taken an unbelievably long time to go through all my photos - the upshot of that, though, is that I've finally got round to updating the images in my blog banner - new for 2014!


18 Dec 2013

The wishing tree (almost Wordless Wednesday)



Having started to float along on the festive tide with my christmas garden post at the weekend, I took two toddlers to the zoo in Regent's Park yesterday to see the reindeer, as you do.  Their day was made up when one of the reindeers obligingly turned his back and did a poo right near to where we were watching.  Joy and laughter are very poo related in the life of a two year old.

Christmas outside

My day, on the other hand, was complete when I detoured to see the hippopotamus and came across a giant decorated cedar tree. Its lower branches were covered with wishes and hopes, written on luggage labels and other tags, tied to the tree.  It was a glorious sight and made for some lovely reading.  If only they'd thought to use waterproof pens! The synchronicity of seeing this when I'd just written about creating a wishing tree was very thrilling, not to mention inspirational.




16 Dec 2013

A Christmas Garden: perking up your plot and a competition

Rowan berries and ivy
Pink Sorbus berries where they'd fallen onto ivy - I'll use these plus more in a wreath.

Is it really only 10 days until Christmas? The veg patch garden is still being treated to resolutely mild weather so I'm able to potter around getting ready for next year but I can't ignore the festive lights in trees along local avenues or the buzz of people preparing for christmas.

Those lovely people over at Plant Me Now have provided the kickstart to think about extending seasonal decorations into the garden with their Christmas competition on Facebook. I'm giving the heads up on this one as the prize is £100 to spend in their online shop and let's face it, who wouldn't want to win that!  Their plug plants were well reviewed by Helen over at Patient Gardener this year and I'm always happier with a personal recommendation. Personally, I've fallen in love with a gorgeous dusky rose coloured delphinium that I'm coveting for my flower patch next year, middle bottom of this link.  (Oh, be still my beating heart!) You've only got one week to enter as the deadline is next Sunday, 22nd, (take a photo of your decorated garden, 'like' their FB page, upload your photo); it's worth a shot as, so far, there's only a few entries.

Although bright sparkly lights are good for jollying things up on a commercial level, I prefer something altogether more subtle in my own home - and that also extends to the garden. I love the simplicity of cinnamon sticks and dried orange peel tied onto a swag with a bit of ribbon. For  me, colours should harmonise with nature: think wood, robins, nuts and cones, stones, grey skies, white snow and icicles. Wonderful. Nature offers plenty of inspiration if you look around and that's what I went in search of.

Here's a robin I saw earlier.  I love that this photo has the feel of a Rob Ryan print (in my humble opinion!)

On Saturday I went for a little wander, bag over shoulder, secateurs in hand (just in case!). In the York Rise gardens I found rose hips, cornus stems, juniper branches, rosemary stems and ivy leaves. Walking in the Capel gardens, I'd already foraged fallen crab apples and - to my extreme delight - the fallen pink berries from the Sorbus hupehensis tree (Rowan). The purple berries from Callicarpa would also have been wonderful, as would the fluffy tips from a Miscanthus grass but I'm loathe to take something that nature isn't quite ready to part with.

Crab apple decorations
Fallen crab apples tied with florist's wire and hung on a christmas tree.

Walking through the woods, I spied a sheath of branch tips lying on the ground; they look like silver birch and I presume a child had gathered them up while walking and then been told to leave them behind. As I picked them up and rolled them into a circle to fit my bag, it occurred to me that they're so fine and pliable, they would be perfect as a base for a door or tree wreath. Bizarrely, I couldn't find any pine cones, despite large numbers of pine trees up at Capel but I did find plenty of acorns and their cups which were added to my goody bag (inspired by the acorn babies in the collage below).

So now I'll be crafting in the evenings in the week ahead, making decorations from my nature finds that will find their way into the garden. If you've thought, however briefly, about jollying up your garden for the forthcoming holidays, here's a few things to inspire or be aware of:

• Real christmas trees. I absolutely hate to see all those sad, brown, rootless trees dumped after christmas. If you must have a real tree, please buy one with roots, plant it properly in a deep pot of soil with good drainage, by all means decorate it but put it outside where you can see it. Your tree will thank you for  it and you'll be happy as you won't have to clear up thousands of pine needles. Leave it in the pot, well watered throughout the year, and you won't find yourself with a 40ft tree outside your back door in ten years time but will be ready when christmas comes round again.

• Let your garden have a holiday. Don't go mad sweeping up leaves and tidying the garden. If you've done a bit of pruning or have logs for the woodpile, great. Leave them in a heap for hibernating hedgehogs, if you're lucky enough to have them. Ladybirds and other beneficial insects like bees need somewhere sheltered and safe to over-winter and will still be in your garden in spring if they find a welcome there in winter and nectar when they wake up. Birds too need food and water. I like the look of these apple decorations but would hang them outside for the birds rather than indoors.  And put out home-made fat balls, recipe from Fiona at The Cottage Smallholder.

Image from my Pinterest page.
• Embrace the great outdoors. Wrap up and get outside to breathe fresh air! Look around and see the potential in found objects. Take a leaf out of my book (not literally, I need them for my collages!) and take a bag with you to collect interesting finds. (I have to warn you, this becomes a very addictive hobby!)

Acorn babies!  Decorated rakes! Loving Pinterest at the mo … 

• Take time out from festive fussing. Make decorations and cards from your found objects. Relaxing, therapeutic, calming - and, for kids, you could even work in a bit of anti-consumerism through baking and craft. (You see what an optimist I am?)

Images from my Pinterest 'Christmas Garden' page but … loving those candles tucked into hagstones! 

• Connect. Next Saturday is the Winter Solstice. (Interesting Yule facts and the story of mistletoe through the Solstice link.)  It's a day that I always observe with quiet contemplation as the world starts to turn towards spring and renewed life. The days will start, imperceptably, to get longer; we may not notice but the plants will.  It's a day to connect with nature, neighbours and family - perhaps over tea and cake.

• Dream.  Look over the bare bones of your garden and plan for next year.  I love this time of year for looking through catalogues, reading gardening books and visiting public gardens - the structure of the garden without its summer dressing is revealed and there's a lot to be learned from that.

• Decorate your garden!  Bare branches of trees are perfect for adding ribbons, nut or fruit garlands, stars cut from recycled milk containers or, if you have time, laminate little messages of hopes, wishes  and thanks for the year ahead and the year behind us and hang them up with pretty ribbons.

I hope that this post will inspire people; if I have time, I'll post about the crafts I make … and don't forget the competition!


There are fairies in the garden!
Seen at Capel: Mushrooms and fairies in the garden!

14 Dec 2013

Capel Moments .. A winter's day

Dew-berries Capel
Surreal: so still that the droplets of thawed frost just hung there - not one of these fell!

The icy fingers of Jack Frost have not yet touched the veg patch garden so I was super excited on my drive up to Enfield yesterday to see frosted allotments at the side of the road as I knew this meant it would be proper frosty in the gardens at college, at least at the start of the day.  Crystallised plants have a novel beauty at the beginning of the winter and I wasn't disappointed.

Frosted rose.


Proper frosty. Frozen grasses.

By lunchtime, a light mist and perfect stillness hung over the grounds; so peaceful in the walled garden, it was hard to believe that the traffic of the M25 was zooming around the north perimeter of the college.  A pale winter's sun added to the ambience and made it a perfect day for a lunchtime walk. (That's when the berries were photographed.)  I thought that would be the end of my photo opportunities but by 4 pm, the end of the college day, one last treat lay in store - a low lying mist hovered a few feet off the ground at sunset. I just managed to grab a few shots with my iphone before dark settled. (And wished, not for the first time that day, that I'd thought to bring my proper camera with me!)

Field of mist


Back in the veg patch this morning, it's quite mild but nonetheless I've popped a cloche over a couple of the more tender herbs. I say 'cloche' - actually, it's an upturned clear plastic storage box which did the job perfectly through the last year's winter and ensured the vigorous survival of the French Tarragon, a herb widely known for keeling over in the bitter cold. Herbs that need protecting in my garden are lovage, blackcurrant sage (still with beautiful bright pink flowers!) and french tarragon.  All the others are tough as old boots and come back year on year without my help: fennel, mint, oregano, horseradish. Flat and curly leaved parsley, lemon thyme and sage are still going strong and being regularly used by me and my neighbours which encourages the plants to keep producing and stay healthy.

And the work goes on: I love being outdoors, particularly this week as I have a heavy cold and feel so much better for being outside! I'm gradually getting more raised beds built and filling them with spring plants and strawberries for now - white violas, polyanthus, saffron crocus and dianthus - all edible flowers that will have lettuce sown into the gaps in late spring.  And the next big push will be to decorate the garden a little bit to mark Christmas and the year end.  More next post.

Going home through evening mist.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...