What a glorious day. A 'proper' summers day in an English garden.. aka an allotment. What could possibly be nicer than wearing a swimsuit and picking your own cherries!
She always laughs when she hears the phrase 'pick your own', it means, of course, you pick as much as you want to pay for of the fruit that somebody else owns but she prefers to really pick her own and there was a lot of picking going on yesterday by the looks of what came home in her yellow bucket!
Lots of origano and marjoram, some chives and lovage and the tiniest of tiny sorrel leaves, she had trimmed the plant right down as it was too tall and going to seed. A few self seeded chard leaves and a couple of sprigs of wild land-cress were for our supper but I was much more interested in the jewels underneath!
Black and red currants! And a large handful of the first Stella cherries that were ready to pick. Tootie-Fruitie! Our own fruit. All the fruit bushes and trees have been planted by her own grubby hands. She has brought the bushes and trees from any number of very well respected fruit nurseries but our first two Stella cherry trees and a Yellow Gage came from.. Lidl!
And they have proved to be as splendid as any of the other fruit trees brught from more up-market tree sellers!
Now there is a train of thought that, if you live in a rented house or a flat that has a garden, you don't plant anything as you may move. Well, she knows several families who have lived in rented houses for over eight years, one of them has a thriving fruit, flower and vegetable garden, she knows as she planned and made it for them!
The other two families have gardens that are.. sterile is a good word, The grass is cut, there are a few things in tubs. But there is nothing to cut and smell or cut and eat. She knows that she won't garden her allotments 'forever' but whilst there is the energy and strength to do so, she'll work these four allotment plots. Then somebody else will have the joy of taking a basket and picking 'their own'!
These plots are individually quite different. Each one has fruit trees on it but they're laid out differently and the two end ones, plots number 35 & 37, will be completely different when the job is completed of destroying old Blackberry Briars plan for plot domination!
For this is where she wants to build a Solar House. The tradional green house, as you know, it is not actually ideal for our English sun, the sun is too low for too many months to work properly. Over fifty years ago she recalls seeing the two greenhouses that belonged to a family friend, Priscilla, they were a different shape to 'normal' ones and she asked her why it was like this. "It is all to do with the angle of the sun" was the answer! Priscilla's grapes and melons were lengendary and she grew salad all through the winter!
Then, within the past five years, she found and read a book by an American author who echoed Priscilla's words and went into much further detail! Eureka.. so no overseas summer holiday for her this year. The next phase is to dig out the blackberry and raspberry roots, to turn over the soil and clear it of all weeds. All this is needed as preparation for building the Solar house which she wants to have up and running for next Spring.
Having left early and coming home late.. I was quite prepared to be fierce and get Beaky to give her a nip but wise Beaky said "hey-up, there's something smelly delicious in her basket" and there was!
Coming home via a small Middle-Eastern store who do tasty barbecued chicken at the weekend, she had chosen the most golden one, he had wrapped it carefully in two heat bags, she had bought a tiny cucumber as a treat (bribe) for me and two pots of hummus.
The herbs were snipped into small pieces, olive oil, raspberry (from our own canes) vinegar, salt and pepper were put on top, she scissor cut the hot chicken in two and placed it on top of the herbs.
Yumpy-dumpy! Ain't nothing better than a hot barbequed chicken when you've been working hard all day. Beaky and I made short work of the bones with the flesh and gristle. Then we ate jewels of scarlet balls of heavenly deliciousness and black as night Ribena balls! "The white ones aren't ready yet", she said.. who cares, thought I as I munched on a red currant! Then I ate most of two large slices of the baby cucumber.. crisp and crunchy and wet.. very slurpy indeed!
Much work was done, she's pruned the cherry trees that have fruited and cut off the long shoots of all the other stone fruit trees but needs a short ladder to get at the two naughty plum trees who are playing 'Reach for the Sky', "no plum.. you weren't planted just for you to grow to twenty feet high and wave your fruit around out of picking reach!"
The cut grass was raked up, growth cleared from underneath the gang of six ~ three Stella cherry trees, one Morello cherry, a Green Gage and a Victoria plum and pruned back a Rosamundi Rose who was reverting to a wild rose.
After painting all the fruit trees with white latex paint and replaced all the mothballs around the base of each tree, the next section of work which will be working on one plot at a time.
Starting on plot 41: To finish clearing out underneath the fruit trees and to check the tree guards. Tidy up the peonies who have flowered, tie string around the the stalks and leaves to keep them in upright bunches.
That was her longest day.. the perfect day for the longest day.. our Summer Solstice 2015. How did you spend your Solstice?
Gee Gee Parrot.
June 22nd, 2015
She always laughs when she hears the phrase 'pick your own', it means, of course, you pick as much as you want to pay for of the fruit that somebody else owns but she prefers to really pick her own and there was a lot of picking going on yesterday by the looks of what came home in her yellow bucket!
Lots of origano and marjoram, some chives and lovage and the tiniest of tiny sorrel leaves, she had trimmed the plant right down as it was too tall and going to seed. A few self seeded chard leaves and a couple of sprigs of wild land-cress were for our supper but I was much more interested in the jewels underneath!
Black and red currants! And a large handful of the first Stella cherries that were ready to pick. Tootie-Fruitie! Our own fruit. All the fruit bushes and trees have been planted by her own grubby hands. She has brought the bushes and trees from any number of very well respected fruit nurseries but our first two Stella cherry trees and a Yellow Gage came from.. Lidl!
And they have proved to be as splendid as any of the other fruit trees brught from more up-market tree sellers!
Now there is a train of thought that, if you live in a rented house or a flat that has a garden, you don't plant anything as you may move. Well, she knows several families who have lived in rented houses for over eight years, one of them has a thriving fruit, flower and vegetable garden, she knows as she planned and made it for them!
The other two families have gardens that are.. sterile is a good word, The grass is cut, there are a few things in tubs. But there is nothing to cut and smell or cut and eat. She knows that she won't garden her allotments 'forever' but whilst there is the energy and strength to do so, she'll work these four allotment plots. Then somebody else will have the joy of taking a basket and picking 'their own'!
These plots are individually quite different. Each one has fruit trees on it but they're laid out differently and the two end ones, plots number 35 & 37, will be completely different when the job is completed of destroying old Blackberry Briars plan for plot domination!
For this is where she wants to build a Solar House. The tradional green house, as you know, it is not actually ideal for our English sun, the sun is too low for too many months to work properly. Over fifty years ago she recalls seeing the two greenhouses that belonged to a family friend, Priscilla, they were a different shape to 'normal' ones and she asked her why it was like this. "It is all to do with the angle of the sun" was the answer! Priscilla's grapes and melons were lengendary and she grew salad all through the winter!
Then, within the past five years, she found and read a book by an American author who echoed Priscilla's words and went into much further detail! Eureka.. so no overseas summer holiday for her this year. The next phase is to dig out the blackberry and raspberry roots, to turn over the soil and clear it of all weeds. All this is needed as preparation for building the Solar house which she wants to have up and running for next Spring.
Having left early and coming home late.. I was quite prepared to be fierce and get Beaky to give her a nip but wise Beaky said "hey-up, there's something smelly delicious in her basket" and there was!
Coming home via a small Middle-Eastern store who do tasty barbecued chicken at the weekend, she had chosen the most golden one, he had wrapped it carefully in two heat bags, she had bought a tiny cucumber as a treat (bribe) for me and two pots of hummus.
The herbs were snipped into small pieces, olive oil, raspberry (from our own canes) vinegar, salt and pepper were put on top, she scissor cut the hot chicken in two and placed it on top of the herbs.
Yumpy-dumpy! Ain't nothing better than a hot barbequed chicken when you've been working hard all day. Beaky and I made short work of the bones with the flesh and gristle. Then we ate jewels of scarlet balls of heavenly deliciousness and black as night Ribena balls! "The white ones aren't ready yet", she said.. who cares, thought I as I munched on a red currant! Then I ate most of two large slices of the baby cucumber.. crisp and crunchy and wet.. very slurpy indeed!
Much work was done, she's pruned the cherry trees that have fruited and cut off the long shoots of all the other stone fruit trees but needs a short ladder to get at the two naughty plum trees who are playing 'Reach for the Sky', "no plum.. you weren't planted just for you to grow to twenty feet high and wave your fruit around out of picking reach!"
The cut grass was raked up, growth cleared from underneath the gang of six ~ three Stella cherry trees, one Morello cherry, a Green Gage and a Victoria plum and pruned back a Rosamundi Rose who was reverting to a wild rose.
After painting all the fruit trees with white latex paint and replaced all the mothballs around the base of each tree, the next section of work which will be working on one plot at a time.
Starting on plot 41: To finish clearing out underneath the fruit trees and to check the tree guards. Tidy up the peonies who have flowered, tie string around the the stalks and leaves to keep them in upright bunches.
That was her longest day.. the perfect day for the longest day.. our Summer Solstice 2015. How did you spend your Solstice?
Gee Gee Parrot.
June 22nd, 2015
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