Garden

Garden habits and other lessons in life

April 25, 2018

Chelsea’s annual glitterati of gardening is just a few weeks away. A cornucopia of the great, good and glamorous of the horticultural world.

Can’t beat it for armchair gardening.

You can turn horticultural pundit in the comfort of your home. Opining on growers, blooms, garden design and revelling in the gardening secrets of celebrities. There may be RHS spin-offs but none captures the glamour of gardening like the real Chelsea Flower Show.

Of course, I’ve never actually been to ‘Chelsea’. Not sure I want to break the telegenic spell shuffling amongst the crowds.

That’s the thing about gardening, is it’s less glamorous than the curated world of gardening on TV, in books and social media would have you believe. Even gardens you can visit are manicured for show.

Nothing wrong with putting on a good show. You’ve got to have something to aspire to. Although a little more small print might save us mere mortals from despondency and abject failure.

The biggest lessons in life can be found in a garden. Literally.

What lives, what dies and what thrives. If you want lessons in humility you could do yourself a favour and take up gardening.

Every year I’m more respectful of folk that live off the land. People who farm land so others can eat. Of growers of plants for their beauty and enjoyment. To grow successfully on a consistent basis takes skills, know-how and tenacity to keep going when nature turns against you.

I’m reading ‘A Wood of One’s Own’ by Ruth Pavey – perfect for us romantic ruralists. She buys a neglected orchard and woodland and sets about making it her own. Oh, such naivety – when it comes to mother nature she has its own game for you to play with increasing levels of difficulty.

Techies might think they invented the ultimate games but nature has been upping its game from the start.

This past year has been pretty challenging gardening at home. Weird weather patterns, erratic gardening schedules do not make for horticultural harmony. And just as you get one bit sorted there’s something else that needs your attention.

For us, there’s always a mix of home gardening and land management. Infestations of gorse, bramble and grass grubs can almost render me to tears of frustration. It’s always a toss-up between deadheading and preening or warding off the inevitable march of nature’s thugs. Wielding heavy duty machinery and careful tending.

There’s little glamour in that.

Just a grounding in the laws of nature. Grappling with the urgent and important.

For a novice gardener with a low tolerance for minutiae, it’s the ultimate challenge.

Great gardening is a habit. A discipline. A mashup of science, arts and crafts. But unlike other creative pursuits, you can pack away in a cupboard till inspiration strikes again. A garden won’t be packed away – at least not for long.

At your peril, you leave your plot unattended and untended. It’s a salutary lesson if you dare.

Depending on the time of year and unattended garden can turn feral in hours. It’s how courgettes turn to marrows. How buds turn to blooms. Seedlings turn to weed infestation. How bunches of grapes, bushes of berries and prized strawberries will disappear with the birds.

Turn your back for long and your well-tended garden can succumb to drought, be wind broken or pelted by raindrops. Your beanstalks and sunflowers can break free from their anchors.

All those brassicas carefully cocooned doesn’t stop butterflies landing nor their offspring feasting. Canes designed to give your delphiniums lessons in deportment can fail too. Asparagus tips poking through the earth can climb dizzying proportions in the blink of an eye.

However much protection you plan. How much careful labelling you do. Turn your back in on your patch and it will sulk and rebel to teach you a lesson, or three.

Amongst the pain, pestilence and anguish there are the bright spots. The horticultural wins. The garden delights that spark new optimism and fortitude. Or nothing more primal than the gardening habit that can’t be broken.

After a soul-crushing spring and a drought-ridden summer, it was two buckets of earthy crops that have worked their magic this year. The humble spud and distinctly unglamorous carrots have re-grounded my gardening habit.

Having cast the carrot seed more in frustration and buried the potatoes in defiance of the weather gives the garden the last laugh at my expense.

Like a sugar addict to the chocolate bar and an over buyer to the shopping mall, I’m heading back to reclaim the kitchen garden. To begin the circuitous process of the seasons and cycles of growing.

To take the entertainment of gardening into the real world again.

Rural idylls don’t become so unless you live them. Romance is dead without true love. Gardens cease to be unless you keep creating. It’s nature’s way to resist and be recalcitrant to test your commitment and staying power.

After 10 years or serious gardening, I still feel a beginner. Every season is a start of something unique. A chance to dig in and begin again.

New starts

July 26, 2015

Cough, cough. Cough, cough. Excuse me whilst I let the clouds of dust settle for a moment ……..

Snowdrops are some of the most determined yet delicate plants to have in the garden, a symbol of how nature battles on regardless to signal that new seasons are on the horizon. Time for new starts.

These snowdrops were crying out to be shared with the world a short while before the house sitters moved in and we start a new travel adventure for a few weeks. Seems a good a time as any to see if I can rekindle my blogging life as a domestic executive that has been so illusive since I wrote my last post.

So here goes…….

The State of Winter Gardening

July 11, 2014

A month ago the kitchen garden was dishevelled and in serious need of a sprucing up. Although the warm and wet weather was a nutritious boost to the winter vegetables it was the weeds and wayward seedlings that were growing like crazy. The paths looked almost as productive as the garden beds.

The temperate climate here means the garden never truly hibernates making gardening an all year round occupation. Whilst fellow vegetable gardeners in the northern hemisphere hunker down with their seed catalogues dreaming of untold food harvests in winter as they sit in front of the fire, down here we still primp and preen our gardens, battling natures wilder habits and kidding ourselves that we can maintain some sense of order and horticultural standards.

Unless the weather is too unbearable, I perambulate my usual route around our Kaitoke acres. First I keep count that there are still only five chickens roosting and our resident pukekos have not snuck in to enjoy the higher class accommodation. Walking through the orchard area we are vigilante to the young trees from breaking their anchors and being pushed around by the fierce winds. The state of the kitchen garden only worries me when I see crops missing signalling bunny invaders are at work, otherwise I’ve learned to turn a blind eye to its buffeted state. We return to the house only after standing up all the plants in the nursery area that despite out best efforts to shelter them always seem to take a whipping.

It’s usually the only walk that the bassets will bound ahead of me with Fortnum barking in frustration at Mason who is running too fast for him to catch. Of course they are little help in the garden aside from their big basset paws having remarkably effective bed flattening capabilities. More often than not they spend much of their time snuggling up and begging for neck rubs.

For all it’s ramshackle state, the garden still provides us with plenty of vegetables and herbs to see us through the winter. Since advance planning for dinner is not always our strongest point you can often find me ferreting around sporting a head torch to dig up a few carrots or gather in some winter greens. Thankfully it won’t be long before I add seed tray tending to the daily chores which is the best reminder of all that the garden will soon shed it’s winter state and be blooming once again.

Seasonal Transitions of the Culinary Kind

April 23, 2014

As if having a significant birthday this week wasn’t enough of a reminder of the passing of time, there is plenty of evidence in the kitchen garden to remind me that the summer growing season is over. Spring is always a race against nature to lay out the crops and get them settled in their summery homes. Autumn has a similar frenetic pace but this time bringing in the harvest and getting ahead for winter’s bounty. Try as I may, I never seem to keep pace with the changing seasons.

Having gone from drought to monsoon conditions over the last few weeks it’s been a battle with the weeds and previously ungerminated seeds who have shown an albeit late but nevertheless indecent haste to kick into life. Thankfully I saved the bean and sweet pea seeds from their pods for planting next Spring before the worst of the wet weather arrived. This is the second year of saving seeds so it feels less like a novelty and more of a milestone in my kitchen gardening history. Next Spring I shall be growing a second generation crops. That is if the mice don’t break into the seed tin and plunder my stores.

Once again the driest of summers has made it a tough year for getting winter crops underway. Also, my cold frames were being refurbished so I’ve resorted to buying in seedlings for much of my winter greens. Thankfully the carrots finally came good even if the celeriac, parsnips, beetroot and salsify have stubbornly refused to play ball.

It is a shame that the not one of the gardening books tells the true story about kitchen gardening. If you believe all that you read you’d think that there is perfect formulation for growing your own food. If there is, I’ve yet to crack the horticultural code. But we’ve eaten well this summer so I can’t complain. The last of the tomatoes are ripening before being roasted and pulped into a rich sauce that will see us through until the first of the fresh tomatoes next year.

My top crop award this year goes to the Aubergine (or Eggplant if you care to call them instead). For the first time ever we have enough fruit to call it a crop which is wonderful but I wish I knew what it was that made all the difference this year. Aside from the brassicas, my flop crops this year has been cucumbers (not one full grown) and raspberries (I think I may have cut back the wrong stems). The gooseberries, worcesterberries and loganberries went on strike whereas the blueberries, currants and blackberries surpassed themselves. The figs and medlars are close to harvest in the orchard so I have that to look forward to. Although I confess I have no idea what to do with the kilos of medlars I shall be hauling up the hill.

Call me a romantic if you like but there is nothing better than sitting down to eat the food you have grown yourself. Although there is little romantic about trudging down the garden in the teeming rain to pull up a few carrots, cut herbs or pull up some greens I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is something wonderfully empowering to speed through the vegetable section of the supermarket spurning colourful displays knowing that you have your own backyard pantry at home.

Having a kitchen garden forces you to be much more creative in the kitchen too. Forced by nature to rustle up something new and tasty to eat as a reward from your hard earning gardening efforts. For nature follows the recipes in cookbooks as much as it follows the wisdom of gardening books. And, that’s half the fun.

Bountiful Resolutions

January 1, 2014

Refreshed from a week of rest and festive indulgence I am now looking down the barrel of several more weeks on domestic leave. This is the time of year when there is no time for contemplation and reflective planning but a sprint with nature and an insanely long list of domestic chores. You know all those jobs you’ve been promising you would do on a rainy day when you have plenty of time on your hands. Anyway, making New Year’s resolutions is folly and can only lend to poor mental health later in the year. Mark Twain described this beautifully in a letter in 1863.

That said, I have a set holiday homework for some of my coaching clients around resolutions and goals so I can’t return to work empty handed. Thankfully I have a few weeks up my sleeve before I have to start sharing my thoughts. Inspired by the Christmas garden harvest, my intentions are to make 2014 a “bountiful” year. A year of abundance and generosity. After all, being born in 1964, it seems right to make this year especially auspicious.

Hope that 2014 brings you good health and happiness with a sprinkling of good luck.

Summer’s delight

November 23, 2013

If the roses are anything to go by we have signs of summer. It’s true we’ve been basking in blue skies and gentle clouds with no rain for weeks but I refuse to tempt fate. Let’s just say that the view from my office window looks inviting. Thankfully as summer officially arrives I shall be free to roam the great outdoors and perhaps even tend my roses without any sense of guilt. For now the work ethic spoils all my fun, not to mention a looming project deadline. At least weeding is light relief from all the reading and the most incredible creative thoughts emerge as I do battle at ground level. I daren’t contemplate how few days are left before the Christmas celebrations. One deadline on the horizon is about all I can take. So its head down for another week and then I will most definitely be out to smell the roses.

Putting the spring into my gardening

October 13, 2013

It is a painful thwack to the head when the obvious hits me, especially when accompanied by that hateful know-it-all voice inside your head that says, “I told you so”. Professionally I’d call this having ‘insight’ but since I’m amongst friends and family I’ll admit I am just a slow learner. Or rather, I am slow to take instruction on account of the stubbornly independent streak in me that means I have to find my own way of doing things. Unsurprising the effects of such a single-minded approach results in endless frustrations when things don’t turn out quite as you would expect.

After five years of kitchen gardening, this spring seems to be better than the previous ones. Finally, the endless reading and planning for an ideal way of gardening is beginning to make sense. Also, experience has shown that there is no perfect way to produce food, and you can only do your best and hope nature helps you along the way. It does of course help to spend time in the garden to get ahead of the growing season instead of prioritising other things.

My attempts to stay in tune with natures way seem less frantic than in the past. Seeds germinated on cue, and the mice didn’t eat them as I used the conservatory for raising the seeds away from the pesky mice that visit the greenhouse. There are more plants in the beds rather than growing in the paths as I finally relented and sprayed the paths with weedkiller instead of spending hours hand weeding. There are of course things I have forgotten to plant yet like sunflowers, but I’m confident that their sprint growing abilities will see them right. I have somewhat more sweet pea seedlings than there is space in the garden so I shall experiment growing them in a pot for the veranda instead.

My big moment of realisation was that breaking down the chores in the garden is better than trying to do it all in one go. No more feeling of being overwhelmed or exhausted with it all. Small accomplishments will in time build up to a bigger achievement. I am no longer fretting the lettuce has gone to seed and the weeds are going crazy in the salad beds because if I turn around I can see the peas and beans are in the ground and starting their upward climbs. Also, the fruit has been pruned and tied down before the wind does its work and the gooseberries grow their thorny crowns. The garlic shoots look smart in orderly rows. The greenhouse is overflowing with greens and herbs so those salad beds can wait a week before getting their makeover.

It may be tempting fate so early in the season to be so satisfied, but I am going to enjoy it anyway. After all, who could resist a bit of happiness with a plate of freshly picked asparagus, spring greens and herbs for dinner, even if was blowing a southerly gale outside.

It’s nature’s way

July 29, 2013

If they were giving out tardiness badges to bloggers I’d be up there in the front of the queue. Carefully crafted in my head, this blog post was planned to celebrate one of my favourite garden rituals, the annual planting of the garlic. But, such great thoughts of creativity were rudely interrupted by another force of nature that had Wellingtonians dancing the proverbial earthquake hokey cokey.

Although the forces of gravity were a mere shrug to the Christchurch earthquake of two years ago on Sunday 17 July at 17:09 we had our very own 6.5 richter shake. This sparked its own comedy with me simultaneously hugging one basset whilst rugby tackling the other intent on chasing the invisible intruder whilst shouting @m_treanor to catch my prized china penguin that waddled precariously close to the edge of the shelf on which it sat. The shaking stopped as abruptly as it started but then came the tsunami of tweets from fellow Wellingtonians who clung to doorways, took a medicinal dram sitting under a table and reports of motion sickness from swaying in high rise apartments.

Such earthly high jinx blew a hole through our evening. Plans for a leisurely Sunday evening of chores and blogging were overtaken by an adrenaline pumped frenzy of unearthing earthquake survival packs, rounding up highly prized fragile items for safe keeping and stowing kitchen appliances for fear of a Kenwood mixer falling off the bench down onto the bassets’ heads. In such times calming measures are required so @m_treanor was put to work making fennel risotto in the hope that the constant stirring would be adequate distraction from the repetitive TV footage of shaking and cracked buildings that makes you hyperventilate if you watch it for too long.

Post quake engineers flooded into the Wellington and Marlborough regions to check buildings, rectify breakages and restore core public services. Some might say it was a gross over reaction but I’m all for erring on the side of caution. Interestingly whilst most buildings in Wellington stood up to the quakes pretty well it seems even some of the newest buildings had their internal fittings trashed with broken ceilings and water pipes or activated water sprinkler systems causing much damage and mess. Wellington was up and running for business again within 24 hours although the coffee shops won the race to trade again and maintain almost continuous service to fuel the Capital’s coffee habit.

If you are ever in some sort of public drama you can’t beat being surrounded by New Zealanders. Their laid back and no-nonsense approach to life can lighten the mood of even the darkest hours. I am always comforted by the black humour from our geoscientists who monitor and report on earthquakes bringing a human touch to what is otherwise a mass of scientific data. For all the naysayers of social media such as twitter there are real people behind those twitter feeds that reply to each tweet that they receive from curious followers. Admittedly I’m biased because I do work for GNS and they are some of the brightest people totally committed to understanding how and why the earth works in these mysterious ways.

As the after shocks continue to roll in like waves lapping on the shoreline we have all returned to normal life if a little distracted and jumpy at every bump and rumble that passes by. Thankfully nature boosted morale further by bringing blue skies and sunny days making winter seem like an abstract notion hard to associate with. Perfect weather for starting to get stuck into the planting of garlic and clearing out the kitchen garden ready for the upcoming growing season. Perfect too for a spot of basset sun bathing as the hounds kept a watchful eye on my every move playing more an ornamental than productive role but bringing a sense of calm, normality and simplicity to life. Just the way I like it most.

Settling in for Winter

June 12, 2013

In my experience planning home projects in New Zealand requires the patience of a saint and the foresight of a fashion designer. You need to be looking ahead to the next season far in advance. So whilst the sun was high in the sky I was plotting all those maintenance jobs that needed to be completed by winter. I’m not talking major extensions, just a little bit of maintenance painting, some fencing adjustments to stop them blowing away in gale winds and the installation of additional heating after accepting that wrapping yourself with a basset hound to stay warm is really not a practical proposition for another winter.

Fast forward to the onset of winter and none of my pre-winter projects had started and I was turning into a slightly manic stalker of various trades who appear to be unwilling or unable to name a date to get said work done. If I’ve learned one thing about working with skilled tradesmen in New Zealand is that they won’t be rushed and their idea of advance notice is a text saying they’ll be at our place in 20 minutes enquiring will I be home to let them in? No, that’s not quite true. The usual practice is that they’ll turn up and ring me up and tell me they’ve been to our place but we’re not in.

Lucky for me I’ve developed almost psychic powers and two weeks ago I could tell that the planets were aligning so worth a few phone calls just in case. And thankfully I was right and by the end of this week we should be done with our pre-winter projects. It will be a relief not to have to worry if a painter is going to peer through the window at the crack of dawn when I’m just contemplating my second cup of tea of the day before I emerge to meet the world.

Now is the time to be settling in for winter. An opportunity to hibernate and contemplate the projects for the next season. Or it will be when I get the garlic in the ground and mulch the rose bed, and … and …. At least I can only blame myself for the scheduling of these jobs

One chore for winter will be to prune the fruit trees which this year started to produce a reasonable amount of fruit including our medlar trees which produce the strangest looking fruits although I’m curious to know what they taste like. That’s if I can get them to ripen or blet is the technical term for ripening medlars. Sounds gross so I’m tempering my expectations accordingly. There again, that’s something I’m getting pretty good at doing these days.

All Hail Tomato Season

March 24, 2013

As the seasons change so does the Domestic Executive routine. Nightly chores include putting the chickens to bed, watering the vegetables and tucking up the tomatoes for the night in the greenhouse. New habits take a while to stick but if I want to keep my greenhouse cargo safe from evening chills then diligence must become my middle name.

We are on the homeward stretch for the summer growing season and in their usual triumphant style the tomatoes are strutting their stuff. We’re being rewarded after the early promise for the season with bucket loads of tomatoes coming off the vine each week. The tomato sauce production line is up and running and I might try a spot of no sugar chutney and sauce making over the Easter weekend.

The southern hemisphere food blogosphere is humming with tomato harvests. I’ve been particularly admiring of Sue over at Couscous and Consciousness who has been up to her eyes is in making tomato sauce and an intriguing yellow tomato and ginger conserve. Also, a fellow Backyard Pantry Gardner Sue at Five Course Garden who has found her blogging inspiration again over a bowl of tomatoes.

Looking back over my own blogging archive it seems I have something of a love hate relationships with tomatoes but it is one I would rather have than not. Even when the red harvest failed me I made the most of the green tomato glut. Nowadays the tomato sauce production is a simple and speedy operation after investing in a moulis for grinding roasted tomatoes. I’m still as romantic as ever about tomatoes being the culinary equivalent of sunshine although this year we don’t have any shortage of the real thing. But without a greenhouse I’m sure I’d still be struggling along taking to daily prayer to bring in a crop.

In the past I have been diligent in my tomato sauce making but now I take the simplest route to home-made tomato sauce. Pick, wash, halve, roast with lashings of olive oil, salt and pepper for about an hour, grind the roasted tomatoes in the moulis, freeze. Couldn’t be simpler and quicker.

When the time comes to use the tomato sauce that’s when you can get all imaginative by adding butter, garlic, herbs, spices or a touch of chilli to warm it up. I’m researching nutmeg for my course at the moment so might throw caution to the wind and add a touch of the mystical spice to bring a little psychedelic aphrodisiac to the table. No kidding!