Busy Garden in Spring

Busy in the Greenhouse...

March and April are always busy times in the greenhouse. With 47 planned sowings over an 8 week period, all requiring protection from the weather, every available space soon starts to be utilised. In addition, our propensity towards more delicate produce, such as tomatoes, peppers and sweetcorn, all of which require some heat to aid germination mean that the conservatory also fills up very fast.


... and in the Conservatory


In fact, for the first time ever, I’ve even got 2 pots germinating in the fridge (these, of course, don’t need heat to germinate, and ironically, it’s not cold enough outside…). Many of these plants have to remain inside until the risk of frost has passed. Some will be hardened off for a couple of weeks in the coldframe, and some, such as the runner beans will be risked for a planting in mid-May and protected with fleece. But for most of the tender plants, they will spend their first months being shuffled around the greenhouse, potted up along the way. Of course this is the price I have to pay when I insist on sowing the majority of crops in pots and modules. It’s not that they won’t grow satisfactorily if sown directly outdoors, but the crop is later, germination is less predicable and is subject to greater risk from pests.

Last year’s sowings were really chaotic. I made the mistake of sowing every crop as early as possible hoping to get an extended growing season, which meant that my busy sowing period ran from the middle of February. Many plants had to endure an extra month in pots before they could be planted out. I always thought that it was a little ambitious, but as I kept telling myself, last year was just an experiment to test the boundaries and see what we could do.

This backfired big-time when a late and unexpected frost hit in the middle of April, just 2 days after I had transferred my 60 tomato plants from the conservatory. They were 12” tall and quite leggy due to the lack of quality light and just couldn’t survive any longer indoors without permanent damage. So, along with my peppers, chillis and courgettes, they were transferred to the Greenhouse. Surprisingly, the peppers and chillis survived the frost attack, but failed to thrive when they finally fruited in the summer. The tomatoes and courgettes were decimated. I managed to save just a token number, which were carefully nursed back to health, bearing permanent scars of the unforgiving weather for all to see. I immediately made another sowing, but it was now very late in the season for tomatoes, and my crop would be badly affected. I resorted to buying 3 Sungold plants from the garden centre, just enough for a single growbag, to give me that early harvest until my own crop was ready.

For a number of reasons, I have been spacing my sowing out this season. Obviously, I didn’t want to be caught out like that again, but there were other crops that were sown early that just didn’t thrive or had to be re-sown, all contributing to the uncertainty and clutter in the greenhouse. For those that did thrive, I found I had regular gluts of produce, even with the minor concession I had made to successional sowing. Of course, this really is something that is difficult to predict, reliant on many things such as weather, variety and knowledge of your own plot, so I wasn’t at all surprised, but this year I’m taking the successional sowing more seriously with fewer plants, a greater number of plantings and timed further apart hopefully this problem can be resolved. But of course the primary driver for this ‘little and often’ approach was due to Alex’s arrival, and the uncertainty that lay around it. To be honest, I didn’t know if I would have any time at all to spend in the garden this year, but as it happens, it all seems to be slotting together quite nicely.

This ‘little and often’ approach has had an unexpected and beneficial side effect. As it provides what is effectively an extended sowing season, hardy plants such as beetroot, spinach, kohl rabi and turnip are leaving the greenhouse just as tender crops are being sown, thus freeing up much needed space.

Now I’m just off to transplant my peas…

Out with the old...

In February I reviewed the Purple Sprouting Broccoli. It looked sad and weak as the wind battered stems lay across the ground. The plants looked worse because the pigeons had started to strip off the old leaves a few weeks before hand and they were now shielded underneath a force field of netting. However, I couldn’t help think that this was yet another brassica crop that was doomed to fail. After all, I was due to start harvesting it in a couple of weeks but there was nothing but old leaf. I gave it a late feed of poultry manure and let it be. I checked my planting schedule for ‘bed 21’ to find that the broccoli was to be replaced by Garlic at the end of March. Well, I’d give it as long as I could, but I wasn’t expecting much. By early March new leaf growth had started. Probably stimulated by the additional feeding and the milder weather the young greens where quite prolific in the centre and small broccoli heads were starting to develop. I didn’t really have time to let them develop any further. Once the central head is cut, the broccoli would start to produce side shoots and more greens. I cut the heads there and then, hoping that the few weeks remaining would be enough for another crop.


Purple Sprouting Broccoli

The young heads were very small, and not purple at all, but a pale creamy green. From the half dozen plants that I had harvested, I had enough for a meal for 3, plus enough greens for the same again. I walked down towards the house with my harvest – the last crop of 2004. Always one for trying my produce, I popped a leaf into my mouth. ‘No, this can’t be right!’ I thought as I chewed away, ‘ Spring greens are tough and bitter, but these are tender and sweet – like the heart of a good Savoy.’ I immediately tried one of the broccoli spears – ‘Unbelievable – sweet, creamy, subtle. Almost like.. asparagus!’. I couldn’t believe it – just a couple of weeks before hand I was considering consigning these to the compost heap as a bad bet. But now, after 11 months of cultivation I would have been satisfied if I didn’t get another harvest from them, this one cut had made it all worth while.

How best to show off this wonderful crop… Not really a difficult question. With Pauline around I was on for cooking a vegetarian dish anyway, and the best way to promote these would be in a broccoli and mushroom risotto.

I’ve taken 2 subsequent harvests from the sideshoots. These were purple and much more abundant. Although the flavour was nothing to rival that first cut, but still better than you can get from the supermarket. The bed has since been fed with a high nitrogen fertiliser and the plan changed to plant the garlic in a new location. The broccoli has been given a reprieve – potentially until the middle of May when it will be replaced with Celeriac, although I’ll be surprised if I get any more cropping past the end of April.


Broad Beans Flowering in April

My Broad Beans have obviously developed something of a cult following. As you can see, they are flowering away quite merrily and the majority have survived the mixed winter weather with a tolerable attrition rate. Hopefully, we should be on for a good crop in a couple of months.




Mushroom & Broccoli Risotto (serves 3)

This is an excellent way to use up those old mushrooms left over in the fridge – they have an excellent full flavour, but a dreadful texture. Alternatively, replace them with a packet of dried porcini, finely chopped and soaked for 15 mins in boiling water. Retain the liquid to use instead of some of the stock. Fresh broccoli only requires a minimum of cooking to retain the flavour and texture. When cooked, it should be dark green in colour and retain a degree of crunch.

1 onion, chopped
1 oz butter
1 leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
6-8 oz old mushrooms, cleaned
4 oz fresh mushrooms with a good flavour, e.g. shitake or brown chestnut, sliced
mixed herbs, bruised & chopped
9 oz Arborio Rice
1 glass dry white wine
1 ½ pt hot vegetable stock
8 oz fresh sprouting Broccoli spears
freshly ground black pepper to season


· Melt the butter in a large pan with a drop of oil, to prevent burning.
· Add the onions and sweat off until translucent.
· Add the garlic & leeks and cover, continuing to sweat gently.
· Place the old mushrooms in a food processor and chop very finely. Stir into the onion mix, along with the sliced shitake mushrooms and herbs. Season with some ground black pepper. Continue to cook for a couple of minutes with the lid on.
· Remove the lid and stir in the rice. Ensure that is it coated with the buttery mushroom liquor and cook gently for 2 minutes.
· Add the white wine and boil hard for 1 minute until all the alcohol has evaporated.
· Add about 1/3rd of the stock, bring to the boil stirring regularly, then turn down to a simmer.
· Regularly stir the rice, adding additional stock as necessary. Do not let the rice stick to the base of the pan.
· The rice will be almost cooked after approx 20 minutes. Add a little more stock and stir again. Place the broccoli on top of the rice and replace the lid. The broccoli will cook in 3 – 5 minutes in the steam. Stir once or twice to prevent sticking.


Add the Broccoli to the risotto

· Once cooked, the rice will retain a little bite – it shouldn’t be soft and fluffy. The risotto should be creamy in texture, but not wet. There should be no excess liquid in the pan.
· Season with ground black pepper and serve with a strong grated cheese.

By Special Request

Alex

Nag, Nag, Nag…

Since Alex was born, all I seem to get from certain people (yes, you know who you are,) is whinging. “What’s happening? What’s she been doing? Where are the photos? Why haven’t you updated your blog?”

Advanced data mining techniques have determined the demographic profile of these people to be single white females who have no children, working in the Finance sector, named Michelle.

My response to these questions is quite straightforward, although the uncensored version is probably not publishable. I had committed to maintain this blog on a monthly basis, and this I have continued to do. We appreciate everyone’s interest in Alex’s progress, but over the past few weeks we have been concentrating on more pressing things, all baby related, and have struggled with such luxuries as sleeping and remembering to eat. Consequently maintaining this blog on a more frequent basis hasn’t really rated. However, as things are starting to settle down into something of a routine I finally find myself with time to provide an update on what’s been happening over the last few weeks.

We couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital. We had planned to come home a day earlier, but overnight complications with the breastfeeding highlighted another day would be beneficial to all parties. Unfortunately our plan for an early get-away on the Wednesday was scuppered by the fact that half the hospital wanted to be discharged at the same time, so we didn’t leave before 5:00pm. This is, of course, just a money spinning trick of the local hospital, encouraging you to pump extortionate amounts of money the ‘pay and display’ in order that they can subsidise their inadequately funded health services.


Coming Home

As we left the hospital, I was struck by 2 surprises. I had anticipated feelings of fear & trepidation – how could they just let you walk out of the maternity ward after a couple of days with a real live baby? But no, I was overcome with a feeling that everything was OK, and how natural it all felt. This was very unexpected. The second surprise was just how heavy a car seat is to carry, even for a short distance and with no baby. Obviously a gap in the market here to be exploited.


The first couple of weeks were, well let’s just say ‘up and down’. You really are thrown in at the deep end of a very reactive situation, and boy, is that learning curve steep! 20 minutes to change that first nappy, 30 minutes to get her properly dressed, every minute of the day (and night) is spent focused on the baby, and you have no time for anything else. You’ll do anything to stop her from crying, and are so grateful when she finally falls asleep.



Great When She's Asleep

Of course, this kind of existence is not sustainable, and you must ‘Evolve or Die’.


Not so good when she's awake...

Fortunately for all concerned, the former prevailed, thanks to the assistance of friends & relatives.


Help from Grandad

When things were at their lowest, we were forced to do the one thing that we had been dreading – go out. For 2 weeks we had been shut away inside, but now needs must (we had run out of milk), we must face the outside world. Of course, in a way I had been looking forward to this moment for 9 months - at last I could legitimately claim my ‘Parent & Child’ premium parking space at the supermarket. But how were we going to cope? Alex wouldn’t stay quiet for more than a few minutes and needed feeding and changing so often we should have put her on a conveyor belt. This was one of those situations when your fears are totally unfounded, and ‘problems’ that you foresee are blown totally out of proportion. This happened to be the most relaxing day we had had for 2 weeks. As soon as she got into the car, Alex was fast asleep. She was paraded around Tescos, collecting comments from admirers on the way, waking up every now and then for a few seconds just to fall asleep again. That evening she fell asleep at 9:30 and slept solidly until 3:00am – a record which she still hasn’t broken.


We Like Shopping

We were quite surprised to find that Alex actually liked her bath times. Our research had indicated that she would scream her head off until she realised that bath time was an opportunity to splash water all over Daddy, and only then would it be fun.


And We Like Bath Time

With all the skill of a finely honed Formula One pit crew, nappy changes are now happening in seconds. Unfortunately (and to continue the F1 analogy), the FIA are about to change the rules again, doing away with the high-cost disposables and bringing in the reusable ‘cloth’ option, sacrificing speed and race predictability in favour of environmentally friendly option with the long term cost savings. Unlike the FIA changes, this will introduce greater downforce and make Alex look like a diminutive sumo wrestler.


New Surroundings

In the last week things have definitely moved on a pace. Alex is now rapidly approaching 8lb and has outgrown her first sets of clothing. Some of the screaming has been replaced by cooing, and she starts to take interest in things around her. However, she has already indicated that she is fed up with the electioneering and retains some of her best screams for the evening news.

As of Tuesday, she was officially registered as Alexandra Elizabeth Bonfield – in ASDA, of all places. I mean, I know that supermarkets are branching out, but this is ridiculous!


Dressed To Go Out

A Month In...

I remember my first driving lesson as though it were yesterday (…this is, of course, an exaggeration – over the past few weeks, time has become somewhat blurred, especially the night time, and I no longer know when yesterday really was…).

I was sitting in a red Metro with my AA driving instructor. He had collected me from my house and we had taken a quiet back road into Harden. We exchanged a few pleasantries on the way, talking about the weather, my previous driving experience, etc, and after a few miles, he pulled over. “Do you know what a clutch is?” he said. It was clear from his tone that I needed to show some degree of rudimentary automotive knowledge before he would let me behind the wheel.

For the next 10 minutes I lectured him on the fundamentals of the manual clutch operation, including my opinions on its inefficiencies, particularly in relation to the ‘human element’, and my surprise that after all these years of improvement in other areas of torque transfer and control mechanisms, such as differentials and viscous couplings, that a more appropriate solution hadn’t yet been adopted as a standard for everyday driving. I followed this up with my opinions on the benefits of automatic transmission and my lack of comprehension over its adoption in the UK, unlike in the States, where manuals are virtually unheard of. (A naïve view this may have been with the additional cost implications of an auto, but a view that I back to this day. After all, I’m currently driving 18,000 miles a year, mostly on a combination of dual carriageway and inner city roads at rush hour. Although I love to drive, this constant stop-start motoring isn’t exactly relaxing, but switching to an auto made the trip an absolute dream, and the benefits far outweighed the additional running costs. After all, is there really a point to driving a manual unless you have a performance car? I really don’t think so. Give yourself a break & trade it in for an auto next time. You’ll be glad you did. I digress.)

After I had finished answering that one question, my instructor, looking rather shell-shocked, decided that he didn’t need to ask me any more of his questions, put down his clipboard and indicated that it was time to start driving. We swapped seats and I carefully followed his instructions. I had been practising with Kath for several weeks – cruising around quiet car parks on Sunday mornings, random pop quizzes on the Highway code, that kind of thing. But somehow, this was different. I was driving in a different car, on a road, with an instructor. Somehow this made everything more real, and more scary.

I was focusing hard. Remembering everything that I had previously learned and read. I was so pleased that I had pulled away so smoothly – no bunny hopping down the road for me, oh no! My instructor would quickly recognise that I had potential. I was zipping down the road at 15 mph and constantly making steering adjustments. I thought I was doing quite well, but it was like driving a dodgem.

“We are going to speed up in a moment” said the instructor. Speed up? I was struggling to keep the car on the right side of the road at this speed. This was all a lot harder than I had expected. I was doing fine practising in the car parks, but somehow this was very different.

“How far in front of the car are you focusing?” he asked. This was not something that I had actually considered. I thought about what he had said and then realised that I was staring down the bonnet on the car and focusing on the road about 5 yards ahead.
“Try and focus a little further down the road. In a short time you’ll automatically focus 30 yards in front of the car. You need to loosen your grip on the steering wheel” I looked at my grip on the wheel – my knuckles were white. I tried to relax my grip and continued on.

Down the road was a sign for a sharp turn to the right, and painted on the road was the word ‘SLOW’. As a law-abiding learner driver, I duly applied the brakes. “You really don’t have to slow down for this corner – I know that’s what the sign says, but it’s aimed at drivers travelling faster than 10 mph. I know there’s a lot to think about, but you are trying too hard. What you need to do is relax. Take one hand off the wheel”

My instructor spent the next 10 minutes getting me to relax. If I focus on things further down the road, I have more time to respond and have a much smoother driving experience. I don’t need to worry about what’s happening immediately in front of the car – those minor speed and steering corrections become second nature. In that instant of realisation, my driving lesson changed. All of a sudden everything became more relaxed and easier. Everything just flowed.

No doubt you are wondering why I’m recalling these experiences, Ronnie Corbett style, as I sit here in my armchair, wearing my golf sweater and big glasses.

These memories hadn’t crossed my mind for years. But after Alex was born, all of a sudden there they were. To me, a clear parallel (to others, maybe not so clear, but after all, they’re my memories…). You know bringing up a baby for the first time is going to be hard. Everybody says so. You’ve read it in all the books. You’ve ‘practised’ on other children. You know what to expect – the sleep deprivation, the lack of routine, the anguish, the stress, the disruption, the change. You’ve done everything that you can - you are as prepared as you can be. But you can never be prepared. It doesn’t matter what people say or how much support they give, you’re there all alone, staring down the bonnet, trundling along at 15 mph, holding on to the wheel as tightly as you can. You know you need to go faster, but you just can’t do any more without losing control. Fortunately, as with the driving, all of this starts to pass when you feel that you can start to relax. Start to accept some of the change and loss of control. Only then can you move on.

Alex is now a month old. Over the past week things have begun to turn. A pattern of behaviour is starting to emerge, and with that the opportunity to plan and get on with the day-to-day things in life, all the things that were taken for granted only a few weeks ago. The support that we have received over the past few weeks has been unparalleled, and without it things would have been harder. But the new realisation of parenthood is something that you’ve got to adapt to yourself in your own time, and anybody who tells you that bringing up your first child in those early weeks isn’t going to be that bad really doesn’t know what they’re talking about!