After the Storm

 

First Catch Your Beetroot

This is not a recipe for pickled beetroot. This is an experiment in making pickled beetroot based on a recipe for pickled beetroot.

First catch your beetroot

Washed, topped and tailed, we had about a kilo.

We simmered this very gently for an hour.

Meanwhile, we toasted about 4tsp of mixed pickling spice.

We added a mixture of red wine vinegar and pickling vinegar, because that's what we had. Total 700mg. Both have the 6% strength, which is necessary to preserve the beetroot.

We peeled the hot roots over a bowl of cold water - to make them handleable.

Then chopped the beetroot small enough to fit the jars. The jars and lids were washed and sterilised in a 'cool' oven. We filled the jars, leaving a space so that all the veg will be covered in vinegar and still with enough room for an air gap. Then we added a teaspoon of rocksalt.

Finally we filled the jars with the hot spiced vinegar and screwed the lids on.

The lids are of the 'tamper proof' type, that pop reassuringly to a concave shape as the jars cool.

Now we have to leave them alone for a couple of weeks.

Then eat.

If it tastes okay, put labels on and call it a recipe.

Remembrance

Unbelievably, a year has passed since Pippy died.  

What is one to do?  The World keeps its orbit, seasons turn, and we have little choice but to turn with it, too.  Strangely, air still enters my lungs, blood still pumps around my body, and the mundanity of ordinary existence pushes us along, as unstoppable as the whole spinning World.  All I can do is mark the passing of time after time has stopped.  

So, anniversaries, significant, trivial, public and private, are marked.  I trundle on, like a midnight workman laying traffic cones from the back of a slow-moving lorry.  I drop another cone and watch it recede, my back to the future.  

A year of cones is in view and each one is distinct, for the time-being: our first Christmas without her, her birthday come and gone, our wedding day photos reviewed again, familiar, put away, but now infinitely precious.  Maybe habit will inure me, but I doubt it. And I know, for as long as my truck rolls on, there will always be new cones to drop.

Appearances

My neighbour, Bridget, loves this time of year, when the leaves start to turn: all those autumn colours.  But when John Keats spoke of 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun, 

I don't think he was contemplating his rhubarb patch.  I mean, face it: have you ever seen such a flat and depressing sight in a garden?

I took this picture on Saturday 17 October, as the anniversary of Pippy's death drew close.  Feeling flat already, I didn't need this.  The veg plot looks like it has given up.  Which indeed it has, in a manner of thinking; the season of growth is over.  

But I must remind myself that appearances are deceptive.  According to one neighbour (who is old enough to know) the rhubarb patch is over sixty years old.  Really, it's just resting, drawing it's energy into the succulent roots.  Until the days grow warm again, it bides its time. As I must do, we all must do.  Who would have thought that there is wisdom in a flacid rhubarb plant?

And still, I got a few apples from the Cox tree (for non-natives, this is a variety called Cox's orange pippin. It's sweet and sharp - like an orange. A pippin is an apple grown from a pip.)

I made a pie.

The skin is often scabby and mottled, but, like these were, beautiful inside.  Nature's admonishment to shallow people, ha ha.

Oh, alright then, John. Lift us up.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Kippered

I kipperized the neighbourhood this afternoon by burning the last bits of the old shed.  Seemed like a good idea at the time...

...but it got very smoky with all that semi-rotten wet wood.

Restituted Rockery

Much overgrown lemon balm and chameleon plant removed, replanted with heather, variegated ajuga, and bits and bobs, including herbs from various pots, using my traditional planting technique of 'push it in and see what grows'.

The last photo in particular is not very prepossessing, but just you wait!

Low Down and Bertie

Have you ever smelled a bee? Well I have.  

Genie and I had two goes at restoring a very overgrown rockery this weekend.  I started by weeding around a hylotelephium sieboldii, which a rather large (big enough to have a name, but not a national insurance number) bumble bee was taking great interest in, probably because it didn't have to spell hylotelephium sieboldii.  

Anyway, disturbed, the bee took off, circled once in the manner of a professional navigator taking bearings on the Sun, and flew across my face, giving a pleasing ear-to-ear stereophonic effect, complete with Doppler shift.  I got a distinct whiff of honey!  I could hardly believe my nose. But it did it again a few minutes later.  "You've been at the juice, mate," I thought. But whether that was directed at the bee or myself, I'm not sure.

Hylotelephium sieboldii is indigenous to Japan, but has found a home as an introduced species in the Baltic States where, presumably, there are a lot of happy bees and bemused botanists.   This is it (thank you, Genie, for the photo):

Since its name is such a mouthful, I'll call it 'hi-lo', and the bee I've called 'Bertie'. 🐝

Onions Assemble!

Having left the onions to cure for about three weeks, the outer skins have browned and the leaves dried, so we made two onion strings.  The sizes were very variable and none were very big in this variety.  Still, it's satisfying to have them hanging up, ready for the pot.  More onions next year I think.  Here's Genie stringing along:

Passion Flower

The passion flower on the pergola is in bloom.  It was affected badly by our early frosts this year and by the dry spring weather.  But it's nice to see it in flower.

Of all the flower in this garden, it's this one that reminds me of Glen the most.  See would have appreciated it's delicacy, the understated colours and the slight quirky, whirly symmetry.  

Dishonesty!

That's not honesty, you fool! It's a hydrangea, and you should have known it. Still, nobody pointed out my mistake.

Shed Replacement, Phase 2: Demolition

Reluctant to start, but the shed is empty now, so demolition is waiting on me and nothing else.  There is almost nothing salvageable - just the window stay.  We got the about half the wood bagged up for the tip, and the rest collapsed down.  

Going...

Going...

Not quite gone.

Trying the doorframe for size is into the middle lawn:

Shed Replacement, Phase 1: Emptying

We empires the shed of all it's contents, then redistributed:

Bikes from outhouse bike shed to outshouse back store

Shelves, garden games, deckchairs and large tools to (ex)bike shed

Hand tools to outhouse 'potting shed'

Furniture to kitchen and sun room

The rest to the bin.

'Get some fresh air,' I said,

Get some sunlight, some vitamin D...

Onions

The onions came out of damp, claggy, ground. I should have waited for a day. The next day was dry, and harvesting would have been easier.  The onions were very variable in size, with the largest being at the centre of the patch.  Why?  I can only speculate.  I thought I had watered evenly.  Compost dug in last year? I don't think it was so uneven.  Anyway here's a couple of pictures. I have to leave them to cure for two weeks before plaiting them into a string or two.

...and cleaned up:

Blackcurrant Wine-to-be

I started a brew two weeks ago.  The blackcurrants were frozen, which my recipe says is good because it helps to release the juice.  I'm a little skeptical of this claim l, though. The berries freeze into little bullets and are still quite firm on defrosting.  I thought pouring boiling sugar-water on them would be enough to defrost and break them up a little, but getting the juice mashed out wasn't to easy.  I'll defrost them properly another time.  When I racked the 'must' into a demijohn the colour was good, and the flavour very fruity, with some body.  Recipe says to leave it alone for 4-6 months, with a similar period in the bottle.  Not sure I will be able to wait that long!

Beans, I Said There Would Be Beans

Planted late, after the first efforts failed due to my over-watering, thewe little chaps have produced some beans!  The plants are small, so I wonder how big they would have been if they first plant had got going.  Picked the first few beans to freeze, along with some from their much taller cousins.  

The taller beans have topped out on the beanpole version of St. Paul's Cathedral, at least, but are thin and spindly. 

Another victim of late planting and the peculiar weather this year: baking hot spring and soggy summer.

Still, beans!

Just for Today

Some Flowers

This is Pearly Everlasting Anaphasis margaritacea in one of the borders.  It was threatening to invade the lawn earlier in the year, but had its ambition trimmed by the rotary mower, and now seems to be putting its energies into flowering.  It's living up to its pearly name in this photo, taken in the evening after a damp and cloudy day. Like many white blooms, it seems to shine in the early twilight.

Sharing this bed is Crocosmia aurea, also called montbretia.  In previous year this has grown invasively, but not so much this year.  Coscosmia means smelling like saffron. Both this and saffron are members of the crocus sub-family and related to freesia.  Glen and I both liked freesia when we lived in our first house, I remember.

I went to a garden centre with K and G at the weekend.  I wanted a tall plant to complement the dark foliage of the low-growing bugle in two large pots.  The bugle looked quite sickly and mildewed in the spring, but has recovered well.  We found an ornamental grass, Pennisetum, Karley Rose, by name. It looks a little weedy at the moment, but I'm expecting great things from it.

Some Unspectacular Successes

Traditionally, we have used plant pots as a kind of botanical torture device, our patio littered with the twisted, dessicated remains of our containered victims.  This year, among the debris, there have been one or two happy successes, nothing to write home about, but I draw modicum of satisfaction, nonetheless.  Some mint, grown from seed and looking verdant:

Re-potted cuttings of sage, rosemary and lavender:

Rosie

What? More?

Having just dealt with last year's blackcurrants, I find the, er, current crop is almost ready.  This picture is from last Sunday:

Genie and I picked 3½kg on Thursday evening, washed boxed and frozen.  After being cooped up in the house on video calls all day, this was a welcome change of scene and task.  So, should it be wine or jam or both?

There is at least another kg on the bushes.

Juicy!

A Little Unfinished Business

Finally got round to dealing with some of last year's blackcurrants, which have been taking up space in the freezer.  Hope you enjoy out little video.

Home Produce.

This weekend was very wet and put me down in the dumps, not wanting to do anything.

So I didn't.

Through I did start some strawberry wine, with Genie's help.  I had just enough strawbs for a gallon, and just enough enthusiasm to take photos for a video (watch this space).

The dish on the left contains wild strawberries - a freebie from the garden!

Genie and I went for a walk to check out our local allotments.  They put us to shame. I console myself that our garden is convalescing, and not up to full production yet, though I know this is a little conceit.

The shed still looks at me dolefully.  It's no good having big shed fantasies if I don't do something about it - I must have a proper go at estimating cost and finalising plans.

This evening (Tuesday), tackled last year's frozen blackcurrants, and made about 8 lbs.  Again, video to follow.

A dramatic Pot-shot.