An apple a day.....

 

 

This year has been a very good year for fruit at the allotments. Pounds of blackcurrants, gooseberries and some lovely raspberries, especially the autumn variety which have a lovely flavour.

 

But this year, the apple trees and plum trees are the starts of the show....they are absolutely laden with fruit. There's two of each, and the first apples to pick have been these - I think they're discovery apples.

  

 

The fruit trees are on the outermost edge of the allotment site about ten feet away from the road. There's lot of nettles around, so even though it wasn't cold exactly, I had a thick pair of trousers on, boots, and a long sleeved jumper and gloves on as I picked the fruit.

Oh and sunglasses, even if the sun wasn't shining.....I'm so accident prone, I tend to get caught in the eye by a rogue, sadistic branch or two.

Luckily I escaped unscathed and came home with these....

 



 

 

These are  tasty desert apples, so what am I going to do with them, plus the rest on the tree that Laura ,my friend and co conspirator at the lottie doesn't want?

 

I've already made a rather nice tarte tatin, a big waldorf salad, and have been taking some into work to eat with lunch. Well, you know what they say..."an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

 

And apparently this proverb from Victorian times is right. Well, so researchers at Oxford University said last Christmas time. Apparently, they calculated that if all adults aged 50 and over here in the UK were prescribed an apple a day , there would be 8,500 fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes each year.

 

That's good enough for me! But I need some more recipes using dessert apples instead of cooking apples. I've been looking in my two "must go to "books on fruit by the wonderful Nigel Slater and the late, great Jane Grigson, plus the Riverford Farm Book has some good apple recipes in too...but I fancy something new!

 

 

 

 

 

 What's your favourite way of using dessert apples?


As we're in the last days of August, I thought today's music track should be this - set in the last days of summer...Choices. It's performed in a garden by To Kill a King (love), Bastille (love too) and some of their friends. The song builds up from two voices and acoustic guitar to violins, cello, brass section and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Delightful....

 

The day of the flower show

It's been feeling slightly autumnal this week...a chill in the evening air, some rain, and leaves on some trees are beginning to change colour.

But last weekend, it still felt like high summer down in North Somerset as I went to see Mama for the weekend. On Saturday afternoon we went off to the annual flower  show in her village, which was like a trip back in a time.

The Tickenham Flower Show has been held since 1947....and the basic principles of the show haven't changed -it's all very low key. It's not a large or flashy show with fair rides, burger vans or any of that malarkey, but the showing classes are taken  seriously, and it's a chance for everyone to meet up, have tea, and bask in the success of winning prizes.

Mama headed straight for the village hall to do her stint serving teas with her friend Gwen and all the others in the kitchen

It's in the marquee that you see how creative villagers are...and green fingered...

They may be just raspberries on leaves, but I think they are utterly beautiful....

And this winner certainly knows how to style his vegetables.....

And look at the beautiful simplicity of these tiny chillies...

One class of flower exhibits were travel themed -I loved this interpretation of a Singapore sling....

 

A country tea...

I also liked the simplicity and sheer cheerfulness of the children's efforts....

There was also an art and craft exhibition....

Out on the field, everyone had cream teas or ice creams

while the  band played a selection of tunes from the hits of the 1940's to television theme tunes.

Young children played on the grass in fancy dress, babies sat on their mother's knees in the shade, and some of the men enjoyed  a pint in the cider in the sunshine.

And I won a coconut, which is the first time in my life that's ever happened!

Then there was the serious business of the presentation of prizes, before everyone drifted off  in a wave of  "See you next year"after a happy few hours on a summer's afternoon. A few hours away from the news, violence and crises around the world, a few hours of the simple traditional pleasures of a country village.



 Today's track is one of the theme tunes the Portishead Band played last Saturday. Imagine the sunshine, the ambience ...and this blasting out....Love this!

 

A hot day at BBC Gardeners World Live

 

Was it really a year ago I came to the BBC Gardeners World Live show at Birmingham's NEC? Well yes it was, and doesn't time fly by?

 

The normally soul destroying, packed in like sardines, bus ride from the outer wastelands of the NEC car park, was an absolute delight this year thanks to Sue, our driver. With a West Midlands accent and a gravelly voice which hinted that she may smoke a hundred Marlborough a day, she kept up a non stop cabaret as she drove to us to the show...and actually got the sardines laughing and even talking to each other. Top marks Sue...

 

You can tell the real GWLive fans - the excitement was palpable as they almost ran towards the entrance gates, unfolding their jumbo trollies as they did so, eyes scanning the horizon for plants. Rare plants and loos.

 

I took things a little more steadily, and enjoyed a casual wander through the show gardens first of all and as it was very early, managed to get a really good look at all of them.

 

The Twenty One Senses was a garden which appealed to definitely more than Aristotle's five senses. Such a vibrant, cheerful garden by Yvonne Matthews and Andrew Richards which embodied sight, smell (not just the fragrance from the plants) , taste as they began to cook, touch, and balance in the planting .

 

And I just loved this border...

 

 

 

 And it was my sense of smell which drew me to the Spice garden....plants from the Middle East , Africa, Asia and the Americas with homage to the  ships which brought their precious cargoes of exotic spices back to England and Birmingham. A very thoughtful and cleverly designed , not to mention aromatic, garden  which suddenly made me feel very hungry.

 

 

 

By now, the heat was intensifying the wafts of scent drifting along from the plants....and the Kitchen Garden Talks tent, situated right next to a Pimms stand   was looking increasing desirable.....to be able to sit in the shade, sip a drink and listen to the ever gorgeous Phil Vickery.





That man has such a lovely way with him. Self deprecating, interesting stories and some banter between him and Jim. That's Jim Buttress, the former royal gardener who has bloomed into a real TV personality in BBC 2's The Big Allotment Challenge .

But let's get back to  Phil...and why not? I interviewed him eight or so years ago when I had a spell as presenter of our lunchtime show. He was so charming , and told me the first love of his life was a Bridget.

Out in the sunshine was a very easy on the eye garden which attracted me - firstly because everything was so accessible to buy, and also because there were a couple of garden loungers in there. An important part of anyone's garden surely? Down the Garden is a garden for all ages.




It's a given that the RHS Marquee is a teeming mass of noise, colour, scent and brio. Some of the displays were beautifully bold

 

 

But there were two gardens which caught my imagination and my heart at BBC Gardeners World Live...one in the RHS Marquee and one outside. Both commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War 1.

Now this is a subject very close to my heart. As regular readers of this blog may remember, my great uncle Percy was killed at the age of 19 in Flanders, and for a number of months I've been working on a BBC radio series called World War 1 At Home.

So I was very interested to see how the war would be interpreted through garden design. Firstly, Birmingham City Council's display in conjunction with the British Legion and the charity Thrive was a tour de Force...in terms of scale and attention to detail.

Yes , there were poppies, but so much more....we walked past the sandbags...

 

into the display, where we walked on duckboards ...through the sombre shades of a recreation of a trench while overhead grassy planes hovered overhead.



before coming into the brightness




Really, it was quite remarkable.

Outside,  I also was struck by the stark simplicity of Andy Tudbury's garden "We shall remember them". It's a place to sit, to be silent....and this garden really is a labour of love for him.

Firstly, two of his ancestors died in World war 1, both only in their twenties. Secondly, Andy was commissioned to do this only two weeks before the opening day. Two weeks to design, to source plants, a sculpture...and build the garden. Talking to him , he admitted he's had sleepless nights and it has been hard work, but the pride on his face as he showed me around, and the admiring sounds from visitors has proved it's been worthwhile.



The rosemary for remembrance planted by the seat, and the ghost like swaying of the silver white planting were so effective...




At BBC Gardeners World Live, there really is so much to see and inspire...ideas to mull over, new plants to fawn over...and even though we had to queue to get on the bus  to take us back to the outer wastelands of the car park, there was still lots to see, as I shamelessly ogled the jumbo trolleys and bags of other visitors to see what they had been tempted to buy...



Please note...although I work for the BBC, I am not paid to go to go this show or write about it..I visit the show and write about it, because  I love gardens and gardening, and I want to!

Days of gardening questions

I've always liked listening to Down to Earth on BBC Radio Leicester. It's the longest running gardening programme on local radio and has been broadcast every week for over 45 years, and that's no mean achievement.

Geoff Amos chaired the programme for many years, and Dave Andrews has been the popular presenter for the last decade. But this year, I've had a chance to present this programme too while Dave was away on holiday, and had some extra time off. It's been wonderful fun, and great to meet so many BBC Radio Leicester listeners out and about in the county.

Here's one programme in Huncote we made earlier this summer...on the panel left to right are :Chris Gutteridge, a garden designer who won a silver gilt medal at Chelsea last year; Ray Coombes, who is the most knowledgeable man I've ever met when it comes to seeds and vegetables and Josie Hutchinson, who is a former lecturer at Brooksby College and so warm and chatty.

 

 



They are just a few of the panelists who turn each week to either record programmes at churches, community centres, village halls and pubs, or to appear in the studio for a live phone in.

 

They're wonderful, all of them...Derek Cox is a former nurseryman who has been appearing on the programme for about 46 years, and still has a wicked glint in his eye as he teases other members of the panel, the audiences and me. John Smith owns a fuschia nursery and has also been on the panel for over 40 years, and the very helpful Mike Salotti from Brooksby Hall is another regular.

 

The two youngest on the panel are nursery owner Helen Osborne who has the most raucous laugh and a great sense of humour, and Ady Dayman, all round good egg and extremely talented cheeky chappie.

Another great stalwart of the programme is the sound engineer Maclolm Pugh who's been in charge of recording the outside broadcasts for over 30 years.

 

 

 

So as you might guess, I've had such fun presenting these programmes and learning so much about gardening from them all.

But there's another gardening programme which I love to listen to and that's Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.

The programme is recorded each week in a different location, and about ten days ago, the team came to the University of Leicester . Eric Robson was in firm command in the chair,  Anne Swithinbank and  Bob Flowerdew were on the panel with Matt Biggs who received a large cheer from the crowd - he grew up in Leicester!)

 I went to watch with Ady Dayman...we were very interested to see how the programme was put together, and sat on the back row like naughty schoolchildren. Well, there was nowhere else for us to go, the hall was packed.

We noticed that as well as Eric chairing the programme with his posh script, there were two sound engineers and a producer....we only have one engineer, and I'm afraid I have to produce myself.

 

 

Apart from staffing, in essence, it's exactly the same as Down to Earth...those who ask questions are placed on the front row, they ask what they want to know - "Could the panel please tell me why...." and all the panel  seem to have different ideas on way to deal with a query or a problem.  Many of the questions cover similar topics to those in Down to Earth, such as squirrels in gardens and getting rid of slugs and snails , which seem to have been popular this year!

 

Anne Swithinbank radiates calm, Matt made everyone laugh and Bob Flowerdew became quite poetic about a certain plant..."When gorse is out of flower, love is out of fashion."

 

 

All in all, an enjoyable evening, especially afterwards when Matt Biggs, Ady Dayman and I went for a pint. If we're being pedantic, they had pints , I drank a mojito and we all had a great chat about gardening, broadcasting and more besides.

 



 

 





 

 

Today's track is an old favourite....beautifully paced, it's off the seminal album by Neil Young, "After the Goldrush."

 

 I wonder where my old vinyl copy went to? Still, the track has a very appropriate title which is "Tell me why"



 

 

 

 

 

Quiet days

Until the New Year, I'm going to be very busy work wise. I' m starting a new project...one which will last three months, mean lots of extra work and I'm sure it's going to be very emotional. I can't wait!

Next weekend will be busy at home, with friends and relatives staying and a big meal planned ,then  three days later I'm going on an action packed trip to Belgium. So this weekend, I promised myself a quiet weekend at home....no rabble rousing or staying up all hours, oh no.

And I've kept my promise -just quiet days in the countryside making the most of these, warm, sunshiney days which are left this year. They seem so very precious.

Early Friday evening, Boo and I walked went for a hour long walk up a dusty track

To one of Farmer Phil's fields....And while Boo sniffed out the hedgerow, I took these snapshots, anxious to preserve these beautiful moments...

And how pretty the pastel wrapped bales look....

As I looked over the fields,  I was struck by the horrible thought that within another eight to ten weeks, it will pitch dark and cold by this time of day.

I spent the whole of Saturday in the garden ....pruning, hacking and slashing  at the wild undergrowth, and yanking out weeds with relish. The brambles fought back mind you, and I smelt of eau de TCP as I dabbed away at the scratches. This was only round one in the current battle to stop the garden looking like I was on the film set of The Day of The Triffids.


 At least one corner of the garden has been slightly trimmed, if not tamed.

So,  lots of work to be done over the coming months in the garden, but by yesterday evening I could do no more, and it was time to sit out in front of the ha ha with a glass of wine, and Boo sitting at my feet.

 It was about six thirty ish,  the temperature began to drop, but we sat for another quarter of an hour, drinking in both the view and another glass of wine. Well , at least I did...

There's lots more to do though....this garden looks fine from a  distance...if you get too close, you see weeds, plants that have no right to be where they are....they've just seeded themselves where they please, thank you very much.

And today has been another beautiful day spent in the garden, pottering, picking blackberries and enjoying some quiet, solitary time. I suppose I should go back into the kitchen and get a groove on with the Sunday roast. But the sun is still out, and there's some more sitting out quietly in the sunshine to be done....making the most of it before the winter steals it away....


Today's track is by the wonderful John Butler Trio ..it's called "Better than"....
It's from the " Grand National " album which came out in 2007, which formed part of the soundtrack to my first trip to Western Australia.....and I only have to listen to this to be transported back to vivid blue skies, all year round outdoor living and having fun with my son and daughter....

 

The day when the beans fought back...

I planted my French beans and runner beans  earlier this year at the allotment with such optimism....but the first lot were decimated by slugs and the wet weather of early summer.

I wasn't deterred, I wanted beans...and lots of  them. "Bung slug pellets everywhere " I was told by friends and fellow allotmenteers. But the thing is, I don't like using slug pellets. Granted I hate slugs even more ...slimy, ugly things they are...but no, slug pellets were out of the question.

"Try putting egg shells all around them as a barrier" I was then advised. Dutifully, I saved eggshells...as we breakfasted on boiled eggs, scrambled eggs plus I made frittatas a couple of times for lunch. There still weren't  weren't enough eggshells to put around my bean plants...and by now, I was becoming egg bound.

That's when I remembered reading about coffee grounds being a deterrent, so I started saving those...and drinking more coffee. I love coffee, but you know when you've had too much of it....by now I was losing sleep and getting rather twitchy. So, feeling cheeky, I went into Almeida, the lovely little coffee shop right by the BBC studios where I work, and asked if they would save me their coffee grounds.

They said yes...and I was taking home carrier bags of the stuff...the car smelt divine...and I threw the lot around my newly planted beans. And do you know what - no slugs have been seen since. What a result.

Which means of course, my allotment and I are now full of beans!

This year I grew Firestorm runners from Thompson and Morgan..I've not done so before,, but definitely will do so again next year. Vigorous, lots of beans, with a really good flavour. As for the French beans....you can't beat Cobra....these were from Mr Fothergills Seeds - perfect to look at, quick to grow and by golly there's lots of them.


So the other Saturday, late afternoon, I was at the allotment with Boo the dog. She was running around the perimeter sniffing everywhere, and I was squatting on my haunches picking some runners at the lowest level. There were quite a few pounds of them, but as I stood up, the ligament on the side of my knee snapped..just like an elaggy band. My leg gave way and I ended up on the floor in an ungainly heap. I know I groaned, and I may have possibly uttered a few swear words. Actually, there's no possibly about it,....I definitely did. It was bloody painful.



The next day, I was driven into work to present the gardening programme followed by the local history programme, followed by a trip to hospital to get the knee checked out. It was. Knee was very swollen and stiff .Friends and colleagues asked how I'd injured it. Skateboarding, running and other physical activities were just some of the guesses but no one guessed that beans would be involved.

So no driving for four days....and this weekend at the allotment I was very careful only stopping to pick the beans and raspberries and get Mr Thinking of the days to do the watering.

There were pounds and pounds more beans to freeze and eat.
I took some of them into the courtyard to top, tail and slice while I sat in the courtyard enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

Then there were more....

With so many, it took a while and became quite thirsty work.....

So that evening we had the french beans, boiled until tender, drained, and then put back on the still warm hotplate, with a couple of slices of taleggio cheese thrown into the pot. This magically melted on impact with the beans, into a delicious sauce .

Today's track...an oldie but still a goodie and so appropriate this week not just for me, but for all my local farming friends...

 

A day out at Gardeners' World Live

Summer is whizzing by so quickly...and I've already missed certain gardening events that I really would have liked to go to. I wasn't able to go to the Chelsea Flower Show this year, and I had withdrawal symptoms, especially after having such a wonderful time  there last year ( see what I got up to last year  here http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/day-at-chelsea-flower-show-part-2.html  and here http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/day-out-at-chelsea-chelsea-flower-show.html)

I've not even been to visit any Open gardens either, so I've been in dire need of some botanical inspiration , I had a definite desire to see other people's creativity brought to life, and I rather fancied doing a little shopping.

So, would this fit the bill?

Well yes it did.....there were a number of show gardens which were competing to be as innovative as they could be using a set list of materials. "Metamorphosis " was the theme, which was interpreted in interesting ways.

There were also some funky gardens

But as time was running short, I made a beeline for the RHS Floral Marquee where I could admire the rows of beautiful plants and flowers from around a hundred nurseries...

It was very muggy in the marquee...I began to flag, and decided I needed some fresh air....but then I saw the David Austin  roses display stand. It called me like a siren and I came closer, the most delicious fragrance wafted along in the still air. Gertrude Jekyll is my favourite rose....yet I still don't have one in my garden. This must be remedied!

Mind you I was so taken with this eglantine rose too...so prettily perfect too with such a delicate scent...I've decided that I must make the trip upto David Austin in Shropshire to see more.

There was lots to admire at Gardeners' World Live outside, but going indoors into the main halls didn't fill me with the same enthusiasm ...overall, there seemed a lack of vitality and pazazz, a cohesiveness and staff on a number of stands looked, quite frankly, bored.

What did interest me was the bonsai exhibition

Precision and perfection everywhere....

 

Not that you'll ever see me carefully shaping something like this. Firstly, putting a pair of scissors or secateurs in my hands is a high risk strategy...and secondly  I simply don't have the patience....although I did appreciate what I saw so much.

My first visit to Gardeners' World Live was all too brief....but will I go next year? Yes I will..... I met some lovely people, especially the persuasive lot on the RHS stand touting for new blood! As for the shopping, I've got a fair few ideas, but in the end I didn't buy anything on the day - unlike others on the bus back to the car park, who were poking other passengers with their purchases and plants. Thank goodness I didn't buy my Gertude Jekyll rose...that could have been interesting....

Today's track is my favourite piece of choral music "Oh Spotless Rose". Every time I hear it, I'm lost in the beauty of the composition and the incredible sounds that voices can make. This version is by the King's College Choir in Cambridge. It's for my friends Shannon Hurst lane, Denise Dube and Susan Lanier Graham from across the pond.....on a cold February afternoon  I took them to Evensong at Kings College, something they said they would never forget.

I