auto reply: 'I'm out of the office'
I went into the Mailbox on Monday. Without wishing to offend my colleagues, I'm so very glad I don't work in an office anymore. If I was blue from the lack of summer in the last few weeks, one day in the office was enough to snap me out of my ennui. I've spent a week marvelling at the countryside and it's response was a truly seasonal performance of dancing leaves and flock of goldfinches. Joe and I moved the bench in the veg garden to gain more afternoon tea sun and were astonished to see how even young grazing rye looks beautiful in this light.
I've tidied the veg garden, made the kale and Brussels stand straight, picked the last of the caterpillars off (so sneaky in their crevices) and planted out more mustards and winter lettuces. The Digitalis ferruginea is up. I'll have a small army if I prick them all out. That's one of drawbacks to filming you get trays upon trays of things you can't bear the throw away. Perhaps I'll be good and pot them on for Gardeners' World Live. Though I always says things like that only to curse the space they take up in cold frames once spring comes.
To celebrate this rich landscape I've made it a week of soups, rich hearty ones full of vegetables and thin broth steeped in autumnal tastes. The best is a tomatillo recipe from the internet made of garlic, roasted tomatillo and fried chicken. The other one that stood out was a miso based vegetable soup using black Spanish radish marinated in rice vinegar, salt, sugar and paprika.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~40~RS~)
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I was glad to see you mention a more slug resistant foxglove in the show -- mine (a white variety) have suffered so badly from the slug onslaught this year I think I'm going to have to get rid of them :(
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Hi Alys
Yes, lovely time of year, isn't it, especially when the sun is shining! There's a pile of drunken honey bees doing a mad happy dance around my ivy flowers out the back window just now.
Did you grow the black Spanish radish from seed, and if so, where did you get the seed from, please?
Me too with the Digitalis ferruginea - foxgloves, foxgloves everywhere and only a teeny garden. They've also self-seeded all over in the shadiest of spots. Still, I wouldn't be without them.
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Hello Greeneddy and Cleanskies
The 'black spanish round' came from Kings, but I think others do it. It another one to have up your sleeve along with mooli for some winter munchings.
I'm glad I'm not the only foxglove lover, I can't seem to get enough of them. I constantly squirrel in new ones when no-one looking. I like because they lift the eye when many spring flowering plants like hellebores are looking a little tired.
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HI Alys
Have I missed the outcome of the comos trial?
I grew some from seed and took them to my allotment where they didn't flower for ages just got bigger and busher but what a display when the flowrers did come, and the bees loved them as did the ladybirds.
The frost has now seen them off and and so they are consigned to the compost. I didn't bother to dead head as I had such a profusion of buds, and was primarly growing them for the wildlife. but i will definately grow more next year, maybe in a slightly less fertile area so they don't get so big
Elaine
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