Well....the Collectors' Plant Fair was fabulous!  Everyone as happy as could be with their finds! I do so enjoy being on my stall in the thick of it all, chatting to so many people - lovely to meet lots of you and to see familiar faces too, while in the distance I might spy someone with a plant I had my eye on (but knew I couldn't have) walking by looking pleased as punch with themselves, or I discover something I hadn't noticed that visitors to my stall are laden with.  It is so much fun!

But one of the best things of all (and I know I've mentioned it before) is the little collection of plants in the footwell of the car on the way home from a fair.  Undoubtedly, they are a collection that will never be near each other again, as they are dispersed through the garden to their new homes.  But just for that drive (plus a few days more as I don't have a second to plant yet!), they are together...a tantalising reminder of the fair.  This time around, two strange things, a fabulous salvia and a variety of echium I've never seen before and....how delighted I was to discover a rose I lost some years ago: a China Tea called Monsieur Tillier.  How I loved his blooms for years - he was one of the first I bought and was such a splendid shrub for ages, then one year he curled up his toes.  That's one plant I do have a home for, but the rest, I'm still thinking on!  

It's that time of year again.....how thrilling!  This weekend, The Collectors' Plant Fair at Clarendon (just near Richmond/Windsor).  

Time to unleash your plant obsessions and go-a-hunting!  I'll very much hope to see you there: 

Saturday 8am - 4pm and Sunday 9am - 4pm  

 I'll have a stand once again, so do please come and say hello!

Don't zinnias have such happy faces? For a simple flower they are extraordinarily intricate, from bud swell to their last legs.....their centres form an exquisite circle that changes subtly over a period of days, like a million flowers within a flower.  I find them enchanting.

And I was thinking, not for the first time, how lucky we gardeners are.....to be able to gather bucket loads of dried seed heads - the shells of flowers that were, holding all the promise of next season's bounty, in the one hand, and armfuls of bright, perky luscious petals in another. Delightful examples of joy and hope.  If only everyone could have a garden!  Happy Easter everyone...

Events and excitements aside, this is one of the most task-driven times of the year in the Kitchen Garden and a lot has been going on behind the scenes.  First, there were literally barrow loads of fennel seeds to collect.  I may be mad, but I'm just hoping with my fingers and everything crossed, that tossing them out into the long grass in the pumpkin paddock will create a haze of fennel flowers next summer.  Of course, it could be a complete failure, but I'd never know if I didn't try!

The last few days have seen us trying to dismantle the shade structure without destroying my much anticipated loofah collection!  I've been trying to grow loofahs for years with absolutely no luck until now....though I still hesitate to say it's a success.  At the rate they're going, they'll need to sit there for months more to cure and something may get them yet!  Aren't they magical though, in their varying tones of green through to the wrinkled and crinkled butterscotch one that sounds hollow to tap?  I'm so excited about them, I almost can't wait to visit them each morning!

Yesterday saw us dig the crop of sweet potatoes, and what a fantastic yield we have.  I didn't really want to dig it yet, but at least I've learned you don't need to wait for the vine to flower to expect a crop.  I think sweet potato will be on the Glenmore menu for Easter!  

And slightly later than hoped, but better late than never, I picked the heads of parsnip seed that have been curing in the guild beds and sowed a good swathe in the winter root bed. Someone told me years ago that parsnip seed must be fresh for success and I reckon it surely can't be better than taking seed from one garden bed to plant in another.

Though far from complete, crop rotation is well and truly underway in the Kitchen Garden. What a feeling of exhilaration!

I was thrilled to have the great privilege once again, to be one of a small panel to judge the District Exhibits at the Royal Easter Show.  The imagination and ingenuity of the clever people behind the design, narrative and production of each exhibit never ceases to amaze me.  You may think these images look like paintings, but they are all made of one kind or another of produce from the district, each grain, pulse or fibre placed with exquisite attention to detail; each district's exhibit telling a different story.

These grain-covered chooks created a llight-hearted sense of frivolity amongst the leafy greens!

And of course, there were pumpkins, gourds, bottles of preserved fruit and veg, fresh fruit, seeds and nuts a-plenty.  All of it magnificent.  Get along to the Show if you can - it's a time-honoured institution and we all need to support our farmers - without them, we'd starve.

How long it seems already since Luisa Brimble visited one fine, late summer morning to follow me around the Kitchen Garden, when the beans were lush, verdant and scrambling up their poles, It was hot, the days producing late afternoon thunderstorms and a high summer holiday atmosphere.  

But oh how things have changed.  The rain stopped, the leaves yellowed, we had a huge hail storm that smashed the tomatoes to smithereens and generally caused a great deal of havoc. We cleared up the mess, had a few events and garden visitors, then another storm caused minor flooding with all the associated windfall putting us right back where we were just weeks before! It's been one extreme to another and in between, photo shoots for the book - hells bells....what chaos altogether!  But here come a few posts to bring you up to date with recent goings-on at Glenmore!

Oh what fun and delight our Herbal Garden Workshop was with herbalist and naturopath Anthia Koullouros.  I could listen to her all day, as remedies and concoctions, suggestions and insights roll of her tongue.  It was a day jam-packed full of information of such a helpful nature, generously shared with our participants.

Here she is mixing and chatting, sending around little dishes of aromatic colour, texture and goodness.

The day was hot, but we were able to eat in the shade of the loggia at a table laden with rosemary and scented pelargonium leaves.  Chilled Cucumber Soup was followed by Sicilian Caponata, Baba Ghanoush and Sorrel Pistou - all the early autumn garden on a plate.  

We all had such a wonderful day and Anthia and I are so excited, we're planning another Herbal Garden Workshop for spring - watch this space!

Since my last post we've been lucky to enjoy those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Christmas....quiet ones interspersed with myriad visitors for lunch, dinner or to stay a night or two. There have been days of scorching sun and drizzling rain, morning tiptoes through wet grass to the pool for laps, picnics shading under the boughs of trees, flowers who's dizzying perfume we've enjoyed emanating from deep within their petals, and a mountain of tablecloths and linen napkins to wash and iron!

The beans finally got a move on and I've been picking morning and night to keep up with those of deepest amethyst Purple King, blotched and streaked Rattlesnake, creamy yellow Australian Butter and barely flecked Speckled Cranberry (who's colourings and markings deepen as the bean matures, but I think they're at their most succulent before they really begin to swell, when they're almost meaty, for want of a better description).

There are cucumbers....holy moly they've been coming in one after another!  We've never had so many, which equals Tzatziki with everything and raw cucumber at the drop of a hat. The tomatoes, on the other hand, have never been so slow and clearly need more hours of sun, while zucchinis are coming in at a respectable rate.  

In fact, the Kitchen Garden is wild in height, abundance and exuding an aura of romance.  

While all the garden battles the heat and the summer veg are doing their best just to get properly established, some dainty delights are peeking from their hiding places.  To my surprise, this Sunset runner bean is the first to flower (I rarely have much luck with her and have always found her sister the Scarlet runner to be more hardy).  Perhaps I've finally discovered her trick and very much hope she may produce a few beans for Christmas Day.  I think her shell-pink flower is quite delectable, hugging the bamboo pole as her tendrils twine ever higher.

 

Since putting in the beehives last year, I've felt more inclined than ever to allow a good number of veg to flower, which makes them into excellent companion plants, bringing in good bugs and providing pollen for the bees.  I was doing it before with one or two, in order to collect seed, but I've long since recognised this is such a delightful way to enjoy a meadow-like haze in the garden and to discover hitherto unrecognised scent wafting all about.  Have you ever enjoyed the quite breathtaking perfume of a carrot flower?  It's like wild honey!

If you've been following my blog posts for awhile, (or indeed visited Glenmore) you will know about my mild obsession with fennel flowers.... it began simply enough, when I left a few bulbs to go to flower so I could save their seed, then one year I scattered the seed in the companion beds under the apple arch and well, the rest is history!  

They've been perfect for weeks on end now, their clouds of flowers on tall stems swaying in the breeze and each at a different stage of development.  Some, like this one, are still at the new pollen stage, while others have developed their succulent budlets that I add to every leaf salad, baby potato, roast chicken, fish....almost nothing escapes being sprinkled with their juicy, immature seed, that pops with aniseed flavour!  Most of the day, the flowers are humming with bees and covered in all kinds of insects, from ladybirds to hover-flies.  They are good companions indeed and I'll leave them to grow through their full cycle, so I can collect their seed and begin the process all over again.

And how excited am I at last, to have some here in the Barn!  I've been mildly obsessed with structures in the garden for years - those who have visited Glenmore see all the loose ones.....tunnels and wigwams that I make of bamboo in the Kitchen Garden for climbing veg and the boxes for broad beans and tomato supports. I also make basket-like compartments from twig & stick prunings when I sow seed, that make the garden look like a basket-case at certain times of the year which I love!  Sometimes I use lengths of Mulberry from a tree we planted years ago, and although its stems are long and straight, they turn to paper in a season, so I've never made serious ones....the kind I admire in gardens the world over, but who's material I've never been able to source; nor do I have the time or skill it takes (or patience???!!!!) to make ones like these.

My first attempt to have them in the garden here was about 22 years ago (I remember because Clemmie was very young when we went to visit Virginia Kaiser in her studio).  I knew it wasn't really her thing, but she was kind enough to make me ONE - it still sits in the corner of the Dairy next to the chest of drawers, as well as a couple of little supports to sit inside terracotta pots.  But sadly, that was the end of that, until I finally made contact with Penny Simons, who shares a similar passion (but she's clever enough to be expert at making them!). Harriet suggested I track her down earlier this year, as did one of my dearest friends (knowing of this peculiar passion of mine!) but its been quite a year and we only just made contact.  I'm thrilled to bits.  We're going to schedule a Living Willow Workshop for the New Year too, and I'll hope to have an obelisk or two in stock from now on.