The Case for the Prosecution

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I place before you Exhibit A in the case of Doyle versus Arthur Norbert Rodent of  Greenhouse Footings, Carters Barn, Wiltshire.

Every year I lose a proportion of seeds to mice. They are particularly partial to pea and bean seeds, and since I know this, I should really take precautionary measures to prevent my early sowing of broad bean seeds ending up like this. I always sow peas and beans in trays or pots, as they are just devoured if I sow them outside. You will note, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the way the defendant has chewed his way through the skin and devoured the inside of the seed, leaving behind the discarded skin as DNA evidence.

There is a fairly healthy population of wood mice around here, and frankly I don't like killing them, but they come into my greenhouse at their peril. So it's mouse traps, and/or poison. I wish there was a way of scaring them away, but if I don't take steps now, I will be overrun by summer.
So, donning my black cap, I find in favour of the plaintiff Doyle in this case and do prounounce the sentence of this court that A N Rodent be summarily despatched to the Great Mouse Cemetary in the Sky.

New Gadget

I've invested in a new garden gadget. It's one of these -

it's a little cordless hedge trimmer and grass shear. It has two blades, one like a mini hedge trimmer, and another like grass shears. And it's cordless. We already have an ordinary electric hedge trimmer, and of course a lawn mower, but I find the problem with garden machinery is it's a pain to get it out, get it going, and put it away again, especially just for a small job.  So I'm thinking this little cordless thing will be just the ticket for all those small jobs that get overlooked, until, before you can say Jack Robinson they've turned into half a day's work . And before all you proper Tool Time blokey gardeners start telling me it's too dinky, it's got no power, no grrr, well I know that, but I'm hoping it will help me save the time I spend doing jobs that could have been done in half the time had I just tackled them quickly in the beginning. A sort of Stitch in Time Machine, if you see what I mean.

I plan to keep it on charge, so it's ready to grab for any emergency trimming scenarios that occur. If anyone has experience of using one I'd be glad to hear how you've got on with it.

Pruning - Being Cruel to Be Kind

I have a large Garrya Elliptica, or catkin bush by the back door, growing up against a stone wall, but over the years it had got wider and wider  until last year it was some three feet or more wide, necessitating a detour on every trip along the pathway.  So I cut it back very hard indeed, so hard in fact that there was no foliage left on it at all, only bare branches.  But as you can see from the above picture, it has come back all the more vigorous this year, although I have had to forego most of the catkins for this season as they appear on one year old wood, and so I'm hoping for a good show next year.

This is what the catkins look like, in case you're not familiar with this shrub. Well worth growing for it's toughness, and  shiny evergreen foliage. And the catkins come very early in the year, in the middle of winter really, when you really do appreciate them.  But it's a vigorous plant and you really do have to keep on top of it if it's not to get out of hand. As soon as the catkins have faded get the hedge trimmer out and run over the whole plant, cutting off all the old catkins and a good proportion of foliage. The plant will then have the rest of the year to prepare for another fine show next winter. If you're buying a new plant the variety "James Roof" is recommended for it's extra long catkins.

Plantus Labellus Ikealloides

Plant labels are annoying things. Flimsy bits of plastic that get lost, break, or become illegible, or just blow away. I'd like to have lovely slate ones, or nice pretty wooden painted ones, but like so many other things I'd like, I just never get round to making them and I certainly don't want to be paying out the money charged at fancy garden shops for them. So I was very pleased with myself when I came up with the idea of re-using something which would otherwise have been binned.

I recently installed a new venetian blind**in the bathroom, and since it came from Ikea, where everything is one size, it was miles too long and I had lots of slats leftover. The slats seem to be made of some kind of wood, or mdf, or but are thin enough to be reasonably easy to cut. They are white and about two inches or so wide, so ideal for large, legible, garden labels. I was worried that they might disintegrate in water so I tried cutting one to size, and have soaked it in a glass of water for a few days and so far it looks ok.

So hopefully, this year, no more peering at illegible bits of plastic and wondering whether it was peas or beans I sowed in that bed last week.

**We are very lucky to have views from our windows onto open fields, with nothing more than the odd dog walker passing by. However this applies to our bathroom windows as well, which are clear glazed, not frosted as most modern bathrooms are, I suppose because no one went past the garden hedge when the house was built.  But the village has grown and there are more people about than there used to be, and a not insignificant number of dog walkers pass through the field on the other side of our hedge, especially first thing in the morning.   Anyway, to avoid giving an inadvertent surprise, not to say a heart attack, to Major Fanshawe as he passes a gap in the hedge whilst taking his early morning constitutional, a venetian blind seemed to be the solution.

The Absent Minded Gardener

I was taking advantage of a lovely sunny, if chilly, day today, to do a bit of digging over in the veg garden, and I found this monster lurking there. In case it's not obvious, it's a parsnip, left over from last year, it's over a foot long and weighs over four pounds!  I found several of them, I think I must have just forgotten about them when the bad weather set in, and when the tops withered off it wasn't obvious that they were there.  I doubt whether they will be still edible, as you can see from the pic, they've started sprouting again. When I cut it open, apart from the exposed bit at the top it's undamaged and as clean as a whistle, so I'll try cooking it just out of interest. It's time to be sowing seed for this year's parsnips now, so I will have to get the crow bar and get them out. Parsnip soup anyone? Other ideas or suggestions welcome.

Surprises, and Shocks

The draft text below was to be my next post but circumstances have overtaken me before I had chance to put it online. The foxes have come again and this time taken my two new pullets. Since all the gates were closed this time, they must have come round by the house; I am amazed at their audacity. It seems that once foxes know where the birds are, they will persevere again and again until they get in. I am going to have to be extremely careful if I am to keep them out. The two newcomers were in a quarantine ark, admittedly old and a bit tatty, but one that had housed two or three birds in various parts of the garden most of this year without any sign of trouble. But they simply tore off the wood at the side of the ark to get at the two pullets. I have had a chat with a local gamekeeper who has said he will be coming into the village this week to do some "lamping" which is his method of fox control.

 Thanks to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to post messages of support, it's great to get them, and it helps to know that people sympathize.

Two feathery Surprises!
Our lovely little grandson has come with his mum to stay with us for the weekend, and with all the paraphanalia one needs to have when travelling with small children, Claire still managed to find room in her little car for a large cardboard box containing a surprise gift for me of - guess what? Two beautiful point of lay chickens that she had got for me when she read about the fox attack last week! How sweet is that! And they look like really good birds too, one is a Light Sussex, a lovely old dual purpose breed known for its gentle nature, and the other a very smart Copper Black Maran, which I'm hoping will lay a lovely dark brown egg. I couldn't be more pleased, and I feel blessed to have my kind and thoughtful family always here for me.

A Bunch of Primroses for Peter Rabbit

Our garden is surrounded by open countryside, and so we are often visited/plagued by rabbits. Our dog, Mo has great fun chasing them off, but this is only ever a temporary respite since rabbits seem to have a similar short term memory to me and will just reappear the next day or even later on the same day.  I have non gardening friends who enjoy watching bunnies and even foxes running around the garden, and whilst this is lovely if you have a No-Gardening Garden, ie large lawn, the odd mature tree, few tough shrubs and a trampoline, if you have any kind of herbaceous or veg garden, to which rabbits have access, it will be decimated. I have even lost young trees to rabbits who have chewed away the bark all around the main trunk leading to death of the tree.

So what's to be done? I've thought of arming myself against the enemy so to speak, I could take to wearing a monocle and blasting my way around the garden with a blunderbuss, but although I am quite a good shot if I say so myself, it would clearly be somewhat dangerous for the neighbours, so here at Stalag Carters Barn we have opted for chicken wire all around the perimeter.We have to inspect and repair our fortifications each spring because Peter and his friends chew their way through it but in this way we usually manage to keep them out for at least the main growing season.

If you're in a rabbit area and can't fence them out for any reason, your only option is to either enjoy the wildlife display as my neighbours do, or to try to grow things that they won't eat. And there are some things that they don't seem to like as much as others. I was thinking that if rabbits ate primroses we would have none in the wild, so I'm guessing they don't like them for some reason, and hoping that this is the case I've planted up a little bed by the front gate that normally houses a weeping cherry tree and some snowdrops and nothing else, because, being outside the gate it's also outside the 12 foot razor wire/cctv/wailing sirens that constitute the Carters Barn garden boundary.  When I first came here I put some bedding plants in this little bed - big mistake. They were gone in a week. Anyway the primroses seem to have survived the first few days, so time will tell whether or not Peter Rabbit likes primroses for lunch, - let's hope not!

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Winter Aconites

Winter Aconites are one of the most overlooked of late winter, early spring flowers. They're a bit like winter buttercups (but no where near as weedy thank goodness) but each flower has a  little collar of green leaves around it rather like an Elizabethan ruff, very pretty. I had a little patch of them in this garden when we came here ten years ago, and I have tried to increase them sporadically each year without notable success. This is all the more irritating since they are a native species, and not far away from here, there is a little copse which is carpeted with them, just growing in the wild, forming a huge yellow carpet under the trees. I make a special point of going to see them each year, though you do have to choose your day - they are at their best when the sun is out, and tend to close up a bit on the duller days.

However, I'm pleased to see that this year they have increased quite a bit

and are  a substantial improvement on previous years. I acheived this by the simple expedient of watching out for when the little flowers faded and formed seed pods, and just picked off the pods and spread the seed around in patches of available ground nearby. This is of course what would have happened in nature anyway without my intervention, but I think a little judicious help has made a difference. Spreading the seed and covering with a little earth or compost helps avoid it becoming food for wildlife and gives the seeds a better chance of survival and germination. The seed germinates best when sown fresh, so this dispersal method works quite well, though I expect  sowing into pots would work as well and give greater control over the results. You can also divide up the clumps after flowering "in the green" in the same way as snowdrops.

Although known by the common name Winter Aconite, it's proper name is Eranthis Hyemalis, a relative of the buttercup, and so it's not a true aconite like the famously poisonous border perennial Monkshood, of the Aconitum family proper, - it is however just as poisonous (should you be thinking of have a plateful for dinner!)

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The Fox Came

The fox came tonight and attacked my hen house. I've been keeping chickens and ducks for about five or six years now I should think, and during that time I think I've had three fox attacks, where I've lost stock. Tonight I failed to lock the birds up early enough, and at around ten o clock, David heard a great commotion and ran out with the dog, by the time we got out there of course the culprit/s had gone leaving a mess of feathers and dead bodies behind. Luckily the three Indian Runner Ducks were safe in their house, foxes have always gone for the ducks first in the past, but this time it was the chickens. Three birds were still safe in the hen house, of the remaining five one was cowering in a corner of the run, may or may not survive the shock, two were dead, one dying, had to be finished off, one missing presumed dead. I was particularly sad to lose my Red Black Auracana, a traditional breed, who was an old hen but still laying.

I had a smaller number of laying hens this year as last year I had concentrated on raising birds for the table  so now I'm down to just three or four hens, and three ducks.

It's my own fault, I should have been more vigilant. But it's a hard lesson.

Venison Stew with Cheese Crusted Dumplings

I remembered I had said I would do a post on Sussex Pond Pudding when I was talking about lemons last week, and I had indeed put together the makings of some suet crust pastry when I found myself hi jacked by a venison stew which came out of the oven just crying out for dumplings. So I'm afraid the Sussex Pond Pudding will have to wait for another day. I will do it though because I like it and I haven't made it for years.

The venison in this recipe was just some offcuts I had saved in the freezer from a very large joint of venison we had in the autumn, almost any cut would do, or you could use some stewing beef. It's quite a simple stew, but I think the dumplings just make it extra warming for a winter's supper. Perfect for night like tonight when I see we have yet another dose of freezing wet sleety stuff from on high. What a winter this has been.

1 pound/500g venison, or stewing beef

1 tablespoon flour

1 large onion

1 stick celery

1 large garlic clove

a few glugs of red wine about a third of a bottle if you can wrestle that much away from your husband

sprig thyme

Chop up the onion garlic and celery and fry in a little dripping or olive oil for a minute or two then add the floured venison and continue to cook until nicely browned. Add the wine and allow to bubble fiercely enough to drown out the howls of complaint about a waste of good wine...

Season well, transfer to a casserole and cook in a moderate oven for, depending on the cut of meat,about an hour, until the meat seems tender when prodded. Meanwhile make your dumplings and set aside until ready.

For the dumplings
4 oz/100g Self raising flour
2oz/50g Shredded suet
level teaspoon baking powder
salt pepper
pinch mixed herbs

Mix everything together in a bowl and add enough cold water to make a pliable but not sticky dough. Don't knead or handle the dough too much. Form into golf ball sized balls and drop onto the top of the casserole,

replace the lid and return to the oven for half an hour if you like your dumplings soft and fluffy, when they will have puffed up and be nestling snugly on top of the casserole like this -

If you like them with a crusty top, take off the lid after 10 minutes, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with a little grated cheese. Return to oven without lid to brown.

Serve with root mash and green veg of choice.

Raymond Blanc Kitchen Secrets

I don't normally review TV progs here, but I just watched the first instalment of Raymond Blanc's new cooking series and thought it was excellent, and not just because it was all about chocolate. So many cooking shows are aimed at evincing a change of attitude/behaviour in the doner kebab/kfc brigade, that it's nice to see something clearly aimed at people who already enjoy eating good food and probably already do a good bit of cooking (she said smugly). I just think there's been a bit too much emphasis on Here's-how-to-cook-a-great-dinner-in-twelve-seconds type of thing recently. I know it was a bit cheffy, and most of us don't have a brigade of sous chefs running around after us. (How great would that be, I could just stand there in the kitchen and shout "rolling pin" and some one would instantly come running along with one.)

And whilst I'm on about Raymond, I would also recommend his brasseries, - we've had lunch in a couple of them and found them excellent, and not too pricey. I think in the evenings they get a bit more haute cuisine and certainly at the Manoir aus Quat' Saisons in Oxfordshire where the series was filmed you'd need (or at least I would need) a fairly major Special Occasion to justify a visit, but I'd like to go there as much for the famous gardens as for the food.

Pourquoi does my lavender bed not look like this, je me demande?

Anyway I found the programme inspiring and will definately have a go at some of the recipes. I rather fancy that chocolate tart thing, I'm going to start saying Voila! at the end of every sentence and hopefully get a bit of  what Raymond calls "serry-oos admiration".

If you missed it it's available to watch again on BBC iplayer here