Violets Are Blue..

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet

And so are you

I planted a little clump of sweet violets (viola odorata) a few years ago, and at last it seems to have taken off, and is flowering and spreading well. This morning was fine and sunny, perfect for enjoying the sweet scent of this low growing native plant. There are lots of dog violets growing wild around here, but as they are unscented  (viola riviniana) they are, at least to me, much less attractive to grow. The plant grows low to the ground, throwing out runners, and making a dense weed suppressing mat (eventually), if it's happy. The flowers, although tiny are beautifully scented, and are of course, the violets beloved of elderly aunts and have been used extensively in the production of perfumes and toiletries as far back as Ancient Greece. 

There is a myth that you can only smell violets once but the fragrance is strangely short-lived. Apparently one of the chemicals, ionine, which makes up the violet’s scent, has the ability to deaden the smell receptors that detect it (according to Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey).  I used to live in Torquay in Devon where the Lownds Pateman company produced the famous Devon Violets perfume so beloved of the above mentioned aunts, and I well remember visiting their offices and being almost overcome by the smell of the perfume, only to be informed by the owner that he couldn't smell anything and nor could anyone who worked there either!

Violets are steeped in folklore and myth, the Victorians associated them with fidelity and love, and they were traditionally placed on the graves of children. They feature in many lovely poems, including this one by D H Lawrence, - it's a bit impenetrable written down especially if you're not from Yorkshire,(or is that Nottinghamshire?) and much better spoken as here by Kenneth Branagh in the film "Coming Through"

Violets

Sister, tha knows while we was on the planks
Aside o' th' grave, while th' coffin wor lyin' yet
On th' yaller clay, an' th' white flowers top of it
Tryin' to keep off'n him a bit o' th' wet,

 An' parson makin' haste, an' a' the black
Huddlin' close together a cause o' th' rain,
Did t''appen ter notice a bit of a lass away back
By a head-stun, sobbin' an' sobbin' again!

How should I be lookin' round
An' me standin' on the plank
Beside the open ground,
Where our Ted 'ud soon be sank ?

Yi, an' 'im that young,
Snapped sudden out of all
His wickedness, among
Pals worse n'r ony name as you could call.

Let be that; there's some o' th' bad as we
Like better nor all your good, an' 'e was one.
--An' cos I liked him best, yi, bett'r nor thee,
I canna bide to think where he is gone.

Ah know tha liked 'im bett'r nor me. But let
Me tell thee about this lass. When you had gone
Ah stopped behind on t' pad i' th' drippin' wet
An' watched what'er 'ad on.

Tha should ha' seed her slive up when we'd gone,
Tha should ha' seed her kneel an' look in
At th' sloppy wet grave--an' 'er little neck shone
That white, an''er shook that much, I'd like to begin

Scraightin' my-sen as well. 'Er undid her black
Jacket at th' bosom, an' took from out of it
Over a double 'andful of violets, all in a pack
Ravelled blue and white--warm, for a bit

O' th' smell come waftin' to me. 'Er put 'er face
Right intil 'em and scraighted out again,
Then after a bit 'er dropped 'em down that place,
An' I come away, because o' the teemin' rain.

D.H. Lawrence

Both the flowers and leaves are edible, and can be used in salads, and the flowers can be candied and used as edible cake decorations.

Greenhouse Seed Sowing, update

Just a note about what I'm sowing in the greenhouse. It's the busiest time for seed sowing, and this year I feel I'm quite late with everything because the weather has been so poor, and after the recent spell of reasonably warm days, as I speak it's back to freezing cold nights and stormy days again. Let's hope we get some more decent weather next week, so we gardeners can get on with outdoor preparations, but for now, in the shelter of my greenhouse I have sown lots of things in modules, this Rhubarb Chard, for example.

And a few globe artichokes, these are small ones designed to be eaten young and whole, Violetto Precoce.

A supply of baby salad leaves grown in modules, to make little plug plants which I will put out when they're big enough

and several drain pipes full of peas.

I like tall peas, because you get more peas per square foot of garden, and last year I grew Alderman and Telephone. One of them was ok and the other was superb in both flavour and production. Trouble is I lost the labels so I couldn't tell which was the good one so I'm having to grow both again this year. I will make doubly sure I don't lose the labels this time. If anyone has any experience of these varieties and can make recommendations  I'd be grateful for any guidance.

And some first early potatoes, ready to be planted out this weekend, varieties Rocket, and International Kidney

So plenty to be going on with then.

Onions

These are my brother's prizewinning onions from last year. He grows proper onions, great big ones, and fantastic leeks as well.

And he's kindly given me some of his seedlings to try. I don't suppose my leeks will approach the size of Superman's biceps like his, but I've potted them on and am hoping for the best. The leeks are Musselborough and Prizetaker, and the onions are Kelsae and Red Baron.

On the subject of onions, or alliums to be exact, I noticed this yesterday in the herbaceous border

around the new growth of the Allium Purple Sensation bulbs that I planted last season. The seedheads of the purple alliums are tall drumstick-like and remain decorative as they fade, so I left them in situ until they more or less fell off at the end of the year. And obviously all the seeds that fell out have germinated into hundreds of tiny new plants.

According to the RHS who have awarded Purple Sensation an Award of Garden Merit, the seedling germinate best after being subjected to winter cold (and there's been plenty of that this year) but they also say that the seedlings may not come true and may have a paler colour than the parents. I hate to waste plants, so I think I will try to move a couple of spadefuls of them to an out of the way spot and see if they make anything.

There are literally hundreds of them though, so the rest will have to go on the compost if I'm not to end up with the Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch, of the old song!

Spring Gems

There's nothing unusual about this plant, which lots of people have in their garden, Viburnum Bodnentense var Dawn - but it's no less valuable for that. I have three of them in various parts of the garden, they flower on and off all through the winter, even in the snow, but come spring proper, they burst forth with generous amounts of waxy scented flowers on bare branches.

A few stems in a vase will perfume the room and look quite artistic in a japanese-y sort of way. Great if you're not exactly Contance Spry on the flower arranging front. 

It's easy to grow, available in most good garden centres, and fits into most garden schemes. Underplanted with spring bulbs it will make the most of the display. And if you're short of space and want to maximise the space for summer, you could plant one of the less rampant clematises to at the same time to climb through the branches and give you a burst of summer colour. Hagley Hybrid or Miss Bateman spring to mind.

Little Seedling or is it a Scion....?

I hope you'll indulge me a bit here because this post is nothing to do with gardening, cooking, or farming, but I have to show you who came along yesterday, a week early. My new grandson, Oliver. Not that I'm biased or anything, but isn't he just lovely?

See I Told You Winter Was Over

The first leaf has unfurled on my rhubarb patch.Hurrah! So have several leaves of ground elder you may observe.  I know forced rhubarb has been in the shops for a while, and you can cover it with an upturned dustbin, or an expensive terracotta cover, and so on, but I rarely bother prefering to just let it arrive when it's ready.

I grew up in Yorkshire, which is probably why I'm not all that enthusiastic about rhubarb, I probably had rather too much of it as a child. I well remember my dad digging up a large root of rhubarb and keeping it under his bed for several weeks in the spring (for forcing purposes), so keen was he on getting an early crop. But it's very much more fashionable nowadays, (eating it, not keeping it under the bed) and I usually get a generous enough crop. So it's good to see the first leaf. Maybe I should look around for some more imaginative recipes this year? Maybe I'll try a nice preserve if I can find a good recipe. Recommendations welcome.

Breaking News - Last Minute Reprieve for A N Rodent

Arthur Norbert Rodent, you have been found guilty of extensive and recidivist burglary of broad beans and peas. However, the court has been informed that it is possible that your death sentance can be commuted to life banishment from the Greenhouse, by courtesy of this device -

This is an electronic rodent scaring device, intended for use in the house and which I have used  when we have had odd mouse incursions, especially in the winter when they seem to come in for a warm. Anyway, it seemed to do the job OK, so I think I will try it in the greenhouse. I don't know why I haven't thought of it before. Luckily I have an electric point in there so I will give it a go and hope that Arthur Norbert Rodent will get his lunch elsewhere and I won't have any corpses to deal with. Will report back on success/failure rate. Has anyone else tried anything like this?

Winter Really is Over, Almost...

As I said yesterday, I'm still thinking longingly of fresh spring salads, and herbs, and I've sown some Basil in my propagator, but as I don't expect to harvest any for quite some time, I've invested in a pot from Tesco.

I say invested as it pains me somewhat to pay over a pound for a small pot of basil. However I gain some satisfaction from potting it into a large pot, and if I water and feed it copiously, I find I can encourage the plant to continue to crop for several weeks, thus offsetting my initial investment. Clearly Tescos don't want you to do this, they would prefer you to buy another pot next week, and so they sell the plant at just short of it's exhaustion point in a tiny pot, and however carefully you water it, if you keep it in this tiny pot it will surely die. So make sure you give the plant plenty of new compost in a decent sized pot, and plenty of water and plant food. Take your crop, and leave it on a light sunny windowsill to produce a new crop of leaves. I made some pesto with mine as it reminds me of summer, and I've also just bought this little chopper gadget from Lidl. 

 It was only £10, and it's really very good. I had one of those little Kenwood mini choppers, but I found it too tiny to be of much use. This one is bigger, solidly built, easier to use, and cheaper.

Pesto
Ingredients can be very variable depending on what you have in and what you fancy:
Couple of handfuls of basil

2 large cloves garlic

1oz/30g pinenuts or walnuts

100ml/quarter pint olive oil

parmesan cheese, grated to taste around a couple of ounces

salt pepper

Whizz everything in the chopper, or use a processor until blended.

Tip into a jar and keep in the fridge.

Ensure you use a crust of bread to clean the bits you can't get out of the bowl,

and eat it. Cooks treat.

Drizzle on salads, bread, with steaks, almost anything, (not Sherry Trifle obviously) and it will help you start to feel like Winter Really Is Over, Almost.

Winter is Officially Over, Isn't It?

It's around about now that I start to think that Winter Is Officially Over, and I should start eating lovely things like baby leaf salad, asparagus tips, and baby broad beans bursting from the pods. Unfortunately, as you can see from this my broad beans are far from bursting forth a leaf, let alone a pod.

 So I will have quite a wait for my primavera salad, unless it comes courtesy of Waitrose. I always germinate broad beans, (and most other things too) indoors, to help protect them from the wildlife (mice mostly). If you can pick a favourable day to transplant already germinated seeds, I think it gets them off to a really good start. I just keep them in the greenhouse, or anywhere indoors would do fine, in a tray of compost or modules, and as soon as they show signs of germination I tip them gently out

and transplant them to the open ground, if conditions are favourable. Do be careful not to damage the newly emerged root, - the white pointy thing is a root so should be pointing downwards, the shoot comes from the same place a few days later but in an upward direction, obviously.

Broad beans are pretty hardy but if conditions are not favourable for transplanting, if it's freezing or waterlogged, you can certainly grow them on into proper little plants, but for this you will need to have them in 3 inch pots in a good light position. And I would want to get them out into the ground as soon as you reasonably can.

Daphne Odora a Treat for the Postman

No digging today, for no other reason that it's Friday, I've been digging all week, and it's drizzling rain. Sometimes we gardeners have to remind ourselves of the simple pleasure of wandering round the garden, even in the drizzle, and not doing anything except just enjoying it.
And one of the most intense pleasures of the garden at this time of year is Daphne Odora, of which I have a good specimen growing by the front door.  The flowers are small and pale pink, a bit like a viburnum, and not really very significant. But as it's name implies, it casts around itself the most wonderful scent, which  is enjoyed not just by me, but in a public spirited kind of way I hope that everyone who comes to the door enjoys it too, just for these few weeks in March when it's flowering. I feel sure that should a bailiff be calling at your front door,(or do they come to the back door?) intent on distraining your chattels, it would surely soften their heart to stand in a cloud of Daphne Odora for two minutes while they waited for you to come out from behind the sofa.

The variety I have is aureomarginata, named for the delicate pale line around the edges of the foliage. It's evergreen, slow growing, needing little or no pruning, - I've had this one around ten years and it's slowly grown to about four feet across and barely three feet high, perfect for planting by the front door. So go on, treat the postman, and charm the bailiff  with Daphne Odora aureomarginata.

What They Don't Show You On Gardener's World

My husband always wonders why I insist on watching Gardener's World on BBC tv, since I spend  the whole programme moaning about it! Well of course, it's a must view prog for gardeners, but I do wish they could manage to be a bit more, well, normal. Normal gardens have weeds, you never see buttercups or dandelions on Gardeners World, and the soil is like a bag of potting compost, nothing like the claggy lumps of earth most of us have to deal with in the real world. Last year when Joe Swift took on a new allotment, it was miraculously "dug over" in the blink of an eye,which allowed dear old Joe to concentrate on designing the peculiar triangle shape of his veg beds. I know they have to show "progress" but they could have kept at least a part of it hand cultivated if only to show how it works in reality

.

There are always bits of the garden that get neglected and weedy. Well at least in my garden there is. Last year for example, I used weed suppressing fabric on the pathways in the veg garden, topped with wood chippings, but I found that although this is very useful for keeping down annual weeds in the summer, the tough perennial weeds like couch grass, mare's tail, and bindweed seem to just run along under the fabric and sprout up in the beds. When I lifted the fabric this week, I found a veritable spaghetti of roots underneath, so I may re think my use of this method of weed suppression this year.  These are the kinds of things real gardeners are interested in, - I think the programme spends too much time trying to entice novice gardeners, when in reality, most of their core viewers are keen gardeners already, and don't need or appreciate the "this is how to open a seed packet" approach.

My son and I were discussing our ideal Gardeners World "dream team" recently - he wanted Rachel de Thame for eye candy, and Alan Titchmarsh for the main presenter. I would bring back the spririt of Geoff Hamilton as a proper gardener, Alan for eye candy, and Carol Klein as the mad old woman, just to make me feel at home!

I apologize to people who don't get BBCtv  by the way,as this whole item will be of pretty much no interest whatsoever.