Gardening with a Dodgy Knee #3

My first foray into gardening this year was back in February. We’d had the cooker moved, new splash backs and a cooker hood installed and some painting and decorating done to spruce up the kitchen. That occupied us until the weather opened up.

On February 11 I put spent indoor hyacinths in the greenhouse which had had had the frost stat on for 2 months. It felt warm inside and all was doing well in there. The sweet peas were growing and the geraniums had overwintered well in the just-above-freezing temperatures.

As it was likely we’d still get a few days or nights of frost I planted the certified garlic bulbs in a small raised bed and a few more in the veggie plot in pre-prepped soil. The soil was workable - which shows we’d had a mild winter - and it was just like planting onion sets except that garlic is supposed to need frost to help them develop. Hence the need to get them in the ground without delay. (To keep the birds off I covered over the rows of planted garlic with fleece - so no hungry beaks could pluck at them.)

The next day the weather was still open allowing me to do some cutting back of old growth and the greenhouse was up to 50 deg F. I pinched out the overwintering sweet peas for bushier growth. And it was light outside until about 6 pm. Although it was still only mid February the day had the feel of shifting out of winter into almost early spring. 

A week later I’d created enough dead growth clippings to fill the garden waste bin. Then a few days after that I couldn’t do any gardening:  we were in the thrall of Storm Eunice which created turbulent winds. We were lucky not to have anything too wild here in the south west of England. And for the first winter in years no fence panels had blown down. But as well as the terrific winds it was very wet out. 

On February 24th the truly saddening news that Russia had invaded Ukraine was across all news media. February 24th. I will never forget the date. All I had to think about was sowing my leek seeds. Others were sheltering from bomb blasts or escaping to the West with babies, one bag and a dog - to a very uncertain future.

As a distraction from this disturbing news I bought pink and yellow primulas at our local farm shop and, as they were destined for the beds in our front garden, it didn’t affect my dodgy knee. I plant them at the height of the steps… going down. So it causes very little bending. It was a beautiful sunny day - by contrast snow was on the ground in Ukraine - and I got up the last of the winter leaves. Not a creative job. It makes my back ache but there are fewer drifts of leaves now we’ve had two deciduous trees cut back. 

By the last day of February pretty pink and blue pulmonaria were growing in ‘mum’s garden’. Crocuses were looking good at the front of the house along with the miniature daffodils. The patio tubs were full of white cyclamen and they needed very little tending but my miniature irises were doing very little. I would have thought they should have been displaying their violet and yellow petals. Yet they had the growing habit of leeks.

Were they leeks?

Had I got my planting arse over tit? Only time would tell. But given the plight of the Ukrainians it was nothing to be bothered about.In the scheme of things.

And on March 1 we officially entered a new season. Winter was behind us. 

Until next time. 

Gardening with a Dodgy Knee #2

As we wallow in and out of warm weather I reflect on my ideas for the garden ( and my dodgy knee) at the top of the year: 

It’s cold and dank out there. I want to plant primulas to give a little pale colour in my front borders, now we are entering a cold, dark season. 

That change in pace. That change in feelings, in thoughts and in our sense of comfort. We emerge from a period of self indulgence; scoffing mince pies and chocolate, watching films and adjusting biblical figures in our nativity scene. 

My knee, barely oiled through indolence, suffers from negotiating the steps at eight o’ clock in the morning. Sharp spikes of cold hit my damaged kneecap. It’s barely light. There’s a film of frost glinting on the tarmac. We have to get the car out but the shock of scraping the windscreen pushes the festive period back into the shiny box of Christmas memories.

This is no longer hogmanay. It’s a bleak, barely back-to-life winter’s morning. The world is cold. I want to retreat to the comfort of the warm sitting room and not be concerned about whether the car will start. Or whether my knee will hurt. 

Down the hill the village square is devoid of human life. The lights are on at the supermarket and seem unusually welcome. We can wait in there, stay warm, do a shop, until the bus arrives. The bistro and the cafe won’t open for an hour. The bus shelter affords no protection from the icy roars belting around the corner on to this treeless pavement. In summer the heat beats through the bus shelter’s perspex roof. There is no shade. In winter there is no protection from the wind.

The farm shop with its early spring-coloured hyacinths and primulas is still in darkness. No colourful flowers for our front garden this morning. 

It’s barely dawn. We haven’t been out so early for weeks. Back then we were having the warmest December on record. It was hardly daylight but there was no winter chill. 

Now is a time for stillness. The garden will need to be still too. Not even a snowdrop has emerged. We wait.

Gardening with a dodgy knee #1

One of the glories of late spring, when thermometer readings race above 50 deg F, is that it’s time to start growing flowers and veg, under glass. But also the pain in my knee seems less.

There’s something about warmth: warm sunshine, warm water or even a hot water bottle, that soothes a dodgy knee. And physical activity gets easier. But I do have to garden in a slightly less vigorous way now. It’s not because I’m ancient that I have a dodgy knee. It is a result of having to jump off a boat that ran aground in Exmouth 30 years ago. The trauma to the knee when I landed badly ( trying to protect my back which had caused me some pain) meant I lost cartilage. I was told I’d likely get trouble with that knee in years to come. So here we are.

More positively there’s a scientific explanation for heat therapy. Warmth makes blood vessels dilate which means more oxygen flows to the muscles - presumably around the knee in my case. And when the muscles are pliable the knee joint is flexible - and lubricated - and the stiffness goes. Also, we all know how we feel when the sun is out. Warmth, on a neuro-psychological level, is good for us and decreases the pain signals to the brain. So warmth is good.

It doesn’t alter the fact that I have 3 or 4 prescription pain killers a day when I’m back out in the garden. I can’t kneel to weed as shooting pains charge up my thigh and I can’t get up. So I dig - with a fork or spade - and weed that way. When the soil is really dry I have a hefty hoe to weed between plants, if I’m lucky, or between rows if I’m not. There are ways around gardening with a dodgy knee. I get less done per hour than I used to. But, as I have all the time I need, now I’ve stopped tutoring, I don’t have to garden in a rush. 

Weeding between patio slabs, where I can’t dig with a spade is a trial. Sometimes my husband helps. Occasionally I resort to the least harmful weedkiller possible. There may be a tool on the market for such a job. I have joined a fb gardening group. They are so helpful - I’d better ask them.

Being outside at least 10 minutes a day is good for us psychologically, so says Dr Michael Mosley, who researches such things. It has been a very dry few weeks and I’ve barely been out to a pub, restaurant or to see friends over the last eight days as there’s been so much to do in the garden. But there’s also been much sitting out in the sunshine. 

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot?

As I write I remember I left my amaranth - celosia plants out overnight. They should have hardened off by now. And the same goes for the romanseco ( calabrese) which arrived a fortnight ago in a cardboard book wrapper from cousins in Leeds. I repotted them and they are a good few inches bigger now. My lovely dwarf beans have also hardened off and I told my brother I would send him photographs of the rose he gave me for my birthday. It’s called Molineux. No guessing what the colour of the petals is!

But I’d better get on with it! A day’s light gardening to do. I may have to put a few plants in at ground level but many will go in the raised beds. The latter is much easier to do with a dodgy knee. Far less bending is involved. 

Until next time.

Bedtime

It’s finally dropped to 50 deg F in my small greenhouse and I’ve picked the last of the tomatoes. It’s been a long season: our first fruits were ready on July 3. And, so powerful are the cherry tomatoes, I could put away my chutney ingredients: Almost overnight, with my cherry tomatoes in the same bowl, the green medium-sized ones turned red. Hoorah.

Many weeks later than I expected I dismantled our last two tomato plants. There was some mould or maybe even blight on a stem on their last day. But it was academic as the plants were headed for the incinerator. I never compost tomato plants. I don’t want to spread blight but nor do I want the seeds from discarded tomato fruits to randomly germinate in the veggie plot.

I haven’t used Jeyes Fluid to disinfect the greenhouse now the temperatures outside have dropped. It was time to bring my lemon tree under glass and I felt Jeyes would be too strong for it. I could disinfect with a milder cleanser but I don’t want to upset the lemon tree which is full of fruit.

Now I am on that last bowl of tomatoes - the cherry and medium-sized fruits - it will be November when I cook with shop-bought ones. For four months we have enjoyed our own tomatoes and French beans, dwarf and climbers. I have a freezer-full of beans but never fear…the August-sown broad beans are in flower. And right on cue. We may yet have full pods in December. The ‘Luz de Otono’ variety is new to me. If they produce pods this side of Christmas I will include them in my future growing plans.

Meanwhile my thin leeks are gradually fattening and I plan to dig them in deeper, as suggested by a helpful member of the ‘grow your own’ group. I await the spinach crop but until then I can be picking the salad leaves. It’s hardly cold out there this late in the year.  I may even transplant the salad crops closer to the house. It’s then much easier to cover them with frost-proof netting this end of our long garden. 

So relatively warm has it been that my miniature iris bulbs are already 12 cm high. They are spring-flowering and shouldn’t even be showing themselves yet. I’ll be interested to see what Monty Don suggests for garden maintenance in the last programme of Gardeners World. It’s time to let nature go to sleep. 

Sunshine

It has been a joyous, warm and sunny September. And today, October 12th, I had to come inside as it was so warm sitting on our patio. The ‘sweet petite’ tomatoes are continuing to grow and fruit in the greenhouse which is recording temperatures of 62deg F. Still.

My shed/ workspace reached 66deg F yesterday afternoon - with the door open. In a few weeks’ time I will have to dismantle my tomato plants, move begonias, geraniums and others into the greenhouse to overwinter. It has a frost stat and a small gas heater for very cold January/February days. But not yet. 

But where do I put my lemon tree? It has produced lots of fruit, hasn’t dropped its leaves, and is healthy. However the fruits haven’t yet turned yellow.Maybe next season. 

Should I wrap the whole lemon plant in bubble wrap and put it in the (well-made) shed where it’s a few degrees warmer than outside? (But I can’t heat the shed easily). Or should I put it in the greenhouse - still bubble-wrapped - where it’s lighter and where I can put in a few hours heating as temperatures drop? 

These questions don’t have to be answered yet. 

In the meantime I’ve been reflecting on what a good life I have. Yes my husband is ill with depression and I can get tired as he is debilitated by it. So I have to do more. ( I do get help in the home and garden and get lifts when required). But sitting in the sunshine, surrounded by apricot and orange begonias, my newly grown pansies, the last of the bedding plants and feeling the warmth it is a time to be alive. The news, post-Brexit, post-Afghanistan and mid-Covid is depressing and politicians have a lot to answer for. But if you are lucky enough to be able to sit in the sun this late in the year you have riches untold.  

I was listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Only Livin’ Boy in New York’ and admiring the view from my patio. I saw colour; shocking pink, blousy pot plants and a long, productive, cared-for garden. As I sipped my coffee I felt huge contentment. And I realised I’d grown up. When I heard ‘Only Livin’ Boy in New York’ first time around life was for the having - in the US, in California, in New York. But I’m older now. I’ve grown up. Yellow cabs don’t enthral me. My garden is a place of gladness and serenity. And I feel blessed. It takes work but it’s a bit of Eden, just outside my back door.

Now I’m going outside again, to wallow in ‘The Boxer’, ‘Cecelia’, the sunshine and a fresh cuppa. Bliss. 

Photographs

I have joined a couple of ‘as it was in photographs’ on face book. It is astonishing how, despite the geographical distances apart, life in the 19th century or in the 1930s, or even post-war, looked pretty similar for working men & women whether close to wealthy suburbs or in the sight of heavy industries and the factory gate. 

Some areas have improved since the sepia-tinted images were first made. Other areas have never recovered from the lack of production and eventual unemployment in the 1980s. Thatcher’s Britain.

But it was in the 1970s that I first saw what poverty really looked like. My father was a grammar school Head and mum worked very part-time with special needs children. We had a comfortable life surrounded by woods and playing fields. Our neighbourhood was very safe: our childhood home was in a small cul-de-sac and there was very little traffic to risk our safety out-of-doors.

Books lined the shelves in every room. We were brought up in a state of security, informed discussion and happiness. I rarely heard my parents argue and I knew little of domestic tension nor a lack of cash. However we weren’t spoiled. A Head’s salary wasn’t huge but his quality of life in and out of school made dad a good chap to be around 

But it was at a school jumble sale that I saw a very poor man indeed. Every autumn the girls’ grammar school that I attended held a jumble sale in the wood-panelled school hall. All our mums were there, donating rather than buying, manning the stalls and making teas. The Headteacher was there in her batman cloak. There were few men.

Which is why it was so noticeable when a down-at-heel father-of-many with long black hair and an even longer beard arrived with a crowd of very young children wearing jumpers that had been washed far too often. He clearly hadn’t shaved in months. The Head smiled, uncertainly, at him when he entered. She was an unmarried MA in Maths from Oxbridge. 

He ruffled through a variety of jumble bundles. As he pushed his hand into his overcoat pocket I could see it was torn and buttons hung from his coat. His trousers were too long but it was the strain in his voice that told you all was not well. 

I’d have been about 13 and I could see he wasn’t like anyone I had ever met. When he handed a few coppers over for jumpers, slacks and skirts for his brood his hands were dirty and his finger nails were long.

I imagined that family lived in one of the council estates or in a privately-rented terraced house. Now I wonder whether they were in temporary accommodation. There certainly were poor areas in my town although there was full employment.

Looking back I guess his wife had died and he was bringing up the children alone. I do recall he held conversations with some of the mums and stopped for tea and biscuits. He wasn’t frightening just sad and weary. My friend’s mum gave the children unopened packets of biscuits. I saw the man smile. A few moments of tension left his face. He looked younger.

I imagine he got most of his children’s clothes at jumble sales. His children ran around the school hall like undomesticated kittens but went to him when he called them over. They were excitable but did as they were told.

Today there will be families in England who have no idea how they are going to cope with the prospect of rising domestic fuel prices and the lack of the £20 weekly uplift. 

Around five million may have to use the Trussell Trust or food banks just to get a meal. If a kettle breaks how does it get fixed? Let’s hope there are cheap, working models of microwave ovens available for folk who aren’t going to cope with even less per month as we enter the coldest months of the year. Heat or eat? 

Poverty is a failure of a wealthy society, like ours,  to provide for those when they need it. When they need a hand-up. Our welfare state is something we should have been proud of. But it’s slipped through our fingers like twenty-pound notes. There’s a lack of care.

The Victorians saw poverty as shameful, and the result of laziness or vice. But Dr Barnardo refused to discriminate between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. He accepted all children, regardless of race, disability or circumstance. That was London 1870. How have things changed? We have universal schooling and free school meals now but housing is poor in some areas and rents are shockingly high. And we have the food banks.

Should poverty exist in the world’s fifth richest nation? 

The clash of the Titans (beans, that is)

For the next two weeks, indeed throughout most of September, temperatures shouldn’t drop below 64 deg F here in sheltered Bath. The ‘Luz de Otono’ broad beans, which were giants even in their seed trays, are going to make rapid growth at this rate. And with no sign of frost the climbing beans look set to keep on producing.

I have found an excellent recipe for the likely glut of climbing French beans. It was written for runner beans but I don’t like runners. I don’t waste my time making wigwam frames for them. Therefore I’m christening this recipe ‘French bean & tomato soup’. If you grow your own tomato plants you are very likely still picking fruits by the ton. In which case you can make 3 cups’ worth of tomatoes as stated* or use the tinned variety.

French Bean & Tomato Soup

• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• 1 pound beans, sliced
• 1 chopped garlic clove
• 3 cups chopped tomatoes*
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp pepper

• In a large saucepan, saute the onion and carrots in oil for approximately 5 minutes - until the carrots are softened. Stir in the stock , beans and garlic then bring the whole to the boil. Reduce the heat then cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are tender. 
• Stir in the tomatoes, basil and pepper. Cover and simmer 5 minutes longer.
• Serve, eat and enjoy.

Meanwhile, after indulging in my vegetable-garden broth, a glance at the seed packet shows me my giant one-month-old broad beans are destined to grow over three foot tall. I’ll need the bamboo canes from the wigwams to help support them. But we may not get a frost until November so the climbers may need the sticks themselves … On the other hand with strong autumn winds the broad beans may well be rocked in their planting positions while the climbers keep producing. It’s the clash of the titans in the world of beans!!

Tomatoes can be kept in their growing positions until temperatures drop below 50 deg F. At which point it is time to dismantle them, remove the last fruits for ripening and discard the stems. The tomato-growing season is then over. By which time the climbing beans can still be going great guns as frosts don’t form until we reach 32 deg F. Oh to have more space! 

I plan to replenish the raised beds with fresh compost. One has lettuce and salad leaves growing in it. Another has leeks. Do I lift them and replant them after I’ve enriched their growing medium? I’m thinking it’s best to wait until this warm, dry spell is over and replant them when rain is expected and aim to disturb their root systems as little as possible.

The other raised beds are an easier matter. When the dwarf French beans are finished I can fully replenish the beds and leave them fallow until spring. 

What a busy gardening year this has turned out to be. My only real failure has been the spinach. And I can only think I was trying to sow old seed. 

When the battle of the beans is over I will try my hand at growing garlic. Some say plant in October, outside, where the frost can get at the clove. Others say ‘plant on shortest day’ ‘harvest on longest day.’ However it’s done I need space not just for the various beans but for garlic too!