h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In reference to my OP singing the praises of Elder..home to witches and dryads, I've taken a few photos of the elderflowers, now in full flower and truly gorgeous. From afar they sem to somehow shine, and close to they look like some strange delicious sculpture..and really their scent is quite complex and affecting..

http://bit.ly/cUukKA

I've just picked what's likely to be the last major bunch of French Sorrel for this year. It was hot today, so the stuff is bolting to seed. (although, there's a possibility of a second crop if conditions are right)

I think maybe our snow is finished and summer is finally here.

We're having a real heat wave here in London that has gone on for a couple of weeks, and no rain for what seems like a couple of months. Due to hit 30 today and over the weekend. I'm watering constantly. Courgettes cropping brilliantly..and have grown pots and pots of basil this year. After two wet summers it's nice to have a taste of the 'mediterranean'.

Not really to do with 'growing' but last evening I cleaned out my aquarium pond. Apart from the reeds and water snails it had turned into a bit a morgue, choked with blanket weed, accidently introduced, and stinking black sludge on the bottom. It's suddenly scarily antiseptic, but the algae will soon start to grow as food for the snails.. I might even get a few mosquito larvae again

And the birds will be happier to get some cleaner drinking water again.

We've been having hot and humid in this bizarre part of Canada. Today and tonight and through the day tomorrow it looks like will be getting about 25% of our usual annual precipitation. In some parts of the world the term might be 'monsoon', but two days of rain really doesn't seem to qualify for that.

On the garden front:

have had a few strawberries, poppies are blooming, it looks like a crop of two apples from the young apple tree, French sorrel has bolted to seed, tomatoes are starting to form, cayenne, habenero, and jalepeno peppers are coming along nicely, zucchinis (courgettes?) are just beginning to flower, beans are coming along nicely, hops are obscenely tall, eggplant has flowered (we'll see if we get anything), and borage (thank goodness for gin and Pimm's #1) is absolutely everywhere!

Despite the recent fall from on high of a neighbor's cat, the thyme is doing well and the two habenero pepper plants seem to still be alive. The cat is stiched, cone-collared, and confined (and retains its repulsive feline arrogance). The hatchling sparrows, the lofty goal of the cat's unintentional base-jumping experience, are no more.

My apologies to cat-lovers, but to my mind Felis catus is in no way a domesticated animal and is nothing other than an invasive non-native species in North America and should be eliminated with prejudice. (I bet I'll get an earful for that)

re:Cats and earfuls. You won't get an earful from me about them anhaga. Our garden is mostly devoted to encouraging them to feed and nest here. And our nearest neighbour has two cats who think it is their bounden duty to rid the world of anything that has life. It is terribly sad to hear the mother bird's frantic calls as yet another of her fledglings is nabbed by these unnecessary predators.

I did used to own a cat with hunting tendencies, but made it wear a little bell in order to give the birds at least a flying start.

ps we are having the driest summer since 1929. The top of the garden is bone dry, even the hydrangeas in the shrubbery are wilting. Other parts of the country are having a ban on the use of hose pipes.

I have a very ambivalent attitude towards cats. I absolutely love having them as pets - had them all my life. I think they're fascinating creatures. But I really hate the idea of so much of our bird life being destroyed by them. Whenever neighbours cats enter my garden, I run at them shouting, and if neccesary throwing a bit of dirt at them; doesn't hurt but scares them off. Local cats, cats being intelligent creatures, have learnt their lesson and now rarely enter my garden.

The sparrow hawks have benefitted as as a result. I've seen them several times this year swooping down and taking young sparrows, there's a huge flock in the wonderful massive hedge composed of all manner of plants I've developped on one side.

I think the sparrow hawk population is now on the rise

Your garden exploits sound brilliant anhaga. Especially peppers. My chilli peppers are struggling to grow despite the good summer. I bought a new sort of peat free compost this year for the pots. It maybe more environmentally friendly, but it's damn useless as compost, it seems to compact and not allow enough air to the roots. It's as about as useless as the environmentally friendly snail stuff I quickly gave up on.

I have a whole mass of high teasles growing next to the hedge this year which I grew from seed last year. Fantastic structures. It's fascinating watching the way the bumble bees negotiate the teasle structures, to access the nectar. They seem hugely popular for bees. I just wish there were more bumble bees about though. There seem far fewer this year.

I agree that your garden sounds as if it is a triumph over adversity with the long, long winter anhaga.


On the issue of modern peat free compost, I always add a little perlite to the mix. This is probably stolen from some quarry somewhere as well, so may also be ravaging the earth producing it. But it does open up the compost and help retain water in dry spells.

to check the origins of this product ooh they get it from volcanoes.

I make my own compost -- lots of eggshells. I use one of these: http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=47098&cat=2,33140&ap=1

Our city composts as well:

'the Edmonton Composting Facility at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre (EWMC) uses the city's household waste and biosolids (sewage sludge) as resources to create compost, a rich soil supplement. Together with established recycling programs it enables Edmonton to divert about 60% of its residential waste from landfill.'

http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/garbage_recycling/edmonton-composting-facility.aspx

Yes I make my own compost as well which I use for veg, digging into my soil..there's not enough for everything. So I take the easy way out for a few things in pots.

Thanks Lanza for your suggestion. I've used vermicualite before, I'd forgotten about it. It works great at aerating the soil. I'll do that in future. I hadn't seen your post and I bought some lovely light peat compost as I read that all peppers have a particular dislike for heavy wet soil, and have realitively shallow root systems. Anyway I just dug up my stunted little'uns and couldn't believe just how tiny their root systems were..no wonder they couldn't grow, the stuff they were trying to grow in had turned into something like wet cement, even though I'd mixed it with soil. I've now replanted in new compost. It annoys me no end when companies bring out new environmentally friendly products that are totally unfit for purpose. All it does is make most people think, well I won't bother thinking like that again, it's a racket.

But big news guys. I've just ordered pond liner to build a proper pond, and I will make a bog garden and marshy areas with it as well. I've always wanted to do this..I'm most excited and have put on order a variety of indigenous wild plants they grow in marshy soil and pond margins. Having a pond rather than just an aquarium in the ground will mean I'll be able to have much more fun with little floating plants and weeds. Everything will be indigenous..and I hope to attract more than just mosquitos and sparrows to it Dragon flies and waterboatman and eventually a few sticklebacks are long term goals.

Lots of digging will be required..but really it makes sense because it'll just replace bits that tend to get invaded by weeds and couch grass..that I never quite do anything with.

Lanza are you in the UK then at present?

Meant perlite

Some pics I took earlier of bumbles clambering around on teasel heads.

http://bit.ly/bcerVH

Wow - lovely bee photos effers! and yes am in England at the moment. (raining! how dry it has been here recently)

Filled the pond today. Half an hour ago I went out to look at it and I couldn't believe that there was already a pond skater on it. Wow, nature is amazing. It's been very windy so maybe they get blown around more when seeking ponds. Have just chucked a few things in which I ordered and some grass sedges I had in the aquarium pond. It's scary how horrible the liner looks, but that will soon tone down hopefully with a bit of silt and algae. I stupidly chose the green liner, I wish I'd chosen grey..but still the colour should change.

Still lots to do around the edges. Have cut trenches around it so pond is raised to prevent nutrients running into it. Will backfill and plant seeds of water edging flowers and grasses on the excess liner with holes drilled into it to drain...and there's the bog garden to organise..

It will probably take a couple of years before it looks like a proper pond but crikey it's exciting..and wow a pond skater after 4 hours

An update from the Great White North:



What a bloody awful year for the garden!

A couple of nights ago the expected low was +2 Celsius. Tonight there are frost warnings for rural areas round about. Everything got pretty much shredded by hail in July and slugs are eating the rest. The few tomatoes I'm getting are still green, the peppers that have formed are staying green, the onions got smashed down by the hail and stopped growing.

Pretty much the only things that have done well are herbs, celery and sorrel.

I think I'll get a gun and start hunting rabbits for the winter.

He's huntin Wabbits

HUR-HUR-HUR!!!!

Bloody 'ell!

I spent the evening hauling peppers and celery and herbs and tomatillos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatillo into the house because the cosmic plan seems to be sub-zero temperatures and possibly snow over the next week or so. Tomorrow I'll haul in whatever movable is left and then try to gather the strawberries, squash and tomatoes under a tarp and throw in a string of Christmas lights to keep them warm (this works quite well, I've found).

Someday I'll dig up my potatoes.





At least the cold will deal with the slugs that keep nibbling my zucchinis (courgettes for you provincial sorts)

oo - that does sound fearsome weather you have anhaga. Maybe you need a polytunnel or green house?

Its actually turned cold here too, but nothing as extreme as that. We've just brought the tender plants in from the patio and taken them into the conservatory for the winter.

Blimey that does sound pretty grim anhaga. I'm pleased I've finally got a few chilli peppers now. I think I'd feel pretty sick though cos it only seems 5 minutes ago you said it was snowing in late spring..

Most of my garden has now been given over to traditional wild flower meadow cultivation. Have planted some mixed seed a couple of weeks ago which is coming up, after I removed the top soil..and the rest I'll do next spring when the glyphosphate has gone from the soil.

Pond is okaish..still algal bloom, but it must have about 50% rainwater now and the plants will eventually use up the nutrients I added at the beginning because I used tap water.

Saw some dreaded duck weed yesterday..presumably brought by birds. Tried my best to remove every fragment cos the stuff can take over. Have had a backswimmer, a water boatman, and a couple of pond skaters over the summer. A dragon fly buzzed it but didn't lay anything I think..A fox comes to drink though which is fun.

Right. That's it. The garden season would seem to be over.

They're talking -5 tonight with a possibility of snow.

Today I dug the potatoes, such as they are, the onions, such as they are, brought all the potted plants including two strawberry pots into the house picked the last of the beans and zucchini.

I moved my big tomato barrel and the squash barrel closer together and put the big strawberry pot beside them and put a big tarp over all of them and the big tomatillo plant that's in the ground. Then I wrapped a string of christmas lights around the lot. I don't know if it'll be worth the trouble.

Over the last few days I brought in a bunch of other pots, including a pitiful tomato plant and some very nice tomatillos and peppers.

The one success story is that tonight I picked the third crop of French Sorrel for the season and we had one of our favourite dinners, something we call 'green pancakes' which I found in a book of medieval recipes (recipe at the end of the post).

The crazy thing is that if the snow comes, it will probably be gone again in a week and then it will be warm until mid-November and there won't be any snow again until Christmas.

______________

Green Pancakes

or

Tansy Cake


Breke egges in bassyn and swyng hem sone,
Do powder of peper þerto anone;
þen grynde tansy, þo iuse owte wrynge,
To blynde with þo egges with owte lesynge.
In pan or skelet þou shalt hit rye,
In butter wele skymmet wyturly,
Or white grece þo make þer to,
Geder hit on a cake, þenne hase þou do,
With platere of tre, and frye hit browne.
On brode leches serve hit þou schalle,
With fraunche mele or other metes with alle.

Other recipes for tansy cakes seem to call or smaller cakes, thickened with breadcrumbs (and in a later period, flour), with spice added. Since small pancakes seem more attractive that a cut up green omelet, we have adapted the recipe to follow other examples. Tansy is a bitter herb not much in use today, but other recipes indicate almost any green leafy vegetable may be substituted. One specifies ‘spinage,’ which may satisfy many, but sorrel or other more bitter greens will be closer in effect to tansy.

Green Pancakes

1 cup blanched tansy, sorrel, spinach, or other greens (parboiled 1-5 minutes, depending on the greens chosen
1 cup light cream
3 eggs
1 cup fine breadcrumbs
1/8 tsp each ground nutmeg, ginger
butter for frying

Drain greens and squeeze out excess water with your hand. Blend or process with all other ingredients until smooth; if batter is to thick, thin with cream or milk. Cook as small, thin pancakes. As with other such crêpes, you can refrigerate (or freeze) the cakes and reheat in a medium oven.


– from Pleyn Delit by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, Sharon Butler (originally from Liber Cure Cocorum)

this whole book is available on Google Books http://books.google.ca/books?id=9NtrX1ZXbCMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pleyn+delit&source=bl&ots=ZkoPLTxaXZ&sig=XPIuke_786VrLu7SJE_KufCkXVc&hl=en&ei=YKCSTPWNEIuongeI2cCwCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false