Happy Gardening New Year!

We have turned a corner - the light is coming back to the northern hemisphere.

I celebrate the Winter Solstice. It's a really special time for me. It's a chance to think about the year that's been and to think about the coming year and especially to think about the earth and how by all working together, in our own small way, we can make a collective difference.

Solstice Alter

The garden is quite bare at the moment. Well on the surface anyway, apart from a few brave plants. My Skimmia which I cut a piece of and bought indoors is looking lovely, adorned by ruby red berries and I have a plant which has been in flower pretty much all year long and is still going strong. I have no idea what it is with its orangey-yellow flower but seems to survive as it is planted against a south facing wall.

I am now planning for the new season of gardening. I bought myself Carol Kleins new book Cook Your Own Veg which is full of wonderful recipes and the most beautiful photographs taken by Howard Sooley. Howard Sooley was a great friend of the late Derek Jarman. He did the photography in Derek's book Derek Jarman's garden, which documents the amazing and beautiful garden which Derek created in the wilds of Dungerness, from its beginnings in 1986 to the last years of his life. I believe that Howard still keeps the wooden house and garden as a memorial to his friend. If I am correct, its somewhere I would love to visit.

I took advantage of Thompson and Morgans offer of free p & p last weekend and ordered my seeds and seed potatoes and garlic. I am going to try planting my garlic in pots and keeping it in the summer house until the spring and planting out then, in the hope that that will give them a fighting chance this year away from the soggy weather.
I have also booked myself and long suffering partner Andy on a day at River Cottage in March entitled Get Growing in Spring. Any excuse to visit River Cottage!

Andy knows of my admiration for the late Geoff Hamilton and so for Christmas bought me his 3 DVD set of Ornamental Kitchen Gardens, Cottage Gardens and Paradise Gardens series. They really are wonderful to watch.

I watched the Christmas edition of Gardeners' World and I have to say that I now heartily endorse Toby Buckland. He really reminds me of Geoff. He and Alyse have a lovely rapour and she is so sweet. I an looking forward to its return in the spring.

It might be really chilly outside but the sun is coming back and the nights will soon be drawing out again - lots to look forward to!

Winter Wreath
Boots snuggled up in his new basket

Pale Autumn Sky

Not much tidying went on in the garden today. We woke up to drizzly rain and gusting winds but by 11 the sun had come out just long enough to rescue the fire pit and empty it of ash and water and put it to bed for the Winter and pick the last of my raspberries before the heavens opened again.

This Autumn there has been some really beautiful light. As I sat at my dining room table today, I noticed how the window framed a lovely image of shrub from next door which appears to have blossom on it with a large expanse of pale blue sky. I went outside to photograph it and within minutes the light was gone.




This weekend I have been very lucky as my lovely sister in-law Mary has bought me membership to River Cottage, for Christmas and my birthday next year. Also I bought Carol Kleins latest book Cook Your Own Veg. With her lovely recipes, I will be inspired to grow more vegetables and perhaps try different vegetables. I must say my butternut squash have been an absolute success. I will defiantly be growing those again next year. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cook-Your-Own-Carol-Klein/dp/1845334078/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227455992&sr=1-2

Gardeners' World is over for another season. I have warmed to Toby and was quite sad when it finished. In my opinion, he is from the same school of gardening as the late Geoff Hamilton, the best presenter GW has ever had. I haven't watched the episode from Carol's garden at Glebe Cottage yet, I have that on my sky box. I am saving that treat for when I need cheering up!

More from Compton Acres

I finally got around to editing the rest of the Compton Acres photographs from last weekend.
I failed to mention, that besides the Italian garden, there is also a Japanese garden, complete with a tea house and pagoda. There are stepping stones to take you across a pond full of gigantic coy carp. I am not keen on big fish, so that freaked me out a little, and I had to be helped across the stepping stones like a small child.

This weekend I plan tidy up the garden and see if there is anything photogenic in the garden, which quite frankly is now looking pretty sorry for itself .

Compton Acres

I abandoned the chores in my garden today for a touch of the Italian with a trip to Compton Acres.
I love images of gardens with Romanesque balustrades, so armed with my Nikon and Polaroid cameras we headed towards the Italian garden. I had visited the garden many years ago with my friend Jo, so I had a vague recollection of this part of the garden. To enter the garden you go through a grotto which was gently lit with tea lights. It was absolutely magical.

This time of year when the leaves are falling from the trees, gardens have a kind of neglected and abandoned feel about them. This garden certainly evoked those feelings of abandonment and I swore a fairy flew past us, through the trees, although my boyfriend said it was a dragonfly. Are dragonflies still about this time of year? I prefer my romantic notions.

Here are a few images of the garden. Time is short today, so I have only edited a few.

I will edit the others and scan in my Polaroids for the next blog. I only took a few Polaroids as they are quite expensive, it certainly makes you think about the image before you press the button, just like in the good old days of film!

Putting The Garden To Bed pt 1

The last of my carrots have been pulled up and discarded as the frost had got to them. But the raspberries are still going strong. Not enough to make another batch of delicious jam
unfortunately but enough for raspberry and apple crumble. The raspberries in the pots haven't done nearly as well as the raspberries in the ground, so I am going find a new home for them this Autumn. My veg beds are bare, now that the Dahlias have been cut back. I have left the tubers in the ground and covered them with a thick blanket of compost, so I am hoping that they will survive. We are only about a mile from Poole harbour, so I think that will keep us a few degrees warmer than inland and away from the hardest frosts which will kill the tubers.




I am starting the big tidy up but it has been a bit wet this weekend to sweep up the leaves.
My Astrantia Major is still looking absolutely lovely and is positively sparkling in this gorgeous Autumn light. I always have a heavy heart when we change the clocks in October. I hate coming home from work in the dark but on the plus side we do have some beautiful defused light around us.

I can't believe there is only one more episode of Gardeners' World this year, especially as Toby is starting to grow on me. I think it is because he has similar ways to Geoff Hamilton but if he says 'tickle the soil' one more time I think I will change my mind. Although he didn't say it this week, so perhaps he has got my vibes.

Talking of the television. I appeared very briefly on River Cottage a couple of weeks ago. I was very excited and proud as I love Hugh but rather alarmed at the state I was in. If I had known I was going to be on television I would have made more of an effort. God I looked old. So Hugh has done me a big favour. No more sweets and naughty cakes and I have ordered a Wii fit . I know that being on screen supposed to add 10 pounds but really 10 years as well!!!

Jamtastic

After a weekend of beautiful sunshine, I am ever hopeful that my squashes will ripen before the first frost.

I am still pulling carrots for yummy home made coleslaw but apart from that, my veg plot is starting to look bare. Gardeners' World on Friday, showed Joe planting up onions, so I need to look at what I can plant up now, which will over winter successfully.



As there is not much to do in the garden at the moment, I turned my attention to all the raspberries I have picked over the last couple of weeks, which have been sitting in my freezer.

I consulted my Preserves book by Pam Corbin to find an easy recipe for making raspberry jam, as I had never made jam before. I came across a recipe for raspberry fridge jam by Hugh FW. It's called fridge jam because it has a lower amount of sugar than regular jam, so once opened it needs to be kept in the fridge. (The sugar acts as a preservative, so therefore the shelf life is shorter but if kept in the fridge, it lasts 2 to 3 weeks)

It's really easy to make and tastes amazing. As the amount of sugar is reduced, you can really taste the raspberries rather than just sugar. The consistency is more like a conserve being quite soft and absolutely delicious on home made bread.


Although I haven't got a glut of produce to turn into preserves, (this year anyhow) I like the idea of making chutneys and sauces. It has a homely comforting feeling about it, plus you know exactly what goes into your preserves, which has got to be a good thing!

Watch out for Hugh's new series River Cottage Autumn this week.