July/August 2004
So what happened to May and June I hear you ask? Well, a great many seeds, cuttings, orders and weeds happened in May, and a half-finished newsletter dragged on into June, and then there was a hiatus with web managers and - here we are. We ate the "darling buds of May" in salads - broom buds, that was. And another edible plant has decided to grace the wilder parts of our garden this spring. During winter we crown-lifted the dominating sycamore whose boughs almost swept the ground, and coppiced some overgrown shrubs around the polytunnel. The main purpose was to allow more light into the nursery area, but a bonus was that the process sparked a burgeoning of wild plants to appear that were not there before. The star is Jack-by-the-Hedge, or Garlic Mustard, a wild plant whose leaves taste mildly of garlic and which are delicious in salad. Meanwhile, the nettles in the hen run provided tasty greens and nettle soup - today I heard of a restaurant in Tuscany which serves nettle-stuffed ravioli among its many herbal specialities. More on this in August after our summer holiday!
Quick August addendum: WOW!!!! This restaurant, full details of which can be found at www.erbhosteria.it , is stunning. It only serves lunch on Sundays and special days, 1 o'clock on the dot, and nearly every one of its 25 or so courses is based on locally growing wild herbs or fungi. Omelette with Clematis vitalba. Nettle polenta. Thyme fritters. Elderflower fritters. Borage Tart. Plenty of local wine. I won't go on. If you are ever in north east Tuscany , visit Rofelle near Badia Tedalda and experience it - slowly. It was part of a package really - the whole region has an imaginative, practical and resourceful attitude to the use of herbs and wild foods, which felt to me like a homecoming. Much recommended!
Now I see the elder is in flower, so don't forget to be out there at dawn on Midsummer's Day to collect the dew-sprinkled blossoms for elderflower wine, cordial, champagne or whatever is your tipple.
Of course, by now it's elderberries we are waiting for. We have a spinney of red-berried elder (Sambucus racemosa) near us and I have made a gallon of wine from the red berries, which ripen earlier than Sambucus nigra. I have read they lack the medicinal properties of common elder, but I've eaten them in pies and not been poisoned, though not found references to their edibility either. Anyone out there have more information?
Talking of Midsummer, did you know that St. John's Wort is the herb of Midsummer, burned on Midsummer fires to represent the sun in all its glory? It will be in flower soon - look out for it. And if you cut back the flowering heads now in August, you'll get a second flush. Now is the time to experiment with herbal teas. There is really no comparison between the sumptuous flavours of freshly cut herbs and the washed-out, "all taste the same to me" response to shop-bought, overpackaged tea bags. Try nettle top, sage, meadowsweet and coltsfoot for a real tonic "herbal aspirin" on your off-days (we ALL have them!). Or for a refreshing summer drink, infuse Lemon Verbena, apple mint or peppermint, and sweet cicely. Meadowsweet and Sweet Cicely are both good natural sweeteners, but get some local honey if you have a real sugar craving...
Garden Jobs
Oh yes, we are still weeding. If the weather is dry, use a sharp hoe while the weed seedlings are small - but be wary, it's so easy to slice off the stem of some prize vegetable or rare perennial by mistake. Pests are appearing too. I will cover the cabbages with enviromesh and hope the cabbage white butterflies don't creep underneath it like they did last year. I have no idea how, but they did anyway. At least it wasn't the stripy ones though.
Blackfly have congregated on my long-suffering Absinthe, which I keep in a pot. It acts as a good decoy plant, but, feeling I could only ask so much of it, I was about to spray it with a rhubarb leaf drench to reduce the infestation. But then I noticed a ladybird busy on the foliage. Four days later she is still busy and, I hope, laying plenty of eggs, which will hatch into blackfly-devouring larvae. By August the Absinthe has overcome the blackfly, aided by ladybird larvae, and is looking pretty fit! I've also seen several large frogs in the nursery, but regular slug checks are still in force, which the hens look forward to as they get the spoils.
The same day, a lacewing landed on the potting bench in the polytunnel - another beneficial insect to help with pest control. She was almost as pretty as the Painted Lady butterfly that was resting on my collection of thymes this morning. There are so many insects in the garden, and most are hugely welcome. Meadow Cranesbill and Poached Egg plants attract bees in droves, and the Welsh Onion flowers seem to have a surprising following too. But till the oregano comes out, the thymes reign supreme as plants for pollinators. In July I noticed the Sea Hollies, especially the variety Miss Wilmott's Ghost, are very attractive to wasps. We are now getting rather a lot of wasps who greatly desire to join our picnics, barbecues and so on. Yes they are a pain, but only nosy, really, and they do help with caterpillar control - they feed them to their own carnivorous larvae.
Many taller perennials need some support just now. I have an Iris which thinks it's a prostrate form, which annoys me, and the cranesbills are excruciatingly laid back. If you can surround clumps with twiggy pea-sticks BEFORE they decide to lie down, it can be an easy and attractive form of staking.
In the nursery
Stunning. More stock, more variety and more sales than we've had to date, and a roller-coaster of work to be done. I've got two more mints - Bowles Mint and Lemon Mint - for next year, and several new stock plants. French Tarragon and Lemon Verbena are practically sold before they have rooted, in that there is a waiting list for them! But at this time of year they root well and there should be plenty of stock in time for the autumn shows. Here is a list of plants NOT in this year's catalogue, which are now available:-
White Marshmallow
Agastache Golden Anniversary and A. Alabaster
Old Woman (Artemisia stelleriana, to go with Old Man, A. abrotanum)
Artemisia vulgaris Oriental Limelight (a stunning form of mugwort)
Artemisia ludoviciana Silver Queen
Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage
Fullers Teasel
Globe Thistle 'Arctic Glow'
Hemp Agrimony (AT LAST! Got it to germinate)
Liquorice (but not many!)
Mint-leaved Bergamot
Mentha piperata Purple Spires
PurpleLoosestrife 'Robert'
Purple Plantain (beautiful foliage)
Podophyllum hexandrum (a stunning woodland plant)
Spike Lavender
Lavender 'Lavender Lady'
Echinacea
Lavender Cedar Blue
Winter Savory.
and more on the way and some I forget. BUT we are out of Alkanet, Lemon Grass, Sweet Cicely, Vervain and Woad I'm afraid. Most of the annuals (coriander, basil, feverfew) are past their best too, but Summer Savory, invaluable for planting and cooking with beans, is doing well.
Shows coming up
Perth Gardeners Market, 19th June That was a good one
Kinross Show, 14th August
RHS Perthshire Show, City Hall, Perth 14th August
Dundee Flower and Food Festival - 3rd 4th 5th September
Don't forget if you're local you are welcome to give us a ring and arrange a visit at any time.
How are the bees doing? NOT well. After years of expecting it, the parasitic Varroa jacobsonii mite has caught up with us. It is depressing to see our queen bee working so hard to lay eggs, only to have them parasitised by this nasty little mite. We know what we are up against, and we know plenty of beekeepers have learned to cope with the problem and are succeeding, so we must do our best. Our bees are garden companions and allies in production; they frequent the well-watered pots in the nursery to take moisture for the hive, they pollinate our fruit, they murmur to us as we, and they, work. They are filling the second super with honey, and remain sweet-tempered. We love the bumble bees and solitary bees, too, and there seem to be more of them this year than ever, of a wide range of species. The well-being of beneficial insects is probably the number one consideration when I'm deciding what to grow, whether for the nursery or for the garden.
It's turned into an eventful year for the bees. They tried a late swarm last week, or I thought they did, but somehow I either got it wrong or bungled my manipulations, because this week they were apparently queenless. A very kind local beekeeper has given me a nucleus with a rattling young queen, which we've united with our bees - touch wood it has worked, tempers in the hive have calmed and the extra bees and laying power will set them right before winter. Beyond that, however, they have responded well to Varroa treatment.
And finally... did you know Bankfoot hit the headlines and national (Scottish) TV news with its dreadful flash floods in August? We're lucky to be half way up the bank, but the storms, which have lashed others and us, ring bells of foreboding about global climate change and our lack of care for the environment.
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