It feels as though it has been a very long winter. The grass hasn’t grown much in months, though I suppose that’s how it goes when the weather stays cold and damp for so long. In fact, patches of light green moss have appeared across the lawn that simply weren’t there in the autumn. They’re almost lime green in colour, soft and luminous against the darker grass, and from the greenhouse they look a little like clouds drifting slowly across the lawn.
From here I can see almost the whole garden. Even though we’re already well into March, everything still feels quite grey and cold. Pigeons pass overhead and drift down through the woods beyond the garden. Out to sea I can just make out white crests forming as the waves roll towards the shoreline. The wind is in the west today.
Just a little while ago I watched a pair of buzzards mating in a tree about a hundred metres away. It was quite an amazing sight and something I’ve never seen before. That’s one of the real joys of sitting in the greenhouse. You get these uninterrupted views of everything that’s going on around you, and moments like that feel rather special.
The buzzards have lived around here for years, so it won’t be long before the female is sitting on eggs. After that things usually become quite noisy, as the nest is in the valley just across from the vegetable garden.
Getting Ready For Spring
Today I’m going to order all the seeds. I’m quite late with it this year, but it’s been a very busy start to things. We were away for most of January, trying to escape the constant rain, but now we’re back and settling into a routine again. It feels good to turn my attention back to the garden and start thinking about what we might grow this year.
The raised beds are in good shape. We had a good tidy-up recently, clearing out the last of the carrots and beetroot after the deer had eaten all the tops. We topped the beds up with some incredible well-rotted horse manure that I collected in the Land Rover from my wife’s father’s little field. It was so broken down it looked almost exactly like soil. We spread a few wheelbarrows across each of the raised beds. There are four of them, and the two beds at ground level have had a similar topping as well.
There are still winter leeks standing, though they’re beginning to show a little rust on the leaves. There are two types of spinach growing, and some small oakleaf lettuces which bravely survived the wettest, harshest start to the year. They’re actually looking quite healthy now, about three or four inches high, with a lovely red tinge to the curled edges of the leaves.
Next to the lettuces the young broad bean plants have gone in. They’ve got a beautiful green colour to them. There’s young rhubarb pushing through, some sorrel, and the sage plant in the corner of the garden is doing fantastically well.
Just outside the greenhouse, in pots, I’ve got flat leaf parsley. For once in my gardening lifetime the parsley is doing really well, and I’ve been using it in all sorts of dishes. Just the other day I hot-smoked some trout, piled it onto toast while it was still warm, and made a simple salad of flat leaf parsley, shallots, capers, a little lemon juice and some olive oil. I tumbled that together and spooned it over the trout. It was absolutely delicious.
The compost bins are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. We did a big rotation last month, and one of the bays is now full of beautiful, dark compost. It still needs a little refining, so I’ll pass it through a soil sieve to remove anything I’m not particularly keen on, and then I can mix it with some gravel and a little fine soil for all sorts of different uses.
Inside The Greenhouse
Inside the greenhouse itself there’s not a huge amount happening at the moment. There’s a chervil plant that somehow survived the whole winter and has been flowering constantly. It seems perfectly happy with very little water, simply enjoying the space and all the light that floods in.
There are also a few butterhead lettuces in the greenhouse bed. Admittedly they’ve been there for several weeks and haven’t done much yet, but as soon as the temperature starts to climb I’m sure they’ll fill out and give us something to munch on in early spring salads.
It is a lean time in the garden, but we’re looking forward to the arrival of seeds and the moment when young plants start appearing again.
Around the edges of the beds, there is one plant in particular that is plentiful right now and absolutely delicious: stinging nettles. They’re one of nature’s most abundant wild foods, incredibly nutritious and very good for you. I often cook nettles whenever I would normally use more familiar greens such as spinach, kale or chard, because they behave in a very similar way.
You take the top of the plant, the new growth, perhaps the top six or eight leaves — what gardeners call the crown. It’s best to use gloves when picking them, as they will certainly sting your fingers. Once back in the kitchen, with your colander full of nettles, give them a quick rinse if needed and cook them much as you would kale. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the nettles and cook them for just a minute or so until tender. Drain them well and squeeze out the excess moisture, rather like spinach. Then finish them with a trickle of olive oil or a generous knob of butter, a little salt and pepper. They make the perfect accompaniment to almost anything that calls for a good green side dish.
Above the vegetable garden, overlooking both the garden and the studio, is our small orchard. It’s a lovely place to sit, and one day we hope to place a shepherd’s hut up there, which would be rather nice. This winter we planted a few additional fruit trees — some plums, a couple of apples and a few gages — so we’re looking forward to seeing how they settle in and grow this year.