BlackCurrant Harvest

"The Black Currant, by it's viscid, sweet, aromatic juice (thickened over the fire), makes a 'robb' of capital use for relieving sore throat, or quinsy. This old-fashioned 'robb' or 'rob', is an inspissated fruit juice mixed with honey, or sugar, to the consistence of a conserve, and is to be preferred before the berries themselves."

Meals Medicinal by W.T.Fernie, M.D.

I didn't realize until recently that it is still unlawful to possess, propagate or sell the black currant bush in many states and inspectors are ordered to condemn and destroy any that they find. This would account for the absence of black currant flavoured product in Canada during my childhood - the exception being blackcurrant pastilles imported from Britain (yum!). This year we've put away 4 bottles of schnapps and a jar of jam.

Wet Wet Wet

This photo sums up 'summer' in the garden so far. In the greenhouse I'm growing mushrooms and mould, outside I'm battling potato blight, the slugs ate all but half a dozen carrot seedlings, red currant and cherry fruit was nonexistent and I don't think there will be much honey. On the plus side, I haven't seen a cabbage white in three months! Nor have I had to spend any time watering the garden. They say it's all going to change this weekend and we will have bright sunny weather just in time for the olympics. Hmm, I would have wished it contrariwise.

My well camouflaged helpmeet.

Lambs to the Slaughter

Well I kept these seedlings in the greenhouse until I couldn't put off transplanting any longer. They looked big enough to fend for themselves, able to survive a few nibbles. But, voilà, the slugs are operating in much the same way as the fox - killing, beheading and leaving the spoils strewn around uneaten! Grrr!

And this from B. in the morning's epost.

Hairy Glandular Trichomes!

More potato flowers. This to show the more hirsute varieties, particularly 'Boy's Pig'which has little hairs on both sides of the leaves as well (click on picture to enlarge). The hairs or trichomes on potato leaves release phenols and phenol oxidizing enzymes which react to form a sticky substance which hardens to entrap small-bodied insects. I think the first round makes them woozy then in the struggle to escape, they disrupt a second type of trichome which releases polyphenol oxidases. These oxidize the phenols into quinone and it hardens like cement around the feet of the unsuspecting creature. So, more hairs = less aphids! I will save seed from this one particularly furry plant for next year.

First Tomatoes

Jaune Flamme from the greenhouse.

Solstice Update

The TPS potatoes are all flowering now (see below)and peppers and tomatoes are fruiting. Perhaps the first taste will be in two or three weeks?
Beans are very slow to get going (the double whammy of slugs and cool weather), only now beginning to curl around their support.

Breaking News!

Fiirms??

Things That Like This Weather

1. Spotted Aleppo 2. Red Deer Tongue 3. Moroccan Little Cress
4. New Red Fire and 5. Escargot

ReStocked

Saturday we picked up 6 little pullets about 8 weeks old. Great fun to have feathered friends in the garden again.
Pictures soon...

Front Gardens of Note No.3

(yes, they are plastic)

Hydromel...

... as I Made It Weak For the Queen Mother

Take 18 quarts of spring-water, and one quart of honey; when the water is warm, put the honey into it. When it boileth up, skim it very well, and continue skimming it, as long as any scum will rise. Then put in one Race of Ginger (sliced in thin slices), four Cloves, and a little sprig of Rosemary. Let these boil in the Liquor so long, till in all it have boiled one hour. Then set it to cool, till it be blood-warm; and then put to it a spoonful of Ale-yeast. When it is worked up, put it to a vessel of a fit size; and after two or three days, bottle it up. You may drink it after six weeks, or two months.

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, Opened (1699)

We performed a shook swarm Sunday and housed the colony on fresh foundation, leaving two bait combs for the varroa to make their way into. I scraped away a bit of honeycomb and pollen stores for our consumption from around the capped grubs that we had to bin. A little taste of things to come.

Fiddle-Beheading

It's fiddlehead season in New Brunswick where I've spent the past week. We canoed up the Nashwaak River, picked and cleaned 35 pounds of them and what we couldn't eat fresh are blanched and packed in my mother's freezer. Enough to see her through the next winter I think.

Arboricide

I've just cleared the weeds from the back bed and readied it to be this year's bean field. I've been finding all the potatoes that I missed digging last fall. And a lot of seedlings that, but for me, would be trees one day. I guess it wouldn't take very many years of neglect for this lot to remove all trace of my attempt at control.

Welcome to Britain

Dr.K has brought round a rooted cutting from her father-in-law's pomegranate tree in Greece. I think that right now it must be feeling a little sorry for itself. I have no idea if it's possible to get one to fruit (or even live) here as I've certainly not seen any around, but I'll do my darndest. Here are a few foreigners that are thriving in spite of the deluge...

* Dr. K has an exhibition of her prints coming up May 2nd to 6th at Stoke Newington Library Gallery!

Umbra Sumus

Friend Paul Bommer has a show of new work opening tonight. There is a good selection for viewing on the wonderful Spitalfields Life blog and while you're there have a look at the silkscreen print he did to illustrate Christopher Smart's "For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry."

Front Gardens of Note No.2

One I took earlier - in Yorkshire. Oh yes, and I'm very chuffed to find this here blog on this here list!

Pathetic Fallacy

Q's departure today was accompanied by torrential rain. The garden is awash and rain barrels full and every green thing looks greener. During her four week visit she has begun work on a requiem for our hens. Once it's recorded in some fashion I will most certainly be posting a link here. And although I have been silent this past month I have made some progress in the garden. I dug a new bed and filled it with potatoes, planted out shallots and just put out cabbage and lettuce seedlings. The tomatoes are now in need of potting on again and popcorn seed has germinated! The bee colony has trebled in size and very soon we must perform a shook swarm. Whew.

Above A fragment

Seedling Update

On the left are potato plants grown from TPS - Tom Wagner's varieties 'La Pan', 'Boy's Pig', 'Minnie's Pig', 'Boys Will Be' and 'Land Races' - already in need of a second potting on. And on the right are Aubergine 'Slim Jim' and Peppers 'Chinese 5 Colour', 'Serrano Tampequino', 'Corno del Toro', 'Fish' and 'Anaheim'. All sown February 12th.
Today I sowed tomato seed.

Front Gardens of Note No.1

Flannery's Chicken

"When I was six I had a chicken that walked backwards and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax."

Flannery O'Connor


Nemo-Portrait/SelfPortrait by artist Mary Britton Clouse from The Animal Gaze Returned. The Pathé film of Flannery O'Connor's chicken walking backwards can be viewed here.