EntOmology 101

It's National Insect Week here, in America it's National Pollinator Week. And look what crawled out of the woodwork today...


Click on the picture for greater detail
... a female stag beetle (Lucanus cervus) about 5 cm. long. I spotted her on a stump in the chicken corral and got to her before they did. Let the Great Stag Hunt know if you find one.

Tiny Fruit

Stuff is starting to happen!

Bantamweight

Doris went broody again this week (the second time in a month), so today we forayed south of the M25 to get some fertilized eggs to put under her. And, along with the eggs, we brought 'Tiny Enid' back with us, in the pannier.

Carrost

Finally got my maincrop beets and carrots sown. Or 'carrosts' as they're called in our house. (you must see 'The Big Snit' if you don't know why).
This year the beets are Lutz Winter Keeper again (self saved seed) and Bull's Blood. And the carrost are both new for me - 'Rodelika' (very productive and vigorous with strongly red roots) and 'Purple Dragon' - from Kokopelli.

Indelible Ink

Take 1 part sal ammoniac, 1 part verdigris, 1/2 part lampblack, and 10 parts of water; mix thoroughly together and keep in a glass-stoppered bottle; shake before using; write with a medium-pointed steel pen. Another useful ink can be readily made by dissolving half a teaspoonful of sulphate of copper in an ordinary penny bottle of writing ink; use with a quill pen.
Garden Recipes from The Horticultural Note-Book


You may have guessed that these are all varieties of tomatoes.

Mondrian Bean Poles

Black Aztec

After several years of 'Stowell's Evergreen' and 'Inca Rainbow' I'm trying a new (old) variety of corn - 'Black Aztec'. I planted out a couple of dozen about a month ago (on the left now) and then got greedy and started another tray (right) which can go in next week I guess. I got the seeds from Baker Creek and their blurb states that the corn is sweet eating at the milk stage but will make a fine corn meal bread if left to mature. So here's hoping.
Below, from Strange Maps (originally from a satirical blog) - illustration of a possible correlation between GM corn production and neo-nazi violence. Hmmm...

Outlook Tonight

Here's the view from the top of our allotment plots (it looked a lot crisper in real life). You'll have to click on it to read my labels.

Twitching

I found these fantastic 19th century Japanese woodblock prints on Pink Tentacle. They illustrate men posing as a hawk, duck and crow respectively (have a look, there are more). They brought to mind the 'owl' that roosts in our garden on occasion.

Maybe now is the time to revive this fad for mimicking birds which was all the rage at parties in the Edo.
Still on the subject of birds, if you have a minute read this fabulous quote by James Thurber posted on Fed By Birds.

Here today...

... and all et up tonight. This is the first real harvest of artichokes for me. Other years I've had a plant or two that I let go to flower as they are so pretty. But last year I prepared a bed and grew 8 plants, which have become enormous this spring. There's going to be a few more feeds yet.

Hothouse

"How do you like your brandy, sir?"
"Any way at all,"I said.
The butler went away among the abominable plants. The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work showgirl uses her last good pair of stockings.
"I used to like mine with champagne. The champagne as cold as Valley Forge and about a third of a glass of brandy beneath it. You may take your coat off, sir. It's too hot in here for a man with blood in his veins."
... I stared at him with my mouth open. The soft wet heat was like a pall around us. The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weight of his head. Then the butler came pushing back through the jungle with a tea-wagon, mixed me a brandy and soda, swathed the copper ice bucket with a damp napkin, and went softly away among the orchids. A door opened and shut behind the jungle.
I sipped the drink. The old man licked his lips watching me, over and over again, drawing one lip slowly across the other with a funereal absorption, like an undertaker dry-washing his hands.

Working in the greenhouse at the weekend, glowing, as girls do, I was reminded of that scene in The Big Sleep where Marlowe first meets General Sternwood. I've no idea what sort of heat the tomatoes enjoy/tolerate but I wilt very quickly. Fast forward summer. I'm already looking forward to the cold winter mornings when I can steam up the windows with my tea and porridge.

Eau-de-asparagus

Click on picture to make readable
Mr. & Mrs. Ames, Detectives for Hire
From Eightball by Daniel Clowes

L'escargot

The lock upon my garden gate's a snail, that's what it is
The lock upon my garden gate's a snail, that's what it is
First there is a mountain then there is no mountain, then there is
Donovan

Hunh??
Anyway, there have been a lot of snails about lately. Glistening snail trails through the garden every morning. Sadly they have polished off 6 out of 8 'Hugh's Huge' peas. They had to tiptoe through a crushed eggshell barrier to do it too. But I have a new weapon in the arsenal for naughty molluscs. Three actually. The hens. They don't suffer long.


Illustration from Agence Eureka
Psst.. 'E-lect-tric-al Ba-na-na is going to be the very next craze'

Lumps of Putty

"Sealing (now the customary method) is usually completed with glazing putty produced from linseed-oil varnish (linseed oil boiled with red lead or lead oxide) that is kneaded with finely crushed chalk in a mortar until, after a short while, it reaches a certain measure of hardness. The finished putty should be moulded into lumps and stored in a cool place tightly wrapped in a wet ox bladder."
Technological Encyclopedia of Johann Josef Prechtl 1836
We have spent the last month of Sundays (and Saturdays) puttying in 104 little panels of glass. I now have an understanding of putty, the putty and I have bonded. I'm not sure about the glass. Erecting this greenhouse has been about as much work as I might have envisioned building it from scratch. So finally this past weekend I moved all of my seedlings in and potted up the tomatoes. The beans are ready to go into the garden next weekend along with the 'Black Aztec' corn, now about 8 to 10 inches high.
Pictured below are some of the beans and tomatoes soaking up the rays. Notice my grimy fingerprints still visible on the glass.

Hühnerkacke

Hen, His Wife

Still on the subject of poultry, this little gem from my favourite animation film maker, Igor Kovalyov, can now be viewed (not in best quality to be sure) on youtube - part 1 & part 2.

The Chicken

As I was walking down Stanton Street early one Sunday morning, I saw a chicken a few yards ahead of me. I was walking faster than the chicken, so I gradually caught up. By the time we approached Eighteenth Avenue, I was close behind. The chicken turned south on Eighteenth. At the fourth house along, it turned in at the walk, hopped up at the front steps, and rapped sharply on the metal storm door with its beak. After a moment, the door opened and the chicken went in.
From 'True Tales of American Life' edited by Paul Auster

What I like about keeping hens is if you get waylayed, at the pub for instance, they will just put themselves to bed.


The Great Aunts after whom our hens have been named, here on a picnic with Uncle Clifford, Gramma Colwell and Uncle Frank.

And The Winner Is...

Hey! My little film has just beaten out the competition (of one) to win the first ever Agricultural Biodiversity Film Awards. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Working Girls II

We installed another gynocracy in the backyard this week - the egg production unit - and they established their pecking order straight away. Doris the Buff Orpington is bossy boots, then Gladys the Speckaldy and they both pick on Ethel the Maran. It's disturbing to watch. I'm going to have to sign Ethel up for some self assertiveness coaching before she starves to death. That, or I'm going to eat Doris.

Working Girls I

CHAPTER XVIII MANIPULATING
Appliances Required - Before opening a hive for manipulation, be careful to have to hand everything that you may require. A smoker, a carbolic cloth*, a small table that can be carried from hive to hive, a comb box, a dinner knife, a goose wing or soft brush, a pot of petroleum jelly are all useful articles.
*The Carbolic Cloth is also a subduer of bees and by some is preferred to the smoker. Ticking, calico or muslin, 20" x 18", may be used, with (if preferred) a hem on one 18" side to take an 18" lath. A solution of Calvert's No.5 Carbolic Acid, one part to ten parts of water, is prepared, and with it the cloth is thoroughly saturated. If the cloth, when not in use, be kept in a close-shut tin box, it will retain it's objectionable smell for a long time.
From The Practical Bee Guide by The Rev. J. G. Digges


It looks like we have managed to successfully perform the 'Shook Swarm' last Sunday. Although we couldn't find the queen during the operation, we carried on and brushed everybody into a clean brood box. They haven't absconded yet and they look to be busy drawing out new comb. So I can breathe again. If it all worked, the queen will be laying again soon and the varroa mite population will have been cleansed.

The Cupboard is Bare

Yesterday I pulled up the last leek. I guess that's it until sometime late October. The kale is all in flower now and we're down to two (rather large) squashes. But still a few potfuls of pink fir apple potatoes. Frank @ Hooting Yard sent me this link for Sydney Smith's A Recipe for Salad. A fine way to see out last year's spuds.


It's fate was risotto.

Man With The Hoe

"I had never really wanted a photograph of a picture before I saw Millet's Man With The Hoe. I was about twelve or thirteen years old, I had read Eugenie Grandet of Balzac, and I did have some feeling about what french country was like but The Man With The Hoe made it different, it made it ground not country, and France has been that to me ever since. France is made of ground, of earth. When I managed to get a photograph of the picture and took it home my eldest brother looked at it and said what is it and I said it is Millet's Man With The Hoe. It is a hell of a hoe said my brother."
Gertrude Stein Paris France

Weights & Measures

Click on picture to enlarge
From 'The Horticultural Notebook' A Manual Of Practical Rules, Data, and Tables for the use of Students, Gardeners, Nurserymen, and Others interested in Flower, Fruit, and Vegetable Culture 1914 (price 4/6 net)
You can still listen again to the Food Programme when they pay a visit to the 'New' Covent Garden Market. Over the past couple of decades the big supermarkets have set up their own distribution networks and Covent Garden became a dumping ground for the stuff they didn't want. It is now trying to reinvent itself as a source of locally grown quality produce for the catering trade.

Spring Greens

St. Columba's Broth - Pick young stinging nettles before the end of June, when they are 4 or 5 inches high - one 'handful' for each person. Boil, drain, chop and return to pan with water and milk. Reheat, sprinkle in fine oatmeal or oats, stirring until thick.
Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica


Nettles, Sprouting Broccoli and Wild Garlic all ripe for the picking now.

Spudnik

Progress. I've buried alive all of my seed potatoes in the new bed at the back of the yard. They're on their own now. And through the mail flap this week came a clipping sent by friend Ren. A review from the Guardian of a new book celebrating the über tuber and it's place in our history - Propitious Esculent by John Reader. It may cover a lot of the same ground as R. Salaman's The History and Social Influence of the Potato but brings the role of the spud into the 21st century. Apparently plans are afoot to take potatoes on a mission to Mars in 20 years. Reader reports that a stand of potatoes large enough to provide an astronaut's daily nourishment will also supply all the oxygen he/she needs and mop up the CO2 as well.

(Sob) I miss the 15th Century!

Daniel Clowes pines for the last century. Click on it to read.

Rhubarb & Custard

"To make a Custard. Breake your Egges into a bowle, and put your Creame into another bowle, and straine your egges into the creame, and put in saffron, Cloves and mace, and a little synamon and ginger, and if you will some Suger and butter, and season it with salte, and melte your butter, and stirre it with the Ladle a good while, and dubbe your custard with dates and currans." (or rhubarb)
Medievalcookery.com


Rhubarb time! (Not fruit but leaf petioles actually)

Anguish...Turnips...

"Mr.Earbrass stands on the terrace at twilight. It is bleak; it is cold; and the virtue has gone out of everything. Words drift through his mind: anguish turnips conjunctions string parties no parties urns desuetude claws Antipodes mush glaciers incoherence amputation tides deceit mourning elsewards..."
The Unstrung Harp by Edward Gorey

Sonic Horticulture

"In a room near Maida Vale there is an unfortunate carrot strapped to the table of an unlicensed vivisector. Wires pass through two glass tubes full of a white substance; they are like two legs, whose feet are buried in the carrot. When the vegetable is pinched with a pair of forceps, it winces. It is so strapped that it's electric shudder of pain pulls the long arm of a very delicate lever which actuates a tiny mirror... Thus can science reveal the feelings of even so stolid a vegetable as the carrot."
A report in the British publication 'Nation' 1916 on the pioneering experiments of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. He claimed that plants feel pain and understand affection and wrote papers on 'The Nervous Mechanisms of Plants' and 'Researches into the Irritability of Plants'. Among other things he was able to show that they grow faster and healthier when played pleasant music. Anyone who has ever read 'The Secret Lives of Plants'* or 'Secret Life of the Soil' will have some inkling about the published research in psychobotany. So, I'm going with it. Trying to tailor my playlist around what I imagine my little seedlings would appreciate. Resonancefm is always the radio of choice - no disturbing 'news', ads or traffic updates but I'm also giving them daily doses of Django Rheinhart, Glenn Gould and Thomas Tallis. What are your plants listening to?


*The 1979 documentary on this book is now available on youtube in bite-sized installments. Check out part 5 in which the cabbage correctly identifies the murderer of it's mate!

Crystal Palace

We've just been down to the workshop where they are making our glasshouse (see below). Yes, the intent was to self build and we got as far as laying the brick wall - 2 years ago... Now it looks like we'll be taking delivery of the pieces this weekend and all we have to do is reassemble it. Ulp. And not a moment too soon as all the tomato seed that I sowed 7 days ago has germinated - Yellow Ruffled, Omar's Lebabese, Golden Queen, Pineapple and Tondino di Maduria. After having been plagued by blight 4 of the past 5 years and looking on in horror as hundreds of tomatoes blacken and rot, I'm hoping that the glass will create a cordon sanitaire for this year's developing fruit.


C.H.Whitehouse Workshop (today). A very happy-making place. Click on the picture for a better look at the pin ups.

Tricotyledon?

I've just noticed that one of the hot pepper seedlings is a mutant. Is this like finding a four-leaf clover?


And speaking of mutants, Michael @ Articles & Texticles has just sent me a link to the artist Uli Westphal's 'MutatoCollection'. Scroll through the pictures along the bottom for a laugh.

Resurrected

Lost & Found Dept.

Culture Shock

I'm just acclimatizing after 10 days in "The True North, Strong and Free" (minus 14° and 2 feet of snow). In my absence Aubergine 'Slim Jim', Sweet pepper 'Aconcagua', Hot pepper 'De Rata' & 'Jwala' have germinated. And this grew in the fridge.

The Acrobatic Fly

"I love only the cleanest flies, super-gay, dressed in little grey alpace suits from Balenciaga, glittering like a dry rainbow, precise as mica, with granite eyes and with bellies of noble Naples yellow, such as the marvellous little olive flies of Port Lligat, where nobody lives except gala and dali. These little flies always have the grace to sit on the oxidised silver side of the olive leaf. They are the fairies of the Mediterranean." Dali 1966
Dali said that he was only happy in the sun, naked and covered with flies. And he would wax his moustache with sticky date juice and pour anchovy oil over his head to attract them.
Whatever your feelings toward flies you've got to be impressed by the dexterity and strength of 'The Acrobatic Fly' from 1910.


Click on picture to enlarge.

This Year's Models

Along with the leeks I've now got a tray of salad seeds going - 2 lettuce varieties Craquerelle de Midi and Black Grained Simpson, rocket and scallions. Meanwhile I'm fondling this season's squash seeds and indulging in some 'pre-vis'. It will be another 3 or 4 weeks before I dare to start them off. I could be happy with Buttercup and any of the Hubbards but it's fun to try some new ones. This will be the second time out for Chirimen, although I've had great difficulty with fruit set on the moschatas, particularly the Kabocha types. Last year I had 3 Shishigatanis which unfurled over 100 feet of luxuriant vine and after dozens of false starts yielded 2 small squashes.

Cabbage Day

February 17th, that'll be 'World Cabbage Day' again. Last year on this occasion I posted some of Cato's enthusiastic 'In Praise of Cabbages'. Here are just a few additional uses to which Pliny the Elder suggests that the brassica may be put.
"... this plant is a remedy for flatu-lency, melancholy, and recent wounds, if applied with honey, and not taken off before the end of six days: beaten up in water, it is also for scrofula and fistula ... We will add only one more proof of the virtues of the cabbage, and that a truly marvellous one - in all vessels in which water is boiled, the incrustations which adhere with such tenacity that it is otherwise impossible to detach them, will fall off immediately if a cabbage is boiled therein."

Halcyon Days of Winter

The skies have been blue and daytime temperatures around 14° for the past week.
Unlike the lilies of the field, I have toiled AND I have sown and now I'm pooped. Two trays of leeks are now sat in the potting shed - Swiss Zermatt and Bleu de Solaise - about a week ahead of my start last year. Most of the beds are dug over and cleaned up and I'll get shallot and onion sets in tomorrow.
Happy days. And it's scientifically proven that playing in the dirt is good for your psyche. Read all about it if you haven't already.

Happy Fat Tuesday

You might be tempted to make pancakes the tiresome old-fashioned messy way (mix 3 eggs into 200 gm. self-raising flour and then gradually stir in a pint of milk). But why bother? Just reach for a can of 'organic' BatterBlaster. Be sure to have a look at the demo film to be convinced. And with the time you've saved you can whip up delicious toppings (sorry not yet available in aerosol cans - you'll have to get out your blender and bowls and use the suggested recipes) instead of just pouring on boring old maple syrup or squeezing a lemon.

Pot 8 Toes

I bagged myself 58 seed potatoes at the fair, of 7 different varieties. Sharpe's Express (1st Earlies), Yukon Gold & Royal Kidney (2nd Early), Charlotte (Salad), Ratte, Highland Burgundy & Arran Victory (Maincrop). All labeled now and quietly chitting.
If you've never heard this classic bit of radio quiz show regarding spuds, enjoy. I hope the link works.

The Missing Neeps

190 Years on and still no lead -

Potato Fair '08

This coming Sunday is Potato Fair/Seedy Sunday in South East London and I am going to be there with bells on. I've dug a big new patch at the back of the yard and plan to double my potato harvest this year. I already anticipate the need to invest in some 'Tater Mitts' (as seen on TV!) which allow one to scrub the skin off a potato in only 8 seconds of actual time!

Our Daily Bread

'Our Daily Bread' is getting a cinematic release in Britain finally. It begins an extended run at the ICA on the 25th. While it's not terribly informative - no voice over at all - it casts an unblinkered eyeball on European farming in the 21st century. And it's not a pretty picture. This will put an end to any romantic notion you may still have about how your food is grown.
Meanwhile with the temperature at 15° this weekend, the bees came out to relieve themselves (it's called a defecation flight). They've been sitting with their legs crossed for the past couple of months.

Beetle mania

If you've never seen E.O.Wilson in action, enthusing about the abundance and diversity of life on earth, then take a look at his TED acceptance speech last year. His inquisitiveness is infectious. Without getting into numbers, which are big and speculative, there is a lot out there that we don't know about and haven't yet named. But that's what he wants to do in 'The Encyclopedia of Life'.
Like, there are lots of beetles - apparently 1 in 4 animals is one. And they keep finding more. As I mentioned before, one was discovered by Michael's cousin Werner. Very often they can only be differentiated by their unique genitalia. Hmm, well I don't know what I was doing (darning my socks?) but I missed hearing that one day back in 2005, Quentin Walker, chief entomologist at the Natural History Museum sorted through some goolies and discovered three new species. Of slime-mould consuming beetles. So he named them for his three favourite Republicans - Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi, and A. rumsfeldi. So I've just taken the trouble to update this handy diagram.

The Correct Method of Pinning Common Insects

Oranje Boom

This week I've read a little book on the subject of oranges by John McPhee called (not too surprisingly) 'Oranges'. Written in 1967 his investigation of the fruit is centred in Florida - the first trees planted there by the Spaniards (oranges had reached Spain with the Muslim invaders) up to the boom of frozen concentrate. But it is packed with curious details of the fruit's origins and botany. In the middle of the 12th century Tunisian doctor Abu Abdullah Mohammed ben Mohammed el-Huseiny el-Ali Billah wrote 'to combat poison of a cold nature drink wine to which the powdered root hairs of orange trees have been added.' Cardinal Wolsey used to carry a hollowed out orange in which he kept a bit of sponge saturated with vinegar. He held it to his nose to insulate himself from the noxious airs of London. Before 1500 Europeans grew mainly bitter oranges because they were more aromatic and were chiefly used as seasoning and perfume. Once the antiscorbutic value of citrus had been noted, sailors established scurvy prevention groves on far flung islands like St.Helena, the Azores, the Madieras and in South Africa.
Wednesday the studio's Christmas gift from the LA executive producers finally cleared customs - a crate of organic oranges (several hundred) from their own orchard. The flavour brought back the taste of the Mandarins that we used to get in our stockings at Christmas - spicy, sweet and tangy all at once. And it's got me thinking that as there is next to no frost here (today was 12°) maybe I will attempt to grow an orange tree in a big pot. Maybe a Valencia grafted on sour orange stock. Anybody out there got any nursery recommendations or experience?

Creature Curious

Monday my second favourite radio programme came back on air for a new season - Creature Curious on Resonance FM. Host Bridget Nicholls spoke with a behavioral scientist touching on topics including imprinting between mother and offspring and very early development. Some of which is relevant to plant growth as well. We've all seen the way that a check in the growth of a seedling (sudden cold or forgot to water) will have on it's later growth.
On the subject of animals adapting to urban life he referred to the large population of stray dogs in Moscow which now scoot under barriers and ride the tube out to suburban destinations with markets, chow down and head back into the centre at night. I 'googled' and found a first hand account on this blog. This story reminded me of Neville's cousin's dog Ratty up in Dunnington who got his 15 minutes of fame last year on breakfast TV. Unbeknownst to his owner Ratty was taking the bus to his local where he had (before the mangement change) been invited in for food and drink. If you can stomach the buffoons that present the piece, you'll get some idea of Ratty's shrewd and resourceful character.