Apples, pigs, foraging, tying in, bulbs in boxes, container dilemmas, ill children and podcast capitulation 🥵
Hello friends!
Photo of glorious fungi by Fergus Drennan
Things have been rather sporadic with my letters. It's not you it's me. And school admissions. And illness. And school admissions. And rain. And school admissions.
Don't fret, I'm not going to write about school admissions. I'm going to write about exciting things like harvesting apples, and tying things in, and big boxes of bulbs...let's get started.
Monday:
I harvest many apples - something I have been meaning to do since the windfall started bashing onto my terrace in earnest, but which somehow escaped THE LIST for a few weeks. It's the smell that usually nudges me into action. I love apples, but I don't dig the smell of rotten ones, and the force is strong with them; pungency suddenly hits as you pass a certain part of the terrace where lots of them fall, and it's overwhelming. I deal with my prolific fruiter by sharing the windfalls out between my flowerbeds (backs of) and a pair of pot-bellied pigs who live next door. They adore the woolly, boozy, brownness of my windfalls and I adore watching them devour, curly chops and wiry muzzles in ecstasy. I do love a pie however, and this requires preemptive action, removing the fruit before it smashes onto the concrete of my terrace. I get as many as possible within reach by twisting gently until it comes away. Many, many of my fruit have worms inside (or are they maggots?) I simply cut around them and send the maggoty waste to my lovely pigs. Being cookers, they need lots of help - brown sugar is best, and the crumble must frankly outweigh the fruit....but that's my personal opinion...what do you think?
I have, momentously, finally decided that I cannot do everything. Ha! After weeks of trying to fix something that went wrong with the audio on two of my podcast interviews...piecemeal, and without really knowing what I was doing, I looked up 'podcast editor' and found someone wonderful called Maz who did everything for me in a jiffy and was a total joy to work with. Knowing that he's there, in my back-pocket, should things go wrong again, is a HUGE relief. Here, at last, is my interview with Fergus the Forager, who is literally like a delicious pixie in the woods and makes twiglets out of catkins and knows which mushrooms are poisonous. Do listen if you get the chance.
Tuesday:
The trachelospermum that I planted last October on the front of my house has done better than I had expected. I'm not sure why I presumed it wouldn't flourish - perhaps because I see a plethora of these poor things planted on neighbouring houses and slowly going crispy and dying from lack of water. Perhaps I just think that's what will happen, no matter what. To be fair, I wasn't a watering ANGEL with mine...but I did water during dry and hot times, and at the very beginning...I was very caring at the beginning when it was newly planted. So I guess I came up to scratch and it has put on a lot of new growth which is winding its way around my door without any support and whipping us in the eyes as we try to get in. I direct the wayward stems towards some support and tie them in. This is my kind of gardening...where you do a tiny thing and feel accomplished enough to pour yourself a glass of wine (or perhaps I should raise my standards).
I look at the neglected corner of my kitchen and realise in horror that my sweet peas have germinated and are pushing their way into the plastic top of their seed tray. Quickly, I remove the top and free the poor old seedlings from their glass ceiling. I will now put them outside in a clear plastic storage box (with lid ajar) for a few days, and if it rains etc. And I'll probably leave it like that for the winter...protected, but not exposed, so-to-speak.
Wednesday:
A lovely thing happens today; My book is PDF'd to me from my publishers as a complete THING (still sans cover, but basically complete). It is IN PRODUCTION and I am all sorts of grateful and proud. In celebration I clear the terrace of leaves and start a leaf-mould station (which entails lining a pretty terracotta pot with a black plastic bag, ready to receive a daily dose of fallen leaves). This is my five minute way of keeping leaf-fall manageable, and as my garden is larger than average, I keep three of these stations at different areas. The bags fill fast, and get pierced and placed beneath a heavy weight for a couple of years behind my shed. The result is deliciously crumbly leaf mould which I use to top-dress my containers.
Thursday:
I haven't talked about this yet, but my youngest is unwell (she's been ill all week and instead of becoming utterly desperate, I am loving every minute of having her squidgy little self around...like a glorious, hilarious, cuddly ball and chain. Unwell children have their downsides, but when one is mourning the lack of SMALL BABIES in ones life (yes you see, I don't have a heart of stone...I desperately miss babies) It's rather a gorgeous thing for ones life to be narrowed down to caring for a little person. I'm someone who medicates my children when they have a temperature, having been told some years ago that reducing the temperature won't actually prevent the body from fighting a virus or bacteria; just prevent ones child from feeling rotten (and possibly fitting) so I am generally left with an 'ill' child who is comfortable and happy and wants to read books and snooze in ones crook if you see what I mean. And it's LOVELY. Enough said. I watch a LOT of ocotonauts. No gardening.
Friday:
My bulbs arrive. Usually this thrills me but this time I cannot help but feel a small amount of panic because next week is so epically busy. I do what I always do when I feel like this and look at Nasa's instagram feed, which is full of the gorgeousest pictures of the galaxies and things beyond our imaginations. I love stars and pretty pictures of space (although I'd very much hate to go there) and so Nasa instagram is my happy place. I rush out and start yanking the gladiolus callianthus out of their pots...they are WAY gone over and need to replace with something...this year I am leaning HARD towards ferns, but this move would leave these containers redundant when it comes to my usual gladiolus affair, and I'm not sure I can deal with that. Let's hope inspiration strikes soon...there is really nothing sadder than an empty pot.
PS you may have missed:
An autumn wreath
Autumn flowering bulbs
What to plant in autumn on the terrace
How to autumn-sow sweet peas
All the good things dear friends
x Laetitia