I’m just not feeling the love! Apart from sloping off to the greenhouse every few days to check on the cuttings (progress not great.) I’ve done nothing NOTHING, I TELL YOU! Oh the guilt! I’ve come up with every excuse: it’s too wet, too cold, too early, too late. Apart from one manic flurry of activity on 23 December, that’s it! Talking of which, having overstuffed our green bin within two hours of the last refuse collection for six weeks, it has now started to compost itself and has reduced in volume by a quarter!
Now, it’s not that the garden can’t wait – it’s hanging in a sort of suspended animation – it just feels odd not to have deadlines (self-imposed I grant you) to meet. Apart from the miscanthus, oh yes and the slimy brown kniphofia ribbons, which really could do with the chop now, the entire landscape is looking bedraggled and somehow in this dim January half-light, saps one’s enthusiasm. Due to lack of will, I never got round to pruning back the cannas on the patio and now I’m thinking I might as well leave them on as protection against inevitable cold snaps; if I cut them down all I’d end up doing is covering them with fleece anyway.
Nandina domestica & Nandina domestica ‘Twilight’
On a more positive note, I have managed to find the energy to fill up the numerous bird feeders regularly. Fussy eaters all, we have had to shop around for a particular seed mix and give away our existing supply to my mother (for her birds, not her, silly!) Mind you, seeing as she only lives 500 yards down the road, the very same birds may well chance upon this alternative food supply, only to turn their beaks up again. I have been desperate to spend some gift vouchers on a squirrel proof caged suet block feeder. Do you think I can find one? Out of stock everywhere. Still, as a consolation I treated myself to some more spring bulbs: Our local garden centre has been selling off five packets for £1 so I bought chionodoxa, puschkinia and erythronium. All I’ve got to do now is plant them. Highlight of the New Year was the arrival of T&M NEW Spring catalogues. True to form I have placed my order for all plugs orange. Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls Orange Delight’, begonia elata ‘Solenia Apricot’, begonia Non-Stop Mocca Bright Orange and petunia ‘Sweetunia Suzie Storm’. (Not to mention last year’s overwintering begonias, already showing one or two pips…..) And it’s not all gloom and doom outside. I’m quite into nandinas right now. In addition to our nandina domestica, which is covered in shiny red berries, I’ve acquired nandina domestica ‘Twilight’, part of a new range of dwarf Heavenly Bamboos ideal for containers. Talking of containers, the red cyclamen & cornus against the black grass strikes a cheerful chord amongst the brown landscape, and the papery flowers of hydrangea Zorro held on top of its black stems looks rather arty.
Red cyclamen, cornus with black grass, Hydrangea ‘Zorro’
So to while away the long boring hours indoors (lovely actually, all snuggled up on the sofa with various felines, binge watching USA plastic surgery Before and After documentaries) I’ve been cataloguing all my press cuttings (ooh, get her!) into a folder. The cupboard was so crammed with dozens of back edition publications that I was afraid wood worm would move in and eat them. What a trip down Memory Lane that has been. The first edition of Garden News to feature its readers’ 4 Corners Gardening column was published on 26 January 2005 and we have been contributing on a monthly basis ever since. Never mind the changing landscape, the range of hairstyles is breath-taking! And back then David even had hair! Happy 13th anniversary to us. I reckon we must have outlasted most of the editorial team in that time. Amazing to see how the garden has developed from Central Lawn surrounded by Narrow Borders to No Lawn overwhelmed by Plants Everywhere.
The Garden, 2005 & Now!
Clearly Nature isn’t suffering from lack of encouragement from me right now. Spurred on by writing this blog, I’ve just ventured outside to take some photos and have come back in with very mixed feelings.
Budding shrubs, Mad Melianthus and Heavenly Hellebore
- Optimism: Hellebore hybrids are emerging, Lords and Ladies foliage marbling shady places, iris reticulata, snowdrops, narcissi all popping up.
- Trepidation: Buds swelling on deciduous shrubs too soon already. More guilt: hardy geraniums and various withered perennials need cutting back. Relief: some of the cuttings are still alive.
- Admiration: overwintering cannas and salvias are sending up new shoots.
- Challenged: good grief, the hardy fuchsia, sambucus and cotinus are going to need some serious reduction. Amazement: Mad Melianthus Major has Four Fat Flower spikes on it.
- Anticipation: my beloved roses are begging for their winter pruning; can’t wait to set my newly serviced secateurs upon them next month. Too long, too long!
So at last I can feel the sap rising. Any day now you will find me outside bonding with my garden again. A Happy New Gardening Year to you all.
Caroline Broome has been gardening for more than 20 years. Having passed the RHS General Certificate, she has since developed her East Finchley garden into a “personal paradise” that she and her husband invite the public to visit each year via the National Garden Scheme. Learn more about our contributor using T&M’s ‘Meet the experts’ page.
The humble parsnip, a mainstay of the Sunday Roast has been cultivated since the Ancient Greek and Roman times. Long before Sugar Canes were harvested this tapered cylindrical cream coloured vegetable acted as a sweetener for foods. Originating in Eurasia (Europe and Asia) and closely related to both carrots and Parsley this root can be eaten in both its cooked and raw forms.
Measuring Scales.
Peel and Dice as many parsnips as it takes to measure 500g. If you have an electric steamer cook them until they are soft enough to mash around ten to twelve minutes. If you intend to boil the parsnips do not use salt as this recipe does not require salt.
Use a scone/pastry cutter to cut the scones and place them on the baking tray. Re-roll the leftovers until you have used all the dough.
Slice and fill with pickle/chutney and cheese.
In “The Office” I managed to keep the Yellow Suffer Tomato going until the second week of December before it finally succumbed to blight. I didn’t manage to put the amaranths seedlings into individual pots as I found it too cold for me, and with the nerve damage in my fingers I kept dropping things with my woolly gloves on. I tried thin gloves but once the cold was in my fingers I couldn’t do anything anyway. So now I’m at the stage of just checking the pots every few days and just giving the plants a tiny drink of water if the compost is mostly dry. I can’t risk watering them after 3pm in case there is a frost, but as they are still growing I can’t let them get stressed or dehydrated either – it’s harder than keeping them alive in the summer!
My Snow Princess Calendulas are getting far too big for their 3 inch pots, I didn’t put them in the Ty Mawr borders as I wanted to keep these separate from the yellow/orange ones, mainly because I want to see how they perform outside and to collect some seeds heads once they are spent. There is a tiny turnip that seems to be semi dormant, and a few tiny lavenders just freshly hatched from their pods. The violas are flowering like mad making the greenhouse smell divine. The Larkspurs are about 4 inches and the remaining cornflowers are about 6 inches high. There is still no sign of the grasses, or Liatris, Foxgloves, Red Hot Pokers or olive trees, there is however lots of little Heleniums popping up in the seed trays. Sadly the hyacinths didn’t come back, but I can still feel the corms so I’ll leave them for a bit longer. In the border of course are the house plants as well as Aloe Vera’s and money tree.
Back in the summer I won blogger of the month with “The Sentimental Gardener” and used the prize money/gift voucher to bag myself an 
Leaving harvesting as late as possible will give the most cropping potential. When the moment arrives, usually when the top growth has been blackened off by the first air frost, cut back the remaining stems to about 10 cm and dig up the crown consisting of the bulky storage tubers (the crop), plus small propagation roots, or ‘buds’ growing just under the surface. The crowns for next year’s plants are stored much like dahlias for the winter in a cool but frost-free place where they won’t dry out.
The big tubers, carefully snapped from the crown, are crunchy, sweet and refreshing immediately — after washing and peeling can be eaten just like a carrot — but they do have the potential to become sweeter if left out in the sun for a few days. Only undamaged tubers can be stored for several months in paper or hessian sacks, much like potatoes, in a frost-free garage or shed. Any damaged tubers should be used immediately or made into syrup.
Crunchy yacon is a delicious and different addition to savoury salads — try substituting the apple in Waldrof salad with diced yacon, or combine grated carrots, yacon ‘sticks’ and sliced celery with a grain mustard vinaigrette — in fact it absorbs dressings and sauces of all kinds very readily, making it a tasty vehicle for other flavours. In the Peruvian tradition of ‘salpicon’ (fruit salad), versatile yacon can also make a delightful fruit dessert when chopped and added to your choice of pineapple, melon, papaya or mango, dressed with fresh orange juice. If used raw, the flesh of yacon will discolour, much like an apple, so after peeling and preparing, sprinkle immediately with a little dilute lemon juice, or dressing, to preserve its attractive white colour. Alternatively, for a hot dish, yacon can be roasted with other root vegetables tossed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs, or even just simply steamed.
Once you have grown enough yacon to have some spare you can think about extracting the sweet liquid using a food processor — about 12 kgs makes a litre of the precious syrup. Simply wash and peel the tubers in batches then whizz them up thoroughly; place in a large pan and simmer down gently at about 103 C until a delicious dark brown syrup is formed. This sweet liquid is wonderful on porridge, or has a great affinity with cocoa when making ‘guilt-free’ chocolate treats!
