Armorel

Leaving your garden in the hands of folks who mean well but don’t really understand the requirements of your precious plants is always tough. I’d been away for ten days and, when I returned home on Monday evening, I had to do a quick run-around the garden and greenhouses to see if there was anything urgent requiring my attention. That was even BEFORE I’d had a cup of tea (Brits will know exactly what I mean)

It’s hard not to grimace when one’s Dearly Beloved makes a comment like “Well, I did my best” in a slightly hurt tone as you survey the aftermath.

All my hippeastrums were standing in full saucers of water over an inch deep and some of the leaves were turning distressingly yellow and brown. I ditched all the water and tucked the saucers under the staging, putting the pots directly onto the corrugated staging to drain. Despite that, there were flower buds just opening on Salmon Orange and Benfica :-)

The cucumbers were in a similar state – again sitting in deep saucers full of water, leaves going yellow, grey mould visible on stems and even one or two fruits going brown and soggy. Hubby had told me that there weren’t any cucumbers ready to pick when he left home on Saturday morning but I had to cut five fruits that were larger than any I’d cut previously. I did a hasty snip-snip with the secateurs to remove any rotting leaves but I couldn’t tip the water out of the saucers because the plants are now over 8ft tall, firmly tendrilled to their netting supports and were totally immovable.

The tomatoes weren’t sitting in water because they are in grow pots on grow bags but again the foliage was mottled, mouldy and rotting in some places. Some of it had draped across the biggest of the Big Beef tomatoes and the fruit had started to decay underneath. So I did some quick surgery to remove the fruit and as much of the mouldy foliage as I could.

Some delicate interrogation was required to elicit the details from hubby. The weather had been a bit cool and dampish so he’d closed up the greenhouse tightly, vents and door, so the plants didn’t get cold…. both night and day. No wonder the moulds had gone on the rampage.

So I opened the door and the vents as wide as possible on Monday evening and they haven’t been closed since.

In my big greenhouse at the bottom of the garden, things were much better. Again lots of plants were sitting in full saucers of water or trays full of wet water matting, but the door and vents were open (and there’s a pane of glass missing in the roof so that provided added ventilation). Most plants were OK apart from a couple of pots of basil which looked rather wilted and the potted nerines which were beginning to turn prematurely yellow.

The saddest sight was my big healthy pot of spearmint which sits to the left of the main entrance to our property (Gallery and holiday apartments). It was wilted and shrivelled and brown – clearly having gone unwatered for the entire ten days of my stay. I just couldn’t believe this! People (including Dearly Beloved) had walked past it for ten days and no-one had observed that it looked a bit wilted and could do with some water?????

GRRRRRRRR!

So it looks like I won’t be trying Mondomuse’s recipe for Mojitos until I can nurse my poor spearmint back to health … :-(((((

I DID IT!!! – I passed my driving test successfully this morning with seven minor faults .... despite turning right at one point when the examiner said turn left AND stalling at a tricky junction with a nasty hill start.

I am exhausted and elated. My instructor was full of praise for my stubbornness at not letting yesterday’s Nightmare Lesson get to me – he was thrilled and gave me a hug. Mother-in-Law was clearly relieved when I got out of the car and signalled Thumbs Up to her waiting anxiously at her front door. Hubby sounded like he was going to collapse with the strain of the wait when I telephoned him with the good news. He’s coming over tomorrow and will be with us probably round about lunchtime – the champagne is in the fridge for a celebration dinner.

I’m currently half way through the gallon of tea that I promised myself and then I’m probably going to flake out completely for an hour’s snooze.

I am SOOOOOOOO glad that is all over!!!!!

After the Nightmare Lesson this morning which ended with me in floods of tears and my rather distraught driving instructor insisting on driving me the last five minutes home, things have calmed down a little. He still says I have every chance of passing tomorrow because I’m essentially a good and safe driver … but curveballs (as our American friends might say) throw me completely off kilter and have a ‘snowball’ effect.

I was due to have an hour long massage this afternoon to get rid of all the knots and kinks in my back, shoulders and neck … but the centre called at about 1.30pm to say that the masseur had managed to put a drill through his hand (eep!) so they would have to cancel my appointment.

Instead, they offered me an Indian Head Massage with essential oil and crystal therapy plus visualisation. Well, I needed SOMETHING so I accepted the offer. Which is why I am sitting here typing this with my hair lank and greasy, being full of sage oil, but my shoulders feel like they are six inches lower than they were this morning, my scalp is tingling and I feel a great deal calmer. I wasn’t planning on washing my long hair because I need to have it well secured back to stop it distracting me tomorrow, but it looks like it will be necessary …

So I’d like to put out a vibe for all Idiot Women, White Van Bullies and Crazy Pedestrians to stay off the roads tomorrow morning and give me a sporting chance of passing.

I did a spot of weed pulling this afternoon in M-i-L’s garden, had a sympathetic chat with her 6ft tall keeling-over Lovage, sighed over the soggy brown clumps that are the remainder of the flowers on her glorious paeonies and admired her potted fig tree (which we bought for her a couple of years back). Just getting back in touch with ‘green and growing things’ has calmed my spirit and I’m feeling much more positive.

I shall be SOOOOO glad when tomorrow is over though ;-)

I’m away from home this week and I’m really missing my garden :-(((((

Before I left early on Saturday morning, I gave hubby a tour of everything that needed watering in the house, greenhouses and garden and I KNOW he will do his very best to make sure everything is OK while I’m away. But there’s still that niggling little doubt at the back of my mind ….

Not that I’m at a loss for things to do. I’ve brought my laptop and Mum-in-Law’s wireless internet connection is enabling me to connect to the internet so I can keep up with MyFolia and other favourite sites. I also have a big project in hand – a Complete Redesign of our gallery website which will, hopefully, go live early in the New Year, ahead of hubby’s prestigious solo Exhibition at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens next April.

I was in two minds whether to post the REAL reason for my trip because there is a fair amount of stress and apprehension involved already. I’m not sure if posting it will increase the tension and expectation or if it will bring encouragement from my friends here on MyFolia and boost my confidence. In short, at the tender age of 50, I will be taking my driving test for the first time at the end of the week. I successfully passed the Theory test in April with 50/50 on the multiple choice questions and 59/75 for the hazard perception clips. So I am half way there!

The weather has been alarmingly changeable ever since I arrived with torrential downpours every day, interspersed with brilliant sunshine. Today it has hardly stopped raining since before breakfast and it’s just getting heavier and heavier as I type this. I’m going to make VERY sure that I know where the lights, windscreen wipers and demisters are located in my instructor’s car because the forecast is no better for the end of the week.

I have lessons every day this week and my poor knees, unused to so much clutch control and braking, have really been feeling the pressure over the last 24 hours. But I have resolved to meet this challenge to the very best of my ability and (fingers crossed!) I’ll soon be surrendering my thirty year old provisional paper driving licence.

To give myself a boost, yesterday I spent an obscene amount of money having my hair washed, cut, coloured a nice dark blonde to hide the encroaching grey, deep conditioned and blow dried. Hubby is going to have a dreadful shock when he sees the cheque stub!

Today I managed all the manoeuvres perfectly – reverse round a corner, reverse parallel parking AND reversing into a parking bay. But then I frightened myself half to death negotiating a large and complicated roundabout with seven exits (well, two are approaching one way dual carriageways and it would be Very Bad News to try and turn off onto them …) and nearly moving out into the path of a Very Large 4X4 that shadowed me round the roundabout just on my right hand side then LOOMED in my wing mirror as he accelerated past me! So tomorrow my instructor is going to concentrate on dual carriageways, complicated roundabouts and the skills of scanning/planning/acting on what you see. Oh joy …..

So tomorrow I have my last full lesson in the morning and in the afternoon I’m going into the village to have a massage – hopefully that will get rid of the tension and knots that have invaded my shoulders, back and neck over the last week.

Wish me luck, folks, and a few positive vibes aimed in my direction on Friday would be very welcome :-)

Since we have accumulated a Cucumber Mountain over the last week, hubby has been dropping not-so-gentle hints that I should look up the Sweet Cucumber Pickle recipe that I made last year. It was a great favourite of his and he was very disappointed that I only made four jars … which he worked his way through very quickly. So today I found it and I’ve converted half a dozen cucumbers which were slightly blemished into five jars of Sweet Cucumber Pickle.

Here’s the recipe and you can check out the photos as well :-)

Sweet Cucumber Pickle (from Katie Stewart’s Cookbook, published by Book Club Associates by arrangement with Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1983)

Makes approximately 4lbs (1.8Kg)

Ingredients:

• 3 large cucumbers
• 2 large onions
• 2 oz salt
• 1 pint (600ml) cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
• 1lb granulated sugar
• Half a level teaspoonful of ground turmeric
• Quarter of a level teaspoon of ground cloves (I used allspice)
• 1 tablespoon of mustard seeds (normally yellow but I used black ones)

Method:

Thinly slice the cucumbers. Peel and thinly slice the onions. Arrange in alternating layers in a mixing bowl, sprinkling salt between each layer. Cover with a weighted plate and leave to stand for three hours. After this time, the cucumber and onion will be swimming in liquid. Pour away the salty liquid and thoroughly rinse and drain the vegetables.

Put the vinegar, sugar and spices into a saucepan. (Despite its colour, the turmeric will turn this pickle a bright green – without it, the pickle would be a dull grey colour) Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the cucumber and onion. Bring to the boil and boil for ONE minute only – so vegetables remain crisp – then draw off the heat. Using a perforated spoon, transfer cucumbers, onion and mustard seed to storage jars.

Return the pan of syrup to the heat and boil rapidly for ten minutes to reduce the liquid and concentrate the flavour. Pour syrup over the vegetables – there should be sufficient to cover. Cover tightly when cold. This pickle is especially nice with cheese and biscuits or a raised pork pie.

Couple of notes:

Any recipe using vinegar calls for glass, plastic or good quality stainless steel or aluminium utensils – it will leach metal from copper or brass pots and corrode poor quality utensils)

Brining is essential when making pickles like this. Although it’s a bit of a fiddle, it’s well worth it for the intensity of flavour produced by removing as much water from the vegetables as possible.

Believe it or not, the title above is one attached to a spam email that I received yesterday … but I don’t think it was ‘Passandra’ F1 Hybrid the sender was writing about :0

Anyway, our four plants in the greenhouse are now showing Triffid tendencies, having reached the top of the gable end roof apex and are plotting a takeover of the high level shelving. I shall have to work out some way to tie some strong string or suspend canes up there so they’ll have something for their long questing tendrils to wrap around.

This morning I picked FIVE solid, heavy, juicy cucumbers, each about 6 – 7” long with very dark green skin. So far, over the last week or so, I’ve given cucumbers to the guests in our two holiday apartments, our gardener (who does the heavy stuff like mowing the grass and hacking back our monstrous Yucca from time to time), the lady who comes round in her refrigerated van selling fresh (and I mean fresh!!!) fish, our elderly uncle, and our neighbours…

... and there are plenty more coming :-)