MICKEY’S BLOG
In the days before Instagram, Mickey kept a regular blog of snippets from Glenmore House.
You may enjoy looking back through them!
Suzie Anderson & Hopewood House Open Weekend!
I'm just back from a very quick look at Suzie's delightful collection - from perfect plates to darling little chairs, Christmas decorations to heavenly iron beds. If that clean but quirky French look is your thing, make a beeline for Bowral - she's open this...
Janelle McCulloch’s Library of Design
Janelle so kindly included a chapter on Glenmore in her book The Modern Kitchen Garden, which was released earlier this year, alongside some of my very favourite & most inspiring gardens in the UK & France (after I drove her nuts!) & about which I am so...
It’s a good morning……
It's a good morning that starts this way....a few asparagus, a couple of zucchini flowers....a lovely egg was added an hour or so later! Of course, this was BEFORE all the rain - its a bit sodden now, but the rain means we'll have vastly more to harvest when the...
A puddle day…..
It's a puddle day! I love them!! Rivulets of water everywhere; the earth soaked - simply wonderful..... But such days must not be squandered! I picked the last of the Seville oranges very first thing this morning & have two batches on...
Society Inc. Exhibition
After setting up my stall at Lindesay, I whizzed up to the Barometer Gallery in Gurner Street, Paddington (cnr Duxford St), to see Sibella's installation 'Souvenirs of Etcetera': the exhibition is a collection of life-sized, favourite photographs &...
Setting up for Lindesay!
I love setting up for a fair! Chaotic but fun!! Do come & see me at Lindesay, (Carthona Avenue, Darling Point), this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 18, 19, 20 November, 10am - 4pm each day. There was a lovely sense of anticipation while setting up with all the...
Last of the Broad Beans…..
Oh sad, sad, sad time.....the last of the broad bean harvest. Broad beans really are a most obliging plant to grow: First there are the tender new shoots which are a pure delight - the taste of spring in the depths of winter & a treat for...
Red Onion harvest!
What great colour!! That lovely salad of baby new Nicola potatoes with apple cider vinaigrette & red onions must be coming up very soon - now WHAT spring issue of Vogue Entertaining was that in???!!!! And its time the potatoes...
Comfrey tea….
Already the comfrey is in flower and producing its great textured leaves....in good time for us to include a session on 'making comfrey tea for fertilising' on our last Kitchen Gardening Day of the year. Comfrey is a 'must have' plant for any organic gardener -...
Weird & wonderful Kohl Rabi…..
I should have cleverly strung this up somewhere with fishing line for the best photographic effect, but even with me holding it, I think perhaps you will get the picture! I think with its roots in tact, it is quite arresting and would make a good subject for...
Kitchen Gardening Day….
Just add food and people! It was a really fun day with a wonderful group....but no time to photograph food - there were a LOT of broad beans to double peel..... while everyone was listening intently to Linda in the garden,...
Spring roses…..
First flush of David Austin 'Abraham Darby'. It has the most wonderful fruity scent - you can almost smell it just looking at the photograph! I wonder why the breeder named it after Mr Darby - I just googled him & he does have an intriguing ancestry!...
Setting up for Seasonal Cooking Day!
Setting up for ALL our days is sheer chaos! Up before dawn, cutting flowers, setting up! I LOVE IT, which is just as well, because no matter how early I rise, or how much I prepare the day before, its a race against time til the first participant...
Doing the flowers!
Doing flowers in the Dairy is so much fun - it doesn't matter how much mess I make - I sometimes bring them inside in a wheelbarrow! But this combination was sheer heaven - I don't know what my employer at Pulbrook & Gould in London years ago would say -...
Preparing Globe Artichokes….
They may be fiddly, but my goodness they're worth the fuss - how exquisite to think these came from the garden.....and below.....in the pan. A visual feast before the delight...
Mr McGregor’s Gate!
I've always thought of this as Mr McGregor's Gate - I remember being so excited when we built the wall to either side & then I had my very own picket gate! It makes a good view looking up the path to the peony poppies in flower, backed by the fab...
Mid-Spring Veg!
The colours never cease to amaze me.....and it's at this time of the year that we get this wonderful combination: greens of every hue, and purple.....I love how all the shades of violet sit so brilliantly with green. If you look you will discover them everywhere...
Clouds of Coriander!
I love the smell of coriander in the early morning when the garden has just been watered- its bound to put you in good humour for the rest of the day! In flower now, its divine on the kitchen windowsill, but soon will set seed so I try not to pick too much, as I...
Malus Blossom in the late afternoon light….
So much froth & bubble!! It's always much anticipated and so short-lived.....every second to be enjoyed as the perfume wafts around the Barn Garden (malus ioensis plena - for all of you who keep asking me!).
School hols….
B got hold of my camera....she's been either chopping or podding things for me all week long, and she snapped this image in a moment of fun, with the pile of Bensimons - it just shouts school hols!! I can’t wait til the next...