It’s been such a long time between posts, for which I apologise to those of you who are kind enough to tell me you look forward to regular updates. After my rather sedentary winter…..I’ve handed in my work (scary!) and have a moment’s grace before the editing gets underway (which I have no doubt will involve hours of fine tuning, but this time around, there will be someone to hold my hand, and therefore, hopefully, to keep me on the straight and narrow – and perhaps even dismiss much of what I’ve written – truly, I won’t mind!). So in the meantime, I hope to get back into the swing of writing short posts.
Oh but there has been so much going on! Spring has been unfolding at a pace since the almond blossom arrived in early August. Her simple pink petals were quickly followed by those of the snowy-white Manchurian pear and one of my favourite roses, Quatre Saisons, who sent out an early display of dazzling, muddled pink blooms that I love so much: how exquisite after the winter months.
The Kitchen Garden has been awash with poppies and borage under the first bare, but now blossom and leaf-covered peach, apricot and cherry espaliers, and simple tall spires of sorrel and wispy rocket have joined the throng, dominated by wigwams and tunnels clothed in cascades of peas, creating the most romantic vision that you can imagine.
The veg have been and are still, abundant. Although it’s going to upset the timing of my rotation process completely, I’m determined to leave as many veg in the ground as possible for our Still Life Painting Workshop with Justin van den Berg, as I just can’t imagine anything more dreamy than pulling or plucking those veg straight from the soil for the class. Therefore October 15 is slated for wielding total havoc in the Kitchen Garden (and I just hope it doesn’t all bolt beforehand!).
We’ve enjoyed a fantastic crop of fennel, using it in lunch after lunch at events in my favourite risotto.
While the Kitchen Garden is doing its spring fling, elsewhere the air is filled with the sweet scent of jasmine, the intense perfume of purple wisteria and the clear fresh notes of lavender (which is at its best now atop the drystone wall along the drive and outside the pantry). Most of the trees are dressed in fresh green leaves, the banksia rose is smothered in tiny yellow flowers, the photonia hedge is flushed with red tips and I’ve been lucky enough to snip just a very few wild freesias from the bank on my walk back from the post box.
But while the Quince are in full blossom, my sentimental patch of bluebells are in full bloom and the first Constance Spry rose popped up in the froth of spurge (breathtaking); I’m just delighted to see the majestic Melianthus in bud – I so love it just at this magic moment, before the flower spike straightens and the blue-tinged, serrated foliage becomes all leggy.
So that will do for now….and I’ll keep future posts a bit shorter….promise! (but we did need a bit of a catch up, don’t you think?)