Throughout winter I welcome the early morning sound of seed catalogues falling onto the doormat, each one bringing with it a wheelbarrow’s worth of possibilities.
A catalogue and cup of tea is time well spent in my mind, especially in late winter and early spring, when my head is as clear as the ground outside my kitchen window.
I hope I am not the only person who over-orders, but I have the catalogue’s temptations sussed now. I write out my order late at night, then red-pencil the more obvious flights of fantasy the following morning. It works.
Recipes
Getting to grips and making the most of space
The arrival of the seed packets with their dry rattle came late last year. I usually tie them in bundles according to when I need to deal with them. Broad beans, always bulkier than the rest, are opened almost as soon as they arrive. Last year I again sowed ‘Aquadulce’, partly for its reliability and true ‘broad bean flavour’, but also because of its exquisite butterfly-like flowers. I also introduced a red-flowered selection, seeds of which I picked up from the Chelsea Physic Garden, London. I am keen to know whether the older cultivar will be more floury than the improved ‘Aquadulce’. These went into small pots, three at a time, rather than going straight into the garden, where the bare beds were all too frequently a playground for the family of foxes who took up residence next door.
My beans share a small bed on the slightly shady side of the garden with some self-seeding white Borago officinalis ‘Alba’ (borage), the star-like flowers I use in salads, and some Jerusalem artichokes. My somewhat loose style of vegetable gardening means they will live alongside a long-established Papaver orientale Goliath Group from Great Dixter, East Sussex, that I cannot bear to move.
Beans go in as soon as the sun has warmed the cold frame area. Last year I tried two climbing beans: ‘Cosse Violette’ which I have grown before, and the much-vaunted ‘Blauhilde’. I was interested to know if there is any real difference between the two in terms of flavour. ‘Cosse Violette’ is something I have often enjoyed growing, though I always remain slightly frustrated by its change of colour from purple to green in the cooking pot. Beans do well in this garden, with its rich soil (I use a bracken and horse-manure based compost called Lakeland Gold in early spring) including runners such as stalwart ‘Scarlet Emperor’. I also added to the mix pale yellow ‘Neckergold’ last year.
The seed packets also included two cultivars of courgette, ‘Striato d‘Italia’ with its smart, bottle-green stripes and more gentle-hued ‘Romanesco’. (The previous year’s plump ‘Defender’ produced large seeds and consequently broke up in the sauté pan!) I tend to cook courgettes simply with just olive oil, lemon juice and basil leaves and I am keen to see if the cultivar really matters. Worries of bitterness aside, I cannot imagine there being much difference between the two. Squashes seem to like the fecundity of my soil and the fact that it rarely dries out. After years of having a giant ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ pumpkin marching rampantly down the garden path, I tried two summer squashes instead – a yellow pattypan and a rich orange-fleshed onion squash. The smaller ones are easier to deal with in the kitchen, but less spectacular to look at.
Making the most of space
I have only grown potatoes for a couple of years. Space is at a premium in a long, thin city garden such as this. Originally I felt that if one thing had to go then it should be potatoes, but it niggled that I had never tasted a spud freshly dug from my own soil. Last year I bit the bullet and planted a row of ‘Charlotte’, and very good they were too. Now there are several going in, including ‘Salad Blue’, ‘Golden Wonder’ and ‘Kestrel’. I have always been fascinated by how potatoes differ in texture and which ones are best for which recipes. This year I shall continue to explore the possibilities, with cultivars almost impossible to find in the greengrocers.
My first attempts at growing food had been with tomatoes, and I have planted them every year since the late 1980s, at first balanced precariously on my window-sill, then on the steps of a shared garden, and now in my own garden. Last year ‘Costoluto Fiorentino’ did well but I was anxious to grow others too: fat ‘Marmande’ that can do so well outdoors in a good year; some ‘Gardener’s Delight’ to munch as I take my midday stroll round the garden, and something tart such as a green tomato or vivid orange-yellow purely because of the way they contrast with a darker selection in a salad bowl or dinner plate.
Salad bowls
Come rain or shine there is a salad on the table in this house. Sometimes a simple bowl of lettuce with a classic olive oil and wine vinegar dressing, other days a more complex mixture with bitter, spiky or earthy tasting leaves and a dressing infused with a spot of mustard or soy or lime juice. My box hedges are home to more snails than you can shake a salt pot at, so any home-grown leaves must be raised in the cold frame. (Even here, the odd slug appears from time to time leaving his telltale calling card of nibble marks on ‘Little Gem’.)
One of the advantages of planting a few trays of salad leaves is the possibility of picking them younger than you can buy them in the shops. Young leaves from commercial salad bags wilt alarmingly when they meet fresh air; ones I grow myself are more robust yet just as tender. A bowl of immature leaves, barely longer than my little finger, is charming with a few snippets of bread fried in olive oil, and the flavours of the different leaves are often surprisingly clear and full of taste. I always knew that one day I would have to grow my own.
Red chard, combining both beauty and deep earthy notes and so good with goats’ cheese, was the first to go in. Reliable, quick to sprout and with an unforgettable flavour, it is a forgiving salad for first-time growers. Last year I planted lettuce ‘Merveille des Quatre Saisons’ too, the mild red-tinged leaves wild flatter it, and ‘Lingua di Canarino’, with bird-tongued leaves, mild and sweet.
I raise my salad leaves in wooden trays; they weather nicely and are deep enough for the shallow, delicate roots of plants destined to be harvested young. I pick the leaves when they reach 5–6cm (2-2.25in) high, use them in our daily salad, then reseed for a second helping. The seedlings are usually through within 10 days or so: last year’s mild spring meant there were signs of life within a fortnight. As a relatively new gardener I find the fast early growth of the year’s first plantings encouraging to say the least and hopefully the sign of a delicious year to come.