Woodland fun

It had been my birthday earlier in the week and I wanted a day out at RHS Harlow Carr gardens with lunch in the pub next door. The colour in the gardens is fabulous at this time of year and that's what I wanted to see. We took two of our grandchildren (aged 5 and 7) who were on half term holiday.

Harlow Carr always has some good school holiday activities for children, and for half term week it was all about Halloween.  There was a scary monsters trail to follow so we picked up the trail sheet and headed off in search of the monsters. I must admit I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting some life sized monsters to be lurking in the woods and to be scared out of my wits. But all we got were some wooden cut out shaped figures. The trail was really easy to follow  and we had it completed in no time at all.  Perhaps it was aimed at a very young age group. Well anyway, the kids completed their sheets and put them in the box for the competition.

I soon realized  that we weren't going to be doing the gardens in the way that I wanted to because we needed to keep the children interested. Admiring the autumn foliage in the arboretum wasn't going to keep their attention for long. And checking the herbaceous borders to see all the dead flower heads left for winter structure and insect life was of no interest to the kids. Whilst I wandered around the kitchen garden, taking in the lovely purple kale, pak choi, dark red lettuce and  wondering how they managed to grow veg without having holes in the leaves, their grandad tried to keep them amused without them causing any damage.

So we let them run around in the log maze and climb to the top of the tower.  Then we found a fireplace in a clearing in the woods which we thought might be a bear's cooking place.  We walked along the path into the woods and found the bear hugging a tree and we thought he was a friendly bear. He hugged the children and they came to no harm.

We wandered further into the woods and found a willow village made by a local school and some animal sculptures made of wire, twigs and leaves.

And then we came upon the Log Ness Monster. It was made of logs, covered in wire netting which was to provide a habitat for wildlife, but which was also a great playground for children to run along. One end of the log monster had been made into a head shape with eyes and fangs. It was all great fun for children to climb and run along.

We had a really good day, the children enjoyed themselves, we discovered places we would not have  done had  the children not been with us and we left as always feeling we would have to return another day.

Clearing up

It's that time of year when there's lots of clearing up to be done in the garden and allotment.  We had a good weekend at the allotment with some lovely weather to keep us going. I went with a plan and worked through all the jobs on the list.  That's made me quite happy now. I love lists!

We've cleared away veg which have finished, weeded and dug over beds. The compost from the old potato bags have been spread over cleared areas and then these beds were covered with membrane to keep the weeds down. We  have manure to put down on some of the beds but as there's still stuff growing we'll have to leave it for a while.

There are plenty of vegetables in some of the beds to keep us going for a while. The leeks are doing well. I earthed them up but they won't be ready to pull for some time yet. There are parsnips, beetroot, celery and celeriac. It's the first time we've grown celery and celeriac and we weren't sure if they will do anything. At the moment they are just leaves with no sign of anything worth digging up.

The brassica bed has brussels sprouts, red cabbage, kale and purple sprouting broccoli which we are picking regularly.  We harvested one cute little squash plant. I pruned the raspberries and cleared the rhubarb.

My husband turned the compost heaps over.  I'm a bit wary of going near those compost heaps ever since I encountered the rat.  The mice are still around.  My daughter disturbed them as she was weeding.  It's a bit freaky when they suddenly shoot across the bed right next to you!  They were quite cute though and one kept poking it's head out of the hole to see if we were still there!

Trying out new things

A little while ago I spent a lovely afternoon potting up hyacinth bulbs for forcing. This was so easy and enjoyable that I wondered why I'd never done it before. I think I'd always imagined it was a bit complicated, something to avoid and let other people do.  Well, I could always buy them in the shops couldn't I? But this is something I've done myself and if all goes well they can be given as presents at Christmas.

That got me thinking about other  things which I've never done and which  I'm hoping to have a go at now I've more time in retirement.  I'm not talking here about abseiling or bungee jumping. No it's little things which I've avoided doing because they may just need a bit of time spent learning how to do. Like different cooking methods.

I watched Kirstie Allsopp the other night on TV in her latest programme 'Kirstie's handmade Britain' and that made me realise that I'm not on my own.  I was surprised when she said she'd never made scones before. I don't think either of my daughters have ever made pastry. There are lots of things I've never tackled in cooking or baking which I've avoided because they seemed too complicated. Like baking bread. I've also never made jam or marmalade. I'm sure many of you will be thinking, "But that's so easy!" I hope it is because I'm going to try it out soon. I recently made blackberry gin for the very first time and was surprised how easy it was to make.

In the last few years I've started to eat less meat. I've found it difficult to move to a completely vegetarian diet because  it requires a whole new approach to cooking. I need to find more vegetarian recipes and get used to cooking that way, because a lot of vegetarian recipes seem quite complicated with lots of ingredients to prepare. So there I am again needing to spend some time to try out new things.

And then back to gardening, there are lots of things I've never tackled in the garden. For instance when I want to make more plants I just lift a plant, split it  and pot up. Well that's one way of doing it but there are other ways, like taking root or stem cuttings or collecting seeds. I would like to try out these other ways.

I think one of my problems is laziness.  I'm all for a easy life, don't make things complicated for me. Well I'm now ready to change.  So here I am embarking on new ways of doing things, trying out things I've never done before.  I'll let you know how I get on.  What things have you never done which you would like to try out?

The holly tree

We have a holly tree in our garden, which I am keeping a close eye on at the moment.  It's more of a big bush than a tree. I don't know how old it is but  it was well established when we moved here 27 years ago.  It's become quite a character in the family's eyes. It sits there outside, a few feet from the dining room window. Over the years it's been cut back from time to time when it's got so big it's obscured our view of the garden.  One year we decided to cut out the lower branches, which made it look more like a tree than a bush and we discovered we had a whole new area of garden to work on underneath.  So I under planted it with euphorbias, vinca and ferns. The neighbour's cat hides amongst the undergrowth and Dave the hamster is buried there.

There has never been very many  berries until a few years ago when it suddenly decided to produce them in abundance every year. I've heard it said that it's a sign of a bad winter if there are lots of berries on the holly bushes. Well the last 3 winters have been  pretty bad here in Lancashire and probably everywhere else in the country.  That seems to have coincided with the holly berry production.

It's not just our family who love our holly tree.  It's also loved by the birds.  There is always lots of activity around the tree.  Birds fly in and out and inside there seems to be always lots of rustling and  twittering. It also provides food for them. No doubt there are lots of insects in there, but also there are the berries, the birds love the berries. This year there seems to be more berries than usual.

That is why I am watching the bush very carefully.  Every day I look at the holly and admire the clusters of berries which I have watched gradually turn from pale green to orange and now  to red.  They are beautiful and I keep thinking how wonderful it would be at Christmas to cut some of those branches and bring them in the house to arrange in a big jug or vase.  I dream of seasonal evergreen arrangements, a wreath on the front door, a table decoration maybe.  But I know it's going to be a race between me and the birds.  Who will get to the berries first? Probably the birds will.  By mid December the branches could be stripped of those juicy berries.

But I live in hope and as soon as December arrives I shall be out there with my secateurs. I will leave some berried branches for the birds. I wonder if they would leave any for me.

Blackberry gin

We've been doing a bit of blackberry picking recently, but never finding enough to do much with them.  A handful went nicely with some apples to make a crumble  However one day last weekend  we went out for the day and found a lovely lane which was oozing with blackberries. I was well prepared with poly bags, so we got picking and came home with a decent sized bag of them.

Inspired by Debbie at Carrots and Kids, I've been longing to make blackberry gin or vodka since I read her blog about this time last year on sloe gin and blackberry vodka. It seemed so easy to make and would hopefully be ready for Christmas. Debbie does a lovely blog, it's well worth visiting for ideas on all sorts of things to do with gardening and the home and family.

As well as Debbie's recipe I also found recipes in my own cookery books and on the Internet. It seems like you can make fruit gin or vodka and they're much the same. I found a recipe for raspberry gin which could be adapted to make blackberry gin. The ingredients are basically blackberries or raspberries, granulated sugar and gin. The quantities  all varied slightly from 300 to 600 grams of fruit, 200 to 300 grams of sugar and 70cl to 1.5 litres of gin.  I even found one recipe which just said fill the jar to one third with fruit, top up to about halfway with sugar, then fill up with the gin or vodka.  I was a bit confused at first, but in the end I decided it wouldn't matter what quantities I used and did my own thing.

I used a 1.5 litre  sterilised Kilner jar  and once I'd put all the ingredients in I kept shaking it up until all the sugar was dissolved. I then put the jar in a cool dark place and I will continue to give it a shake every day for the next couple of weeks, after that I will shake it every week or so as the recipe  says. When it's ready for drinking I will strain it into bottles and according to some sources you can use the fruit to make jam afterwards.

I enjoyed doing this so much I'm going to make  more  with some raspberries I have in  the freezer picked from the garden. Hopefully it will all be ready for drinking by Christmas, if not, well maybe the Christmas of 2012!  Can I really wait that long !

Autumn

My 7 year old granddaughter recently asked me what my favourite season was. I had to really think hard about it and everyone else said it would be summer, of course. Well yes I do love summer, when we get a decent one and that brief return visit last week was lovely while it lasted. However I love all the seasons for what they bring in terms of weather, colour and activities, but I'm always ready to move on at the end of each season to new things.

I do especially love autumn. I think of it as a cosy season, a time to snuggle up in a warm sweater, drink hot chocolate, go for walks in the woods,  start a new knitting or craft project, cook warming casseroles and do lots of baking. I love it for the rich colours of the late flowers, the changing colours in the trees. Perhaps I like it  because my birthday is towards the end of October.

So now that autumn is well and truly here I shall be doing such things as :

• collecting, conkers, acorns, leaves and twigs with the grandchildren and making a nature display in the porch
• thinking about things to knit and sew for  forthcoming Christmas fairs
• making blackberry, raspberry or sloe gin, something I've never done before and want to try out
• using up our glut of baking apples to make mincemeat, apple butter, pies, crumbles
• sweeping up the leaves in the garden and putting them in the leaf bin to compost
• doing lots of clearing up and cutting back in the garden and allotment
• planting up some containers with things like cyclamen and evergreens for autumn and winter interest
• planting hyacinth bulbs to force for Christmas displays
• baking the Christmas cake
• cleaning and tidying out the shed

There are rather a lot of things to do, I'll let you know how I get on with them.