October 2021

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

Tom Robbins: Jitterbug Perfume

Words by Mrs Darling

How I wish the spoon in this photo was a tablespoon. Sadly it’s only a teaspoon, and that tells you all you need to know about how (un)successful I was at growing beetroot in the glasshouse over winter. But. I’ve been waiting all this time to use the quote above from Tom Robbins, hoping there would be some bulging beetroot for the lead photo for this posting. I hope you appreciate that I’m sacrificing my reputation for being Green-Fingered in order to bring you that quote. I adore the book I took it from – Jitterbug Perfume. An absolute classic of sultry deliciousness, published in 1984. After reading it, you’ll never look at beetroot the same way again, and you’ll be glad of it.

First, some updates. The sweet 100 tomato in the glasshouse has been providing us with little red bursts of deliciousness. Since the tomatoes started to ripen, we have had a steady supply. The plant has started to get a bit leggy (see photo below) because the cover over the glasshouse has cut down the light inside. I’m thinking about nipping out its top and allowing it to bush up from its laterals instead of letting it grow along the inside of the roof. Shockingly I found some evidence of psyllids (sugar-crystal-like psyllid poop on the leaves), and feared the worst (that the autospray couldn’t keep them at bay). Then I heaved a sigh of relief when I discovered the batteries had died in the autospray. I have no idea how many days the spray was out of action. I must be more vigilant. I looked closely and found a few psyllids on the stalks, crushed them (very satisfying) and replaced the batteries. Goodnight nurse.

^{Sweet 100 reaching for the sky. Note the autospray on the bench.}

All the tomatoes I grew from seed are now safely out in the main garden. I had planned to keep one of the golden tomatoes I wrote about last month to plant in the glasshouse, but decided in the end that I’d save seed from the current plants to plant in January so that by the time winter comes next year I’ll have tomatoes in the glasshouse producing fruit all the way through. Part of my plan to Do Better.

Also planted out in the main garden are the buttercup pumpkins and one of the two cucumbers I grew from seed germinated in the glasshouse in August. Dr Darling built me some trellises to grow them up. They’re very sturdy, like everything else he builds. He has Many Fine Qualities, as you know.

^{L to R: cucumber, and 3 butternut pumpkins on the edge of the main garden – bricks in place to foil the blackbirds.}

The other cucumber is in the glasshouse, and of course it’s ahead of the one outside. I’ve placed a pot plant saucer under its first fruit to make sure it doesn’t rot. It’s growing astonishingly quickly now the weather’s warmed up. Yum.

The zucchini isn’t doing as well as I’d hoped. There are now a few spots of powdery mildew on the leaves (see below). This surprised me because there hasn’t been a skerrick of it all through the winter. I guess that troubles my hypothesis that the spores were being brought into the glasshouse by insects. Since there were no insects getting in or surviving even if they did over the winter, then ipso facto, there were no spores. However, some insects clearly did get in after my autospray batteries died. Maybe that’s why there’s mildew now. Also we have the glasshouse cover up so it’s not as hot inside as it was, and no direct sunshine either. Both heat and light discourage mildews.

The zucchini fruit aren’t as big as they were at the start of the plant’s growth. Altogether, it’s no longer thriving which is so disappointing.

What is doing spectacularly well is the celery. I put six plants in months ago, and they’ve really hit their straps now. They’re not the horticultural monstrosities we can buy from the supermarket (goodness knows what they feed them to get them so huge), but they’re perfectly adequate for use in a salad or any savoury dish.

Finally, I want to show you my broad beans. I germinated the seeds inside the glasshouse back in June and planted them out in the garden at the beginning of September. They’re growing against the fence in a bed with a frame that Dr Darling made. I have no worries about the broad beans pulling the frame over because the structure is so well-made. (He is going for the Husband of the Year Award – again). The beans are over one-and-a-half metres tall with the most beautiful red flowers. And now the bumble bees are back in force, we have broad beans coming along. I do love them. The broad beans, the bumble bees, and Dr Darling.

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February 2020

Words: Mrs Darling

There are two rules for success: 1. Never tell everything you know.

Roger H. Lincoln

When I was young, and much naughtier than I am today, I remember seeing a poster entitled Cucumbers Are A Girl’s Best Friend. I googled it the other day, and it was a helluva lot naughtier than I remembered. I was thinking about this because we’ve had an Embarrassment Of Cucumbers since I last posted – what to do with the surplus? The cucumbers in the main garden have been prolific, but the Big News is that the cucumbers in the glasshouse have been producing too.

Those of you who read last month’s post (thank you!) will know that I was having trouble getting the fruit to set on the cucumbers in the glasshouse. I ended up using a paintbrush to tickle the flowers, and I nipped out the growing tips as I said I would, but what’s really made the difference is that the bees and bumblebees have found the flowers. Have a look at this little fellow for instance, head first in the most reckless manner:

The cucumbers from the glasshouse have thinner skins than the outside ones, and those skins are blemish-free. I guess it’s because they’re not getting knocked around as much as the outside ones.

The vines are still growing strong with more cucumbers coming on. Some of the leaves have white flies and aphids (with their sooty mould), and of course there are ants farming the aphids. But the plants are still growing strongly. It’ll be interesting to see how long they last. Already some of the plants in the main garden have completely collapsed with powdery mildew.

The capsicums are still going strong – King Sweeties and Giant Bells – I’m pressing the surplus into the hands of hapless visitors. They’re beautifully red and so sweet – the capsicums, not the visitors, although many of the visitors are sweet.

King Sweeties in the jungle

Also being pressed into the hands of visitors are red hot chillies which are growing beautifully in the glasshouse. I’ve been using them myself in all sorts of dishes. They add a depth and complexity to the flavour of everything I put them in. I’m happy to say they’re not so hot that you can’t taste the other flavours, but there’s a bit of a kick all the same.

The chillies are incredibly cute. They cluster at the top of the plant and point towards the sky.

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Finally, the tomatoes are still producing. I put Early Girls in early (who’d have thought?), and while the ones in the main garden popped their clogs in January (psyllids and rust), the ones in the glasshouse are still vigorous and producing. They’re about 3 metres long, snaking across the roof. I’ve had to pull them back from the roof vents.

I planted two heritage tomatoes in the glasshouse in January – Black Krim and Brandywine Pink. Both plants are growing strongly, with not a psyllid or any sign of disease on either of them. I’m hoping they’ll go all winter, just like the Sweet 100s did last year. Fingers crossed.

5 Top Tips for Killing Your Plants

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive …

Bee Gees

Words: Mrs Darling

It’s incredibly easy to kill the plants in your glasshouse, and even though I’m a newbie in the glasshouse world, I already know enough to pass on to you these 5 top tips for getting the job done.

1. Don’t water your plants

Not watering in the glasshouse is Killing Plants 101. I doubt it’s escaped your notice, but it gets quite hot inside the glasshouse. As you know, if you’ve been following my posts, our glasshouse, the Crystal Palace, is even heated in winter – well it doesn’t freeze in there, let’s just say that. However it’s Spring as I write this, and it’s already getting up to 20 degrees Celsius during the day. Everything dries out quickly, and the plants and seedlings cry out to be watered every day (“Feed me Seymour, feed me now”). All you have to do is have a look to see how everything’s getting on only once a week, and you’ll have the job done. Yippee ki yay.

2. Don’t ventilate

This point follows on directly from the first one. If you don’t ventilate the glasshouse it’s going to get very, very hot in there. You could literally cook your plants. You’re going to cook most of them anyway, so why worry? Close the doors and windows for a week and see what happens.

3. Water your plants too much

I had a 3-metre long Sweet 100 tomato growing like a weed in the Crystal Palace. It had hundreds (ha!) of tomatoes on it, and we were picking between 30 and 50 a week, all through the Winter. Come Spring and I started putting the seed punnets on the heat pad. They needed watering every day. To water them I poured a water/seaweed mix into the trays they stand on, left them for an hour, then poured the water that hadn’t been taken up onto the plants in the beds inside the glasshouse. The nearest plant to the seed trays was the Sweet 100. It was watered with about a litre every day for days. Suddenly the tomato plant began to wilt, and within 48 hours it was clear it wasn’t going to pull through. I asked my friend Grace (yes, she’s amazing), who has heaps more experience with growing things in glasshouses, what she thought might have happened. She guessed At Once that it was overwatering. It doesn’t take long and it’s a very effective way to kill your plants. Hasta la vista, baby.

4. Keep it moist

Do you want your plants to get powdery mildew, blight, and fungus infestations? Do you want them to be susceptible to every bug that wanders by? If you do, then the trick is to keep the inside of your glasshouse as humid as possible. Don’t open doors and windows (see 2. above), and make sure you mist your plants with water so their leaves are exposed not only to heat but also to moisture. It’s the perfect recipe for leaf diseases. If the leaves are left untreated, the disease can kill the plant. Moral of the story? Don’t ventilate, and don’t spray.

5. Direct sunlight

Our glasshouse has only been up and running since April this year – midway through Autumn. We’ve been sitting in the glasshouse most days since then, basking in the warmth and sunshine. However, now it’s Spring it’s starting to get really hot during the day. It’s too hot to sit out there after midday, and this fact started me wondering how the plants were going to cope once it really heats up. In Summer we can get temperatures in the high 30s. We (and the plants) need shade. I found a nifty way of shading the glasshouse on the Edenlite website, and we’ve ordered a shade cover kit from them. A little weekend job for Dr Darling – more about this in a later post. Opening doors and windows isn’t going to be enough to save your plants from roasting. I’ve seen other glasshouses with their roof panes painted, but that’s a lot of trouble to go to. Leave it to the sun to do the dirty work for you – fry your plants by not providing them with enough shade this Summer.

Alright, there you have it. It’s open season and resistance is futile. I’ll be back.

Walnuts

Words: Mrs Darling

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.

Chinese proverb

When we bought our house 30 years ago, there was a large, fully-mature walnut tree in the back yard already. Thank you, whoever planted it. Our house is 100 years old – it used to be a farm house. Where we now have our laundry was once the dairy for the farm where the milk was processed. Perhaps the tree was planted back then?

The walnut tree in winter, and the sleepout/studio

We’ve had thousands of walnuts from this tree over the years. There are a few tricks to making the most of what the tree produces, and I’m going to share them with you here. (Captions on? Glissando of magical music).

Walnuts 101: when they’re ready, they fall from the tree. This happens in Autumn – that’s March/April/May for Northern Hemisphere readers (are there any out there? I should be so lucky). We have a sleepout/studio underneath the walnut tree where I spend most of Mondays and Tuesdays, painting. Every now and then in Autumn there’s a loud crack, like a gunshot, as a walnut falls onto the tin roof. You’ll no doubt be concerned for my nerves, dear Reader, but I assure you my startle reflex is nearly always under control because, well, reasons*.

Walnuts 102: Most nuts fall on the grass. The trick is to pick them up every day. That’s because … rats, mould, and white ants.

Rats would eat every nut if we didn’t pick them up – yes, every single nut. As diligent as we are at picking them up, inevitably we miss a few, or some come down in the night. We find empty half shells. Evidence!

Mould is a problem every year. If the nuts get wet, they grow mould and are inedible. Most years the majority of nuts will come down during a storm. They drop soaking wet onto soaking wet ground. They need to be dried so they can be stored for the year ahead. That’s where we’ve discovered the glasshouse to be very useful. This Autumn is the first Autumn we’ve had the glasshouse – we decided to try drying the nuts in trays in there. It worked brilliantly. The glasshouse is adjacent to the sleepout, so it’s really handy to pick up a few nuts as you walk past the tree, and pop them on the trays inside. It takes around 4 to 6 weeks for the nuts to be dry and sweet enough to eat. You can eat them earlier, but they taste bitter and “green”. Dry walnuts will last a year in their shells.

The last two trays of walnuts drying in the Crystal Palace

What I think are white ants (termites?) will lay their eggs inside or outside the walnuts – inside if the shells aren’t tightly closed – if you leave the walnuts on the ground for any length of time. You can’t tell until you prise the walnuts open only to find tiny creatures nestled inside. If there are any entomologists reading this (are there? Rudd?) could they please comment below? Anyhoo, the point I’m trying to make here is that you need to pick the nuts up every day until they stop falling.

It’s worth picking up every one, because just a handful of walnuts a day can make a big difference to your health. They’re expensive to buy. There’s loads of research out there about how walnuts aid artery health thereby aiding cognitive health, as well as increasing your lifespan – have a look here at the wonderful Dr Greger’s clip about this. Tuck in! They’re good for you.

Follow this link for my recipe for sweet pickled walnuts. Follow this link for the post about walnuts from our South Island Correspondent.

* I have a theory about this. Dr Darling’s startle reflex is much more available than mine, but his hearing isn’t so good. My hearing is so acute I can hear bats rustling in caves in Guatemala. My theory is that I get an audible (sometimes barely audible) warning, and that gives my brain just enough time to think about what it is that’s coming, and for my startle reflex not to engage. For walnuts dropping, it may be that I’m hearing the nut fall through the leaves on the tree, and by the time it gets to the roof, I’m ready for it. None of this is conscious. I can be startled though, but I think it’s only if I don’t hear something coming. Brains eh. Aren’t they amazing?