Hardy Fuchsias in a Vase on Monday

I top this post after I have written my offering for In a Vase on Monday, and they go to link this with Cathy's Anchoring Article.  It is always a surprise and pleasure to read people's posts. I must admit that I have added Rose Nathalie Nypels to my wish list!

Why is it that we don't see more Fuchsias as cut flowers?  Maybe they don't work as florists' flowers as the blooms are delicate.  I've loved cutting my Fuchsias and bringing them indoors and have them last as long as other items cut from the garden.

Here is a selection of the garden Fuchsias, and for interest I shall be taking a picture each day and adding it here, until the arrangements goes to the compost heap.

Day 1 - Monday - Hardy Fuchsias in a Vase

I made the ultimate mistake..moved the vase to the living room with very little water, and forgot to top it up.  Day 2 morning it was evident, I cut down the stems, and topped up the water, so we shall see what Day 3 gives!

Fuchsia Upright Delta's Sarah can grow pink or more blue all on the same plant, but I can't explain why.  The green tip Hawkshead is a delightful upright shrub, and low down with its variegated pink and green and white leaves of Fuchsia 'Tom West' on the left is one of my favourites for front of the border.  Fuchsia Riccartonii is the one at the back.  All the plants are doing very well and are enjoying the cooler temperatures and the rain.

Although I missed the H  book club meeting mainly on account of not having read much of the book, I am totally gripped by the course of events in Black Diamonds, and am reading it pending the next book arriving at the Library.  Black Diamonds is not a novel..and has many themes not just the family, but a way of life for miners, all against a well explained backdrop of strikes, changing relationships economically and politically. I am pleased I bought this one.  

I shall be missing the WI Zoom book club next week, when we have our Henton Gardening Club Meeting in the Hall, unless the local rules change.  We have been reading The Other Mrs Walker by Mary Poulson-Ellis.  What an great book with a clever structure.  Of course I had to make notes. I tend to do that with most books I read, just to get a grip on the Characters' names and their relationships to each other.

Keep safe everyone, enjoy your gardening, flower arranging, reading and whatever it takes to keep up your spirits.

West Country Water Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza

 Forget the Sunday Roast....it was Pizza for dinner last night.

On our way back from Yeovil, we popped into West Country Water Buffalo and picked up a few items.  The evening turning out as one reminiscing on our honeymoon 25 years ago.  The first meal we had was a very plain looking pizza, which turned out to be the most delicious and memorable one,  looking over Lake Maggiore. 

This time the Pizzas were just as tasty,  smaller, but a little more added.  Some Cretan wild mountain herbs, black Kalamata olives which I have had marinating in my own mix including those lemons I have been pickling, home made pesto with basil and chives, and Wookey Cave aged Goat's Cheese. 

I suppose we ought to have dressed up the table a little, since it turned out to be a 'celebration'.  We laughed when we compared our honeymoon first meal of Pizza, and our bacon sandwich we had in the pouring rain under our own umbrellas in the Bishop's Palace Garden, for our 25th!  Both excellent.

Dessert: It had to be icecream..luckily we had picked up a selection of Icecreams from West Country Water Buffalo and enjoyed 'Amore Buff'

Don't worry folks we had had plenty of fruit and vegetables for lunch.

I recently read..don't ask me where about an easy store cupboard tomato topping for Pizza. I love to read all manner of recipes in magazines, books and blogs, and little bits must just get stored in that strange brain of mine.  Take a tin of chopped tomatoes, drain it for some time, this time it was about an hour, then I had a quick blitz with the stick blender.  The liquid will go into a soup today.  The tomato had a lovely fresh taste on the pizza.

Circular walk from Home

 What a glorious day it has been. This morning I proposed, and Mr S accepted to come with me up on to the Mendips.  We walked up to Model Farm, retracing in the opposite direction the route I had followed with my UA Geology group.

Model Farm has the most beautiful old orchard, with the trees groaning with fruit, and the air filling with the fragrance of sweet apples. I thought they would be all old cider apple trees, but a munch on a fallen apple confirmed that these were probably old varieties of eating apples.

In particular I wanted to show Mr S the little valley with a small stream which is very usual, running as it does over the Black Rock Limestone.  It is quite different with a bright green grassland, and tall narrow Ash trees, of very mixed ages. Further up, the stream was a little too deep to risk slipping in. A little further up there is a water pumping station which draws water from a natural spring at the fault line situated nearby.

Further up on our geology walk we came across Swallet holes when the streams went underground, that will be for another return walk, in the summer.

We retraced our steps and took the Tynings Lane which leads into Milton Lane down into Wookey Hole, back along Lime Kilm Lane, then back across Wells.  En route we stopped off at Myrtle Farm, where Lisa Lunnun has set up a new Farm shop, which I had read about in Wells Voice.  We bought a few of her garden grown eating apples....delicious!

This is the longest walk we have taken without car or bike, since moving. This is about my current maximum length walk without a rest.  

Colourful Leaves - Six on Saturday 10 October 2020

 Each season, and each week we join together on a Saturday through comments on the LEAD POST by Jon The Propagator.  Why not join us, whether just for a read or to post. There are amusing and inspirational musings on the garden, with the  opportunity of being able to comment, help, ask questions. Garden posts help me to record my plants, what I have been up to, and build up a store of photographs mapping the progress or even demise of life in the garden.

How is it that we just look to the colours of leaves from deciduous trees?  I had wanted the capture the last of the leaves on our Amelanchier trees, for by next weekend they will all surely be down. Early morning dew on the leaves are tell tale signs of cool nights.

(1) A nice slowly growing shrub, growing from a cutting I took, and brought down to our new garden.  It is growing nicely.  This is one that Mr S likes, and always likes to point out to me in other gardens, and waits for me to say "we have that one!"

Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Tom Thumb'

(2) Euphorbia x martinii 'Ascot Rainbow' two new plants having been propagated, the older mother plant has been dug up. Now in the hot dry front garden, they are growing away very nicely as below.

Euphorbia x martinii 'Ascot Rainbow'

(3) The front side bed has been cleared and replanted, and the only shrub left, albeit reshaped with plenty of room for underplanting is the Mahonia Aquifolium.  It defies the description of where to plant, as it is growing in the sunniest and hottest part, with a stone wall behind.  I have been regularly clearing the mulched area as weeds emerge, and I am waiting for the Spanish bluebells to emerge, so that I can remove the ones which may have been left.  This little shoot suckering up from the root is so glorious, that it has been given a little respite for now.

(4) After its summer scorching, the soil was far too dry to move it, and I felt it would be too shocked to be certain it would survive.  Instead it got a good watering, and prune.  I think that was probably the better option.  New leaf growth is covering the plant.

Pseudowintera colorata Red Leopard

(5) Looking as if edged by frost, this silver leaved shrub is a great colour contrast.

Phlomis fruticosa bourgaei 

(6) Catching the Amelanchier leaves are the golden domes of  Lonicera nitida 'Baggesen's Gold'.  More plants brought here as rooted cuttings, then have grown nicely and line the edge of the path/parking area.

And it was the last few leaves of the Amelanchier I went to capture.  I've been watching the trees turn and slowly loose their leaves.  When I wake up and peer through the bedroom window, they are the first things I see. The long tailed tits with their iconic twittering, are passing around the garden in flocks of around ten birds.  These little birds are one of my favourites in the garden, and we love to watch them checking out the shrubs and climbers.

'Harvest Meal'

 What started off as a 'stone' dinner' became 'Harvest Meal'.  My 'Potager' is the smallest, but I have had some nice fresh vegetables despite this.  Yesterday after days of rain, I had a dry window free in the afternoon, after a cycle ride, to do a little pottering in the garden.  The last of the runner beans were picked, and the courgette and pattypan plant grubbed up.  Dinner was late as usual: Mr S reminded me around 6:45.

Once more what would we eat? I had nothing planned.  It was a question of 'open the fridge and see'.  Yesterday I had baked a small split squash whilst all oven was on again for dinner, and I happened to have a small defrosted pot of cooked black beans. Non of these were there with any ideas at that stage.

In went the squash on top of the beans, with a little drizzle of olive oil, covered by foil on a high heat, whilst I had a think.  After twenty minutes, an egg and grated goats cheese was added.

Whilst this was back in the oven, I prepared the other veg, and in less than 40 minutes our 'Harvest Meal' was being enjoyed. To toast this I had a glass of Kombucha made with a very special tea sent to me as a present by my friend Judith, when we first moved to our previous home. Judith would have loved to hear about this impromptu dish.  As well as knitting friends we shared many plants and she and her friends even took over my allotment with extensive asparagus beds, when we moved,  I think I had every seedling from a batch of Franchi seeds germinate, and as well as my allotment, many others there had several plants from this. Sadly there is no room here for asparagus!

Our 'stone Harvest dinner' had stuffed baked squash with fresh mini pattypan and runner beans...delicious.  A sprinkle of cayenne pepper, a tip of basil, and for me also some roasted pepper and chilli sauce.

Oh yes, to finish stewed apple from our neighbours tree with a blob of plain yogurt, roasted hazel nuts and a dash of maple syrup, which pared surprisingly well with the apple.

A meal celebrating home grown veggies...thank you garden.

The Squash was grown from an 'antique packet of seeds' found lurking in the bottom of my seed box.  

It was lockdown, and we had no idea when the 'emergency' would be over, no movement, no visits to garden centres, and the odd packet of seed which was destined for the bin were given a chance.