November Blog
Guy Falkes night is behind us and also Lord Mayor’s show both signs of late autumn, not that the garden has noticed, I picked honeysuckle this week and the Rhododendron grandiflora has four flowers the magnolia has flower buds trying to open, madness. Gardeners can’t help but notice the change in our weather each season and we may well prefer a mild October and November as it shortens the winter, but some things really aren’t normal.
Pixie found a hedgehog in the garden, she told us about it as she stabbed her nose on its prickles. We have been putting out some dog food every night after we come in from the night walk, so the dogs are in and can’t find and eat it, and the hedgehog can eat in peace. So far it has been appreciated and its too warm to start hibernating.
We put the geraniums in the green house to overwinter and under one of the troughs we found eighteen hibernating newts. We gathered them up and created a space in the big log pile and surrounded them with logs so that they are sheltered and warm for the winter. We have quite a lot of newts in the garden, sadly no great crested just the ordinary, but they are very welcome.
The tomatoes are continuing to ripen in the greenhouse but I picked some of the green ones and made green tomato and orange conserve, very easy and delicious.
It is impossible to miss the entreaties for us to plant trees. We have a row of ash which are all dying slowly from ash die back, last week we planted fourteen sycamores in between the ash, which one day will replace them. We also planted five laurels to make a small hedge by the gate to the field. We have three walnut trees to plant, courtesy of the squirrel.
The vegetable bed is full of onions, shallots, garlic, autumn broad beans, leeks, Swiss chard, curly Kale, Russian cabbage and lots of parsley. The Jerusalem artichokes are ready to dig up, they are delicious roasted and also make a heavenly soup and are wonderful in salads. There are two troughs of winter salad growing in the greenhouse which should keep us going for a while.
The aga is back on which makes bread making so easy and is perfect for baked jacket potatoes. Slow casseroles cook perfectly as do cakes. It is switched off from late spring as it makes the kitchen too hot. It is a very different way of cooking as most of it takes place in the ovens and the top is used to get things hot before going into the ovens. Cooking a Christmas cake overnight in the left-hand oven is brilliant. It takes a bit of getting used to and is a different way of thinking, if you have a busy day it is perfect for putting supper in the oven to slow cook all day and be ready for you when you get home.