Autumn-Sown Broad Beans And Sunday Feasts!

Purple sprouting broccoli
Dirty Nails has been tending his purple sprouting broccoli this week. He always has a good rummage around the bottom of them at this time of year, clearing away dead and yellowing leaves to the compost heap, and weeding at the same time. They are by now fine plants with large leaves, a good crown and strong, thick stems. After this spruce-up they look magnificent and handsome.

Purple sprouting is a hungry brassica that likes to be bedded down in firm soil. To this end, Dirty Nails has been working hard. He has trodden the earth down around the base of each one with his heel, and applied a thick mulch of horse manure to the same area. He keeps a bucket and shovel in his vehicle, collecting manure from droppings on the road. He is thus able to keep a sack or two handy for this sort of job.

Lastly, Dirty Nails has staked each plant. A stout cane and baling twine are ideal for this purpose. Purple sprouting wants to grow quite large, 4 feet (120 cm) or more, and is susceptible to wind damage during gales. Good supports will hopefully prevent them from being rocked and having their roots loosened. Pigeon scarers in good working order are also vital. Made from compost bags cut into tassels and tied to tall canes, they move and rustle in the breeze. There is little else to do now, except watch, wait and look forward to spring greens.

Sunday feasts!
Dirty Nails usually has to loosen his trousers at the end of the week. Sunday is feast day for the family with many winter favourites now on the menu. A lot of work in the veg garden in the coming months will simply involve harvesting what is to be eaten on the day.

Natural History In The Garden: Hibernating Small Turtoiseshell Butterflies

A few species of butterfly over-winter as adults. The small tortoiseshell commonly enters houses and sheds around now and settles with its wings folded together in a cool, quiet corner for the purpose of sleeping away the next few months. In this position the undersides of their wings disguise them as withered brown leaves. In the garden loose bark and the ivy-clad limbs of trees provide natural hibernation habitat for butterflies. Small tortoiseshells may over-winter communally.

Other hibernating species include the pale yellow brimstone and ragged-winged comma.

Lifting parsnips and other root veg for roasting cannot be hurried. Extracting a 1½ foot (60 cm) long scorzonera thong in one piece is a challenge, and an achievement in itself.

Swedes demand to be admired and their heady scent inhaled deeply before being washed, trimmed, peeled and cooked into a mash with spuds from store.

Leeks are in season from now until the end of March. Different varieties are cultivated to mature throughout both autumn and winter. Digging leeks for same-day consumption is a thrill in any weather. Fresh from the ground, they exude the most wonderful aroma. Being outside, trimming the roots and flag from a leek as dusk approaches, is about as good as it gets for Dirty Nails, second only to eating the bounty.

Vegetable Snippets: Mealtime Magic

There is little which can compare with the pleasure to be had from sallying forth into kitchen-garden or down the allotment on a Sunday morning at this time of the year, and spending a good hour or so gathering the ingredients for a big meal. In the company of distant, peeling church bells and a quiet stillness which lends a timeless magic to the season of plenty, this is ‘pottering’ at its very best. Veggies fresh from the ground demand time to prepare, in the harvesting, rubbing, scrubbing and washing. This is an integral part of the fun. After admiring and considering what is to be eaten, bad bits must be removed and the produce readied for cooking. It cannot be rushed, in the same way that cultivating a tempting row of, say, swedes, is not a venture to be entered into in a hurry.

Dirty Nails is a busy man, and he always has been. ‘Burning the candle at both ends’, his mother used to say some years ago. But growing your own veg tempers this. It reins the home producer in to the natural rhythmic cycles of the seasons, working with forces which are so beautifully honed that careful planning and a little respectful forethought can reap plentiful rewards year-round. Sharing the bounty at mealtime, either with the children, with friends, or both, is a family ritual which has provided the household with some of its finest moments. There is nothing like a healthy hunger for good food to bring folk together.