Hibernaculum or Insect Hotel made by Sogs for our Shrewsbury Flower Show Garden a few years ago
Chairman’s report, Oct. 2019
Just recently I have been thinking about cake and the various levels of significance that it has. Over the years Sogs has developed a special relationship with cake. Our summer visits to special places are made even more special by the anticipation of sampling the wide variety of cakes that appear as if by magic; and then disappear as if by a scientific analysis of the ingredients and a study of the combination and mixing and juxta-posing the surrealism of the underlying metaphor. In other words...magic. Arthur C Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...well I say that any cake that can find its way on to the chairman’s plate will disappear as if by magic.
A cake is so much more than a sum of its ingredients it has a synergy which passeth all understanding. In much the same way that a Soggie is so much more than a sum of all the chemicals and water that we call this corporeal existence. A cake that is baked at home and then shared in a social situation acquires a certain something that is indefinable. (But I will not let that stop me from spending the next 1,000 words trying to define it. So if you are in a hurry I recommend that you skip to the next article.) By singling out the home baked I have no wish to denigrate the shop bought, there is something in the act of purchase, transport and presentation that creates an aura to the otherwise ordinary, don’t you agree?
Good! I am glad that you agree. So, where was I? Oh yes...cakes and organic gardening. These things fit together, like peaches and cream, bells with a church and a steeple and horses with swimming pools. (To understand this you really should get out more...) Growing edible things in the garden is the sine-qua-non but it is just the beginning. The harvest and converting this potential in to the actual is where the individual can add their own bit of uniqueness. It is interesting to go to a small country show where there is a cake baking competition. All of the competitors will have been given the same receipt to follow but no two cakes will be the same. How is that possible? I don’t know but I am glad that it is so, aren’t you?
Good! I am glad that you agree. So, where were we? Oh yes...a Sogs visit on a Sunday afternoon to a members’ garden. Have you been there? If you have then no explanation is necessary; if you have not then no explanation will be sufficient. Try to imagine, if you will, a cloud, it is warm and comfortable, it supports in every direction at once, the floating sensation reminds you of the most secure place that you have ever been, there is no future, there is no past, there is just the eternal present where all is one, the moment lasts forever and it is gone in a instant; as Loa Chi said “the handless hold the hoe, the man walks riding on a water buffalo, the man stands on the bridge but the bridge and not the waters flow...Well a Sogs visit is nothing like that; it is all about marvelling at how someone has the time and energy to do all this work and produce this magical (that word again!) space. Then there is all the chattering to do to some of the most friendly people in the world; and then, I’ll repeat that for emphasis, and then! There is the tea and the cake! Floating on cloud and all that stuff may well be OK but can it equal the sublime experience of tea and cake?
Good! I am glad that you agree. There are many imponderable questions in the world today. Where will it end? Where did it begin? What’s it all about? Is it worth it? Should I bother? If I had my time over again would I do it all differently? Where is my next meal coming from? Whither atrophy? What’s all this got to do with the price of toast? My favourite imponderable is ‘how many different cakes is it possible to taste before the palate enters that Zen state and all becomes one?’ This is a question that I have been turning in to a scientific experiment. If you have been at a Sogs cake meeting; oops, sorry, I mean garden visit, you may have noticed me conducting this experiment. So far the results are inconclusive; more experimentation is needed; but even then there will be doubt as those of you who have read Karl Popper and his hypo-thetico-deductive method will no doubt recognise. All this boils down to one question ‘is it possible to eat only one piece of cake?’
Good! I am glad that you agree that it is not; which brings me on to the deepest question yet. If we could fathom the answer to this we would understand much more about human nature and what will be the ultimate fate of humanity. The question is...wait for it...roll of drums...swiss roll...roll of fat...”Is eating cake naughty?” To even begin to answer this question we must first try to define the concept of naughty. It has a dictionary definition but is that sufficient for it to carry all the nuances that are possible when the word is linked to cake? I suspect not. Do we need the concept of naughty to set boundaries? To create a border within which we can construct our own reality? Without knowing what is forbidden how can we know what is allowed? Can we know what is meant by ‘up’ without considering the infinite possibilities of ‘down’?
Are we still in agreement? Good! This is real progress. I think that we are ready for a cake recipe. Recipes at the end.
Continuing the theme of up and down, which way is up in space? I was listening to Helen Sharman on the radio the other day, she was talking about cultivating plants in zero gravity, I wonder if they do it organically? and can you bake a cake on the international space station? If not, is it worth going? Shall we see if we can get her to give a talk to Sogs? And can we determine the ultimate nature of organic gardening reality by putting a small piece of fairy cake in to a Total Perspective Vortex? Answers on a post card please. There is so much to do and so much more to explore about the relationship of Sogs and cake and so little time to do it, if you have read this far you have missed 20 minutes in the garden that you will never have again.
I will leave you with a list of my notes so that we can continue this fascinating topic when you have nothing better to do and you feel like having your brain numbed by absolute drivel... I mean... deep philosophical insight in to why we should all save the world by doing something so much more positive than flying off in a private jet to join an extinction-rebellion protest or listening to a 16 year old telling us that we oldies have ruined her future; as she flits around the world with her perfect education and perfect health and perfect security and her perfect prospects...I wonder where she got all of those from? It couldn’t possibly be from old type people’s efforts could it? Ahh! That’s better, all of the previous 1399 words were about building up to that rant. Now, the list; Cake as metaphor, cake for Sogs leitmotif, cakes as love, cakes and greed, cakes as variety/spice of life, cakes and ale, have your cake and eat it, caked with mud, if I’d have known you were coming I’d have baked a cake.
And so on to infinity.
Peter
May 12th Members’ Garden Visit: Nick and Jan’s.
We had a warm welcome from Nick, Jan and their two German hunting dogs, and admired their garden which is an example of division of labour, with Jan tackling the cultivation side, and Nick on construction. The tree-bordered garden had varied areas including some formal vegetable beds, informal herbaceous borders, very informal grassy areas (Jan likes her grass to be fairly long), an orchard with old trees, a stream, and a lovely pool. Around the garden were sculptures waiting to be discovered, a rustic bridge over the stream and a Monet type bridge by the pool. An old farmer’s dray was under a tree in the orchard, being assimilated into the landscape.
Nick and Jan discovered a well near the house entrance when they moved in, and Nick constructed a low brick wall round it with round edged bricks as the top layer. This was an inviting sitting area for tea and cake time. The well and the stone wall behind it were beautifully mossy. There is a system for obtaining water from the well for watering plants. We enjoyed this delightful visit, on a pleasantly sunny afternoon.
From Sue Bosson, with photos by Sue. Visit to Will and Julia Scott’s Walled Garden, July 21st.
For
our coach outing this year we travelled to Worcester to visit this 19th
century walled garden which Will and Julia Scott had purchased around 24 years
ago. This garden is to be found along narrow streets with lovely names such as
Royal Albert Close, Victoria Place, Rose Hill and Fort Royal Lane to do with
the 1651 battle of Worcester which happened in this area. Their house had been
the gardener’s bothy and another brick building an astronomical observatory. As
a neglected former kitchen garden of half an acre the Scotts had to tackle
brambles, weeds and dead trees. Several fruit trees were found - pear, plum and
apple. A comice pear had once been trained on to a wall but had escaped more
into the garden. Following an ordnance survey map of the 1800s they traced and
found the original paths. Julia would stick a flag in the ground, Will would
dig down and find the paths. Hence the garden now follows much of the original
design.
Julia started our tour by taking us to the compost heaps – well what would you expect? A long line of large wooden bins, all being used and in varying stages of de-composition. She told us about a system of making compost in these bins within a few weeks, as little as six in fact using a herbal activator which she had read about in a book called ‘Common Sense Compost Making by Maye E Bruce written shortly after WW2. The book with the recipe and loads more useful information is still available to buy on the internet. From the book I’ve copied the recipe ingredients. See how it explains what elements the different ingredients, mostly commonplace herbs, contain.
Yarrow-Iron,
Lime, Potash, Soda, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Nitrates. Chamomile-Potash, Lime, Phosphorus, Sulphur. Dandelion-Iron, Soda, Potash, Phosphorus.
Oak bark-Potash, Lime. Valerian-Formic Acid, Acetic Acid. Nettle-Oil, Formic Acid, Ammonia,
Carbonic Acid, Iron. Honey-Glucose. Go to this page to find the method.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QR6.html
A circular ornamental pond was made with
12 pleached lime trees planted in a circle round them. (see pic below)
This makes a lovely shaded place but does take two days to prune into shape. There is help these days though with Lucy who has worked for them for 15 years doing one day a week and Alan doing the heavy work.
Julia grows many herbs and ornamental plants in the various beds and as we walked round smelling and tasting these as Julia picked them, she told us of their uses. Calendula cream – best for athlete’s foot, soreness and radiotherapy sores. Sweet cicely – used instead of sugar, neutralising the acid in many fruits. Lemon verbena – makes a lovely tea if stewed for five minutes. St John’s wort – for depression. Wormwood – keeps wasps away. Southern wood – a bitter herb used for its pungent smell at keeping moths at bay in wardrobes. Winter and lemon savoury – used in cooking. Horseradish – freeze and grate to use. There were many herbs and I couldn’t keep up! But I did note marjoram, (so good for the bees) soapwort, and the ispahan rose, there for its perfume.
As
well as the original orchard trees, now in the fourth generation, the Scotts
had planted a quince tree, a ‘Beurre Hardy’ pear, a mulberry tree and a tulip
tree. How big will that grow? Many of the fruit trees are trained to keep them
under control for this relatively small garden, so many are grown as espaliers
but Will had attended a fruit training course and his ‘Ashmead’s Kernel’ apples
were goblet trained. Lovely shapes and airy in the middle. Will’s useful tip
too was to plant box plants next to fruit trees for ladybirds to hibernate in.
Will and Julia practice ‘planting by the moon’ methods and Julia showed us a
chart which she follows meticulously. The garden was beautifully productive in
a free and unrestrained manner with many vegetables sharing the space with
flowers.
Picture below. Julia showing us the 'planting by the moon' chart that she uses.
At the back of the garden were beehives, producing 30lbs of honey from one hive. In another productive area was a raised bed on legs growing a good salad crop untouched by slugs because the feet of this bed were sitting in bowls of water! We finished our tour with some drinks and the opportunity to buy some of Julia own made activator and other produce.
Our
afternoon concluded with a trip to the National Trust’s Hanbury Hall, a Queen
Anne building with a formal knot garden, orchard and parkland. In the orchard
I noted two apples with lovely and probably very old names. Tom Putt, and Gillyflower of Gloucester.
Hanbury Hall providing a contrast to The Scotts’ joyful profusion of plants in the Walled Garden
David and Susan admiring the ancient cedar
The formal knot garden
9th June Return Visit to Siobhan’s garden, pond and meadow.
We were very interested to see the progress made since our visit in 2013, and despite the demands of full-time work, there has been plenty. The garden is flourishing, with some formal planting and containers near the house, and lush grass, unmanicured and mixed with bee-friendly clover. As we gathered on Siobhan’s patio for her introduction, the sky darkened. Drops of rain were falling as we crossed the lane to see the large pond, home to toads, frogs and newts, and the slightly hilly meadow. The rain started to come down in torrents just as we reached the shelter of the old cowshed. Fortunately the severe downpour was short lived and we were able to brave the ordinary rain to spot orchids, yellow rattle and other wildflowers in the meadow.
Siobhan had a surprise for
us. Her kind neighbours John and Sue Crook were happy for us to visit their
garden and vineyard, so down the lane we went for not only a viewing of the
lovely garden (which they do open now and then to the public) and the extensive
vineyard, but also for a wine-tasting. And the rain had stopped. We enjoyed
this unexpected visit and are grateful to John and Sue.
Siobhan’s information about wildflower seed:
The wildflower seed which I actually sowed around the house but which is I believe is mostly too vigorous to be native seed, was a grass/wild flower mix bought from a company called Boston Seeds (www.bostonseeds.co.uk). HOWEVER on checking their catalogue now to make sure I have got the right name I’ve just read their statement “Our wildflower seed is of uk native origin and is harvested and produced in accordance to the Flora Locale code of practice.” They also interestingly say “Wildflower seeds, wild grass seeds and some other environmental seeds are not subject to certification; therefore we adopt a combination of quality assurance procedures to ensure known provenance, authenticity, purity and germination. Boston Seeds supports and subscribes to the Flora Locale Code of Conduct.” So maybe I am wrong!!
What I would say is that if you buy commercially marketed wildflower seeds even if they are UK sourced it means the seed could come from anywhere in the British Isles and certainly won’t be local. Also some seeds like Yellow Rattle have a greatly reduced germination rate if they are not sown very fresh. Obviously bought seed is going to be at least 1 season old. By far and away the best (and cheapest) way of introducing wild flowers in to an area is to strew it with green hay. For more info on this please see the Marches Meadow Group web site - www.marchesmeadowgroup.com
The seed/plants I think I probably particularly mentioned as not behaving at all like the normal native species was the Ragged Robin plants a friend gave me. I had two small pots given to me, they were labelled as native ragged Robin (Lychins flos-cuculi) and instead of planting them around my pond straight away I left them in their pots sitting on my patio for ages (I did water them)! By the time I did actually plant them out they had flowered and set seed. The following year to my astonishment young Ragged Robin Plants emerged in the cracks between my patio slabs, in disused plant pots, even in the spout of an old galvanised watering can with soil in it. They proliferated like weeds and were all growing in dry places where this plant would never normally be seen. I also noticed that when they flowered they did so several weeks before my neighbour’s (John Crook) Ragged Robin which is growing in a very wet unimproved field which is a Local Nature Reserve and definitely has native flowers in it. So my conclusion is that these plants can’t have been British native plants even though they were labelled as such.
From Rachel: 29th September-Visit to Augernik Fruit and Nut Farm
Well, this on-off, on-off visit was finally ON! Forecasted weather wasn’t looking good but in the end it turned out to be only mildly wet and fairly windy but all who came proved their resilience.
Billy Auger is a third generation fruit farmer from Essex and he and his family have lived in Shropshire at the farm in Hopton Wafers for over 25 years. Set on the side of Clee Hill they produce a wide variety of fruit and nuts, some that none of us expected such as Almonds. The farm is the largest one growing Cobnuts outside of Kent.
To say Billy is passionate and single-minded about his way of life is an understatement. The hours he puts in caring for the trees (all 7,000 of them), harvesting the fruit and nuts (with help from local people) and going to local markets with the produce was astounding. He prunes all the trees himself between December-March.
The Fruit
Plums and Damsons – pruning during the winter increases the chance of infection with Silver Leaf fungus, so they should only be pruned from late spring to early autumn (April to September). Damson is thought to derive from the Damascene Plum but it is not sweet and so is always crossed with other varieties.
Victoria Plum is the most disease prone of all. ‘Avalon’ is a mid to late season dessert plum with dark red-purple skin and a soft, sweet, juicy, deep yellow flesh a bit like a big peach; has better disease resistance to Victoria and just as superior flavour. ‘Opal’ is one of the best flavoured early plums, around late July/early August.
In Billy’s opinion Beurre Hardy is the best pear for flavour, but it is rarely seen in supermarkets so grow your own or get to a farmers market where you’re more likely to find them. He tends to use Conference and Concord as pollinators.
Apricots- Billy has tried growing an Apricot called Golden Glow. Whereas most apricots come from warmer climes, Golden Glow was found as a seedling on the Malvern Hills so it stood a good chance of succeeding. Unfortunately the neighbours sheep got into the orchard and rather decimated the young trees and Billy has not replaced them. Tomcot is another reliable apricot for cooler climes and is self-fertile.
The link below gives some interesting information on apricots.
https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/apricot-trees/golden-glow
Billy also grows Blueberries and Autumn Bliss raspberries.
The Nuts
Huge mature walnut trees dominate the farm at one end. The squirrels go for these rather than the Cobnuts.
Walnuts go through a couple of stages, the first being green walnuts around June. These are the ones you need for pickling. They then become wet walnuts in late summer/early autumn, at the time of the visit and are picked. Dry walnuts are what you eat at Christmas and these are just wet walnuts dried naturally in the autumn sunshine (not much of that present the last month or so!).
None of the cobnut varieties, many of which were bred in the 1920’s-1950’s, are self pollinating so you need to always have wild hazel in the area or other varieties, but pollination is not necessarily 2-way, for example, Gunselbert which originated in Germany is a cultivar of wild hazelnut and is mostly sold as a pollinator for Kentish Cobnut, but Kentish Cobnut doesn’t pollinate Gunselbert.
Varieties Billy grows include: Corabel, Cosford, Butler, Gunselbert, Gustav Zeller and Lange Tidling Zeller (this latter being half the size of most trees and a very heavy cropper).
The Orange Pippin Trees website provides a useful table of which varieties to grow and which to use as pollinators.
https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/articles/hazelnut-pollination
Another useful website is the Harley Nursery.
http://www.harleynursery.co.uk/Fruit/trees/Cobnuts.aspx
Billy also grows chestnuts. The site is an ideal location as chestnuts need free draining soil and air flow. They take 7-8 yrs to come into production.
The afternoon finished with plenty of nut purchases and then tea and cakes in the village hall. Many thanks to Billy for a fascinating afternoon.
Photos missing from last newsletter:
Sylvi’s photo of hugelkultur bed in preparation
Wwoofer’s parting gift to Peter and Maggie - made from broken pots and bits & pieces.
The Albrighton Trust, Moat and Gardens Plant Sale May 10th 2020
This is dedicated to providing fishing, horticulture, arts and craft and woodworking for people of all ages who have disabilities or who are disadvantaged. It enables and empowers them, regardless of disability, to participate in and enjoy activities that are otherwise denied to them. They have a "Me and you Growing Together" project, this helps to address the lack of work experience opportunities available for young people aged between 19-25 regardless of disability, special needs and ill health, who have finished education or are studying part time and who would like to work one day a week in horticulture or woodcraft. It is designed to build skills and self confidence. More information can be found at The Albrigton Trust
All plant donations will be gratefully accepted to help raise funds for this worthwhile charity. We have been able to boost their funds by £1295 over the last 5 years, for which they thank all those who have donated and/or helped in raising this amount.
Nearer the time, I will endeavour to collect any plants you would like to donate, or if you would like to spend a day at a peaceful and tranquil venue, you will be most welcome to bring your plants on the day and chill.
Items for the next newsletter by 16th March 2020, please.
“I used to visit and revisit my garden a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green”. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mini-quiz answers:
1. Basket making
2. poultry keeping (they are poultry disorders)
3. bee keeping