Surely you have heard of, possibly read, Edith Holden´s “Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady“. It is not so much a gardening diary as a nature obervation diary, but it focuses on the beauty of nature rather than scientific study or collecting knowledge for immediate use. For me, it is not the kind of book that I read cover to cover in one go, but I do enjoy browsing it, reading or looking more closely at whatever catches my interest, whenever I get to have a few minutes to myself with a cup of coffee.
So please understand this “gardening diary of a country lady” to be written in that spirit: It is not a stringent account, and not a how-to. I am not a skilled or talented gardener, but that does not stop me from enjoying gardening. I love the smell of the soil, the humming of the bees, the blackbirds watching me gardening and rewarding me with their song at dusk, and all the shapes and stages of life all around.
(And I know I should not be calling myself a lady. It is just a reference to the book.)
A rainy year: Refreshing and challenging
This year has been exceptionally wet and cool, and we are still cleaning up our property that was not treated well during our absence of almost two years. But at least the rain has made everything wonderfully green, and the last weeks of summer have been lovely.
But let´s start at the beginning of the year.
Gardening diary: January
We had come back from an almost two year absence, and the person who had promised to take care of our house and garden had not done so. On the contrary, we found quite a mess when we got back… So the first thing to do, after getting rid of the worst pieces of rubbish that had somehow spread over the property. was to free the garden of old weeds and make the slightly raised beds visible again.
Preparing the beds, leaving mice disgruntled
When taking the pictures, I had already freed the bed on the far right from weeds. The bottles on sticks don´t look very decorative, but they do help to chase away mice (they don´t like the rattling noise and mostly decide to leave).
It turned out that the compost had been used to dispose of dog poo and coal ashes, so it had more or less been turned into toxic waste. Since there was a lot to do inside the house, too, I tried to solve the problem by applying industrially fertilised planting soil onto the beds and raking it in.
To make a long story short:It did not work. The soil was so devoid of nutrients that – apart from a multitude of weeds – only beans and peas sprouted.
Gardening diary: February and early spring
Which would have been okay; however, as I said, it was a really cool and wet year, so the slugs became an all-devouring pest. Everybody had this problem, even the farmers experienced great damage to their crops, especially rapeseed.
I wish I could show you photographs of early spring flowers, like snow drops, crocuses etc. … but the slugs ate every single petal as soon as it appeared.
There were two things that grew better than ever, though.
Gardening diary: February to June – wild leek
The first was wild leek. We have a small group of trees and bushes in our garden, a mini forest of 12-16 square meters. The ground is covered with wild leek every spring. Due to some warm days in early February, it sprouted early – and because of the cool and rainy weather afterwards, it stayed until June! The season for wild leek is normally from late March to mid May, so this was exceptionally good!
I love wild leek as a salad ingredient, or even as the main ingredient. But of course it is also good for making garlic butter or spicing up almost any cooked dish. I made wild leek and cheese rolls a lot this spring, and for Easter we had a wild leek and potato strudel. You can find the recipe here – if you don´t have access to wild leek/ramps/ramson, you can replace it with spinach and add some garlic.
Gardening diary: May to September – Lamb´s Lettuce
The other thing that grew really well was lamb´s lettuce. It usually begins to shoot in June, which makes it coarse and bitter. But again, the wet and cool weather meant that the lamb´s lettuce stayed tender and delicious throughout summer! And it turned out that it is one of the very few plants that slugs have absolutely no interest in.
Due to our general situation as well as due to the slug problem, most of our garden just stayed as it was after removing old stems and mowing in early spring. So there were large quantities of wild origanum and comfrey for our soups and salads (we also had comfrey breaded and fried a few times, but apparently you are no longer supposed to eat it) and also as food for the bees and butterflies that visit or live in our garden.
Bees and butterflies
We have very many bees here – honey bees, because our neighbor keeps them. Several species of wild bees, bumblebees and wasps, because our house is built in the traditional half timbered style. Some insects inhabit cracks in the wood, some live under the roof, together with starlings, sparrows and bats. Some just drill holes into the walls to live or lay eggs in. Don´t worry, though, they stay on the outside! I must admit it is going a bit far in some places, but I still prefer the situation to a dead and sterile property.
Butterflies have become very rare in recent years, except the white cabbage butterflies that live in the rape fields all around our village. I hardly ever see a colored one. It is my goal to make our garden more attractive to them in the course of the next few years! But I am afraid there will not be much success unless quite a few other people do the same.
Fruit in our garden – no cherries, but berries
There would have been so many cherries this summer! However, one night of late frost ended it all…
But now, late summer and early autumn give us beautiful raspberries, and earlier, we had enough black currants to make cooking jam worthwhile.
The gardening year is already coming to a close. Our children are looking forward to the hazelnuts that are still ripening in our “mini forest”, and I sowed more lamb´s lettuce; if we are lucky, we can harvest some until November. Many people sow it in September so they can have it in early spring, but we want to try digging all of the garden this fall so as to reduce the number of slugs for next year.
There is one last thing I wanted to show you, though.
The great potato fail
I sowed this year´s last lamb´s lettuce on the patch of ground where the potatoes used to be. Two weeks ago, since all of the leaves had withered, it was time to call our children to potato harvest. I was going to dig them up, they were going to collect them and find the potato king (largest potato) who would then be crowned.
I had planted sixteen potaoes – not very many, but we expected to harvest about a bucket full.
But just like St. Martin, the one to be honored must have sped off out of modesty. At least we could not find any large potato and only very few others who had not managed to follow their king in time:
That was all we found! We did not even bother crowning the least tiny one. At least we could gather some lamb´s lettuce that had grown between the potato plants.
Late beauty in the garden
The gardening year has come to an end, apart from digging and other preparations for next year. The potato situation tells me that I will have to do something about the voles…
Now nature´s own beauty has taken over. The September sun puts a layer of gold on the slowly yellowing leaves. The sky is bright blue, the red of the rosehips contrast it cheerfully, white little clouds sail by… Only sometimes do they turn black and pile up dramatically.
The sun sets early and the nights are cold. We use the heating stove daily again (there were only four weeks in a row this year that we did not need it at all). It is hard to imagine that even two weeks ago, we almost dissolved in the humid heat of late summer! But now, we enjoy the cozy evenings near the stove, seeing on a clear night the stars that are so kind to rise while we are still awake now, or wind and rain singing us to sleep. Everything is alive now and enoying the fulness of life, before it will come to its winter rest.
Septembermorgen
(Eduard Mörike, 1804-1875)
Im Nebel ruhet noch die Welt,
noch träumen Wald und Wiesen.
Bald siehst du, wenn der Schleier fällt,
den blauen Himmel unverhüllt,
herbstkräftig die gedämpfte Welt
in warmem Golde fließen.
September morning
(translation attempted by myself)
In mist the dreamy world still rests,
still slumber woods and meadows.
Soon, when the veil drops, will you see
the blue sky open like the sea,
in autumn´s strength the world to be
mellowed where warmer gold flows.
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