Seedlings to Soup

Squashes Growing on Bamboo Frame 

Is there anything that gives greater fulfilment that planting a seed, and watching it grow?

Autumnal Chilli

When my son was three, he planted an Apple pip, that grew into a small tree, that was transplanted to our allotment, where it eventually reached twice my height and produced fantastic fruit. 

Squash and Chilli Harvest

Interestingly, every Apple pip will produce its own unique type of Apple tree, the fruit will be quite distinct from the parent tree. This is one reason I don't fret about "Heritage Apples", although, I do have a favourite tree.

Squash, Ready to Roast

Earlier this Spring, I planted some left-over seeds from last year, Squash, Cucumbers and Chilli. To save space, I created a bamboo frame, for the Cucumbers and Squash to grow up. As the plants progressed, I had to train them up the trellis, constantly watering them to mitigate the drought conditions, they soon flowered.

Roast Squash Soup

We ate many of the small Cucumbers in sandwiches, but Autumn is harvesting time. I cut the Squash down and made a super tasty soup, based loosely on a Mary Berry recipe, including home grown Fennel seeds and Chillies for heat. 

Apple, Blackberry, Pear and Quince Crumble

Eating the soup was the culmination of a half-year’s worth of nurturing and tending, it was suitably tasty and satisfying, and I made enough for two days. The Squash’s offering deserved a decent farewell. So, my wife made us a delicious Apple, Blackberry, Pear and Quince Crumble, to top it all off.

Pressing Needs

Garden Grapes

When Autumn arrives we always get very busy. There's lots to harvest and lots of juice to press and process. First up this year was the grapes growing in our garden. I crushed them first, with a potato masher, then squeezed them, within an inch of there tiny lives, in our decade old apple press. Two Gallons are now bubbling away merrily in demi-jons. I was tempted to pasteurize the delicious juice but fermentation is a simple way to preserve fresh produce.

Grape Juice

Next up was the apples and we normally gather around two hundred Kilograms from parks, car parks and common ground around the city. However, this year the crop was massively depleted by relentles heat waves and consistent lack of rain. 

Apple Picking

Almost all the trees have been severely stressed and as a result the fruit yeild was way below par. Many of the trees had tiny apples and a lot of trees had no fruit at all.

Telescopic Game Changers

However, over time we have mapped out a vast amount of fruit trees, and this gives us many options. Even though the harvest was poor by comparison to any other year, and we've been doing this for fifteen years, we still managed to collect enough to make it worth our while.

Northam Apples

I didn't have time to weigh them but we definitely had over one hundred kilograms, and this was more than enough to cover our event at the British Science Festival. This event was attended by thirty plus people, and I led a short fruit and nut based walk over Southampton common, assisted by my family and the BSF volunteers. On our return, everyone mucked in with the chopping, milling, pressing and drinking of juice.

Apple Day in the Garden

Then a couple of days later, we did it all over again in the garden. We had our own harvest festival with friends, family and lots of fruit. Plenty of the juice got guzzled straight from the press, I pasteurised eight bottles as mitigation against the apocalypse, and two gallons were donated to a young cider maker who helped us with our picking endeavours.

The Juice is Loose
(British Science Festival)

September Remembers

 

I believe Autumn will arrive quickly this year. The trees are already stressed by the prolonged heat and drought the Summer brought, as a result, many have dropped their leaves early already. Fruit and Nut yields have been affected too. 

Early Leaf Fall Caused by Drought

Apples and Pears, normally abundant by this time, are often very small or even non existent this year. We have been out and about searching all our regular trees but the yield will be sparce this year for sure.

Tiny Apples

Hazelnuts, in the city and on the common, have been affected too, the nuts falling early and many with the shells empty, without kernels. Generally, when I collect these nuts, I do it gradually - I know a couple of trees on my route to work and fill my pockets on-route each day, they soon build up.

Hazelnuts

On the gardening and produce growing front, we have struggled to keep the vegetables watered sufficiently, lugging watering cans up and down the garden from our water butts. The Butts (We have 10 blue barrels) were already dry by June and we subsequently had no significant rainfall until September. It's been difficult to keep things alive and we will be reassessing our situation during the Winter, and increasing resilience for next year.

Gardening and Home Grown Produce

Elderberries are having a great year, seemingly unaffected by the weather. I will be topping up my port-wine supply to keep us going over the dark months. I recently harvested our grapes, which have thrived well on regular buckets of used washing up water. I made two gallons of delicious red juice, so it does show that you can find successful work arounds. More on this later...

Elderberries

The good, old fashioned Medlars that grow in the University grounds are looking nice and healthy and we will be looking at them briefly during my presentation for the British Science Festival (17th September).

Medlars

Next month I will be looking forward to Walnut gathering, Grape wine and Sloe Gin making and possibly even Chestnuts.

Resilience in the Face of Drought Conditions

Farmer's Under Pressure Harvesting at Night.

Man-made Climate Change is undeniably upon us, and the evidence is easy to find. It's not just a hot summer, it's significant change. This is now, finally, being treated as a serious threat to national security. Only time will tell if the governments are acting quickly enough. I am compiling a page for reliable information, including help and support for Climate Anxiety (see below).

Hosepipe Ban and Empty Water Butts

At home, we should be thinking about our own resilience, and water butts are a good place to start, especially during a hosepipe ban. Naturally we should all be preserving water and not wasting it, there are multiple ways to do this. On a basic level you can make simple choices such as, should I wash my car or water my garden? We also save all our washing up water in buckets, to use on the garden.

Beautiful Free Blackberries

Fortunately there are still plenty of juicy, free Blackberries to pick and eat. It's a joyful activity to get on a bicycle, pedal to a local hedgerow, and fill your Tupperware boxes for later, whilst scoffing as many as you reasonably can - that's what I call living in the moment.

Blackthorn Early 

I recently spotted a tree, full of early Sloes, the fruit of the Blackthorn tree, I noticed them partly because they were unexpected but because they were very large. Anyway, as a forager, you need to be opportunistic, so I picked a bag-full and will make Sloe Gin early this year. Traditionally, you should pick after the first frost of the year, but that seems a long way off at the moment and sticking them in the freezer will perform the same job.

Big Fat Sloes

Earlier this year I thought about growing squash upward, they tend to take up loads of space, plus I'm only designated a small space in our garden veg patch. I got some 5m bamboo branches from a friend's garden and began to create a rather Heath Robinson trellis and frame contraption for the plants to grow up. With a little encouragement they seemed to enjoy their elevated position and some fruits are now forming. However, I need to keep watering regularly.

Squash and Cucumber Growing Up 

I was concerned that the watering cans were not penetrating the parched ground and was evaporating too soon. I laid a sheet of cardboard over to suppress weeds and cut holes for the plants. I then got a couple of used 2 Litre milk bottles, perforated the base a bit and buried them in the ground up to their necks. I can now unscrew the caps and fill them from my watering can ensuring that the water is deeper in the ground and less likely to evaporate in the burning sun. The next time I do this, I will make smaller perforations to slow the water dispersal, like gardening, it's mostly trial and error.

Milk Bottle Water Preservation

Thinking ahead to Autumn (some trees are so stressed by lack of water they are already shedding leaves), I checked out a Walnut tree and spotted Green Walnuts. Some people like to make Green Walnut pickles, I tried this once but it's quite a process. I really like the spicy smell of green walnuts but leave them to lose their husks and mature in to Walnuts, which can be kept easily for later use over Winter.

Green Walnuts

Climate Crisis Briefings - Help and Support

Man made Climate Change is now a fact of life and the more you know about the facts, the more terrifying it can feel. Even if it can feel daunting as an individual, knowledge is better than ignorance. Denial is a knee jerk reaction for some, either because they feel helpless to change the situation in any significant way or simply because they have not been furnished with facts. However, talking with like minded people can help and reassure you that you are not alone. Taking positive action in groups can also help, such as signing well thought out and managed petitions can force even governments to listen to your fears and feelings. It is through our large institutions that we can affect significant change.

A really simple guide to climate change

Eco-anxiety: How to cope at a time of climate crisis

Climate we had in 20th Century 'has now gone' - Met Office

National Emergency Briefing

Parliamentary Call for a Televised Emergency Briefing

How to deal with 'doomism' when it feels like the world is ending

Find Climate Cafes

Food shortages could hit supermarkets if no rain in next 10 days in dry areas, say farmers

National Preparedness Commission

Call for evidence launched into national preparedness and resilience

'Hotter and hotter and hotter' - Europe's new climate in seven charts

UK food supply at risk of 'catastrophic failure' by 2030, report warns

After record heat, could the Atlantic make Britain's weather even more extreme?

How the UK's extreme heat is shifting the conversation about air-con

Heatwaves and Premature Fruit

Blackberries Ripe and Early

Yes, Blackberries have arrived early, almost everywhere, go and gather yours or simply gobble them straight off the bush. We always get ours form the lovely Southampton Common, and the South facing sides of bushes ripen first and taste the most sweet.

Ripe Plums

Plums are also ripening on the trees, I spotted sweet yellow Plums falling into the road on my walk to work. The picture shows a reddish orange variety, equally tasty and also falling onto the road in Highfield.

Hazel Tree

The sizzling heatwaves we have been experiencing this year seem to have forced many trees fruit approximately on month early this year. Hazel is almost ready to shed its nuts. Still not quite ripe but near as damn it.

Hazelnuts (Early but Still Unripe)

Where hazelnut harvesting is concerned, you need to be quick of the mark or the grey squirrels will beat you to them. The signs are very easy to spot!

Competition with Squirrels

Another interesting tree that fruits around this time of year, is the magnificent Mulberry. This marvellous specimen is on the Salcombe estuary in Devon, where we were lucky enough to holiday this year.

Mulberry Tree

We had one eye on the exciting dingy racing - and one eye firmly under the canopy of the tree, as we hunted down the delicious, ripened, juice filled berries.

Delicious Mulberries

Here's a micro quiz for you all! Keen followers of the blog should find the answer quickly. What are these mysterious yellow tentacles on this garage roof? Finding them like this or on the ground should indicate a tasty snack later in Autumn. Answers in the text below.

What are These Mysterious Tentacles?

The tentacles are the discarded flowers or catkins of the Sweet Chestnut tree. Identifying these trees early in Summer will lead you back to a hoard of Sweet Chestnuts, ideal for roasting on a BBQ later in Autumn. 

Sweet Chestnut Tree

Incidentally, nobody should be using disposable BBQs in the middle of the heatwaves! I find it difficult to believe that they are even on sale. Wildfires are a serious danger to life when the ground & vegetation is so tinder dry. Intelligent people know that they shouldn't be burning square holes in our precious landscape or leaving litter and glass on the ground.

Spring Forward

One of Springs unexpected delights is the sight of Catkins, caught in sunlight, hanging in a hedgerow or dappled woodland, like golden rain. Catkins are tree flowers, commonly a Hazel tree, so later, around September there will be Hazel nuts to gather here.

Hazel Catkins 

The 2026 vernal equinox occurs on March 20, marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Equinox means equal periods of night-time and daylight; the tilt of the earth also brings us closer to the sun. We get longer hours of warmer sunlight up until the Summer solstice. Nature adapts according to the increase in temperature and the dwindling hours of night.

Plumb Blossom

One of my favourite and most apparent signs of Spring is the sudden blossoming of Plum trees and the related Blackthorn. Plum trees in city gardens and roadsides are suddenly filled with dramatic shows of creamy white flowers. The blossom also has a distinctive smell, which reminds me of marzipan (made from almonds, and also related), you can even taste it in a plum flower. One of my long time hobbies is the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun and this name translates as "Beautiful Springtime" and the plum blossom is a related symbol. The key thing with plum blossom is remembering where it is, plums in many varieties and colours could be there later in the season. Blackthorn, which is more common in countryside hedgerows, will supply us with Sloes later in Autumn, allowing us to prepare everyone's favourite Xmas liquor, Sloe Gin.

Magnolia Blossom

Another tree that flowers in urban gardens at this time of year, is the stunning Magnolia, their big blousy flowers are showy but also eminently edible, giving a distinctive tase of ginger. There are lots of different Magnolia recipes including various teas and biscuits.

Ransoms

Less showy but just as tasty plants that appear in abundance in Spring include Wild Garlic and Ransoms, which you normally smell before you see them, typically covering woodland banks or in damp hedges the leaves and flowers can be used in many cooking applications including salads, pesto or just for added flavour in a meal.

Alexanders

Alexanders are an often missed Spring hedgerow gem. Tasting akin and related to the carrot family, it has edible leaves and flowers. The delicious flowers can be fried in batter, the leaves can be fried in butter with wild garlic, a tasty supplement to any meal. A word of caution, you need to be very careful with plant identification, if you are unsure, don't pick it. Several very common but extremely poisonous plants (Hemlock and water Hemlock Dropwort spring to mind), can look very similar to the untrained eye. I spent a year observing the differences, through the seasons, before venturing into eating these plants.

Beautiful Springtime

The Regeneration Game

 

Every year (normally at the back of January/February), after I realise the days have got a little bit longer, there comes a day when I feel the warmth of the sunshine on my face. This year I happened to be sitting on a Barbra Hepworth sculpture, eating my lunch. There was a break in the clouds, the sun had clambered high enough to heat my skin.

At moments like these, I sometimes reflect on our distant ancestors worshiping that golden orb and ponder why they dragged those monolithic rocks across the countryside, to create calendars on their landscapes. We cannot understand their mindset, which is part of the beauty and mystery of these unknowable monuments. However, with careful observation we can see a natural calendar in the seasons of plants, trees and weather.

The ground was muddy and saturated du to recent heavy rainstorms. I had noticed that crocuses had flowered under a large oak tree and fresh daisies were tracking sun’s light. Other plants were beginning to send forth green shoots to compete for energy in the form of sunlight.

Interestingly, plants don’t wait until the days get longer, they count the nights getting shorter, combined with a subtle shift in temperature and the fact that there has been a steady period of cold temperatures. During last Autumn, some people reported detecting a “Second Spring” (trees and plants flowering unseasonably for a second time), but plants are opportunistic and will take any chance send out extra seeds to improve their chance of colonising.

Climate scientists have consistently warned about the effects humans are having on the Earth. Warmer wetter winters combined with hotter drier summers, with more droughts and flooding have long been predicted as a result of human induced climate warming. Now gardeners and other people who enjoy nature, are starting to notice subtle shifts in the seasons, and understanding the difference between climate and weather.

Albion, a Spring Song for Blighted Briton by, The Garden Wall. Enjoy!

You might even notice that the songbirds have started to sing, shouting out to rivals to demonstrate their territory.

2022

It has been another busy year for us. Our daughter has been preparing for university and our son is out of school and into college. I'm delighted to say that we do still have plenty of fun picking fruit together, and we always enjoy getting out and about in the Autumn months to see what we can find.

Earlier in the year, I popped into a local school fete, and took a gamble on a random selection of chillies and peppers. They were only very young when I bought them, so I had no idea what would develop, but I'm pleased to report that they are still producing fruit in November. We already had enough chillies to make, sweet chilli jam, which is a house favourite, and the peppers are now long, yellow, pointy and sweet.

My allotment produced its normal load of delicious soft fruits but the veg (and I) struggled with the drought conditions and my lack of attention, so this will be my last year there. A sad point here, is that an apple tree, grown by our son from a pip, has been producing loads of very nice apples that keep well and are good for eating. We will leave it for the next occupant.

I am now working at the local university and have taken advantage of their beautifully landscaped campus during lunch breaks, including the mulberry tree, which produces a different fruit from the red ones we were familiar with, so I froze the fruits while I consider their best options. I think it might be a white mulberry, good for feeding silk-worms apparently. There is an interesting historical story about this, elsewhere on this blog.

During a crazy day or two in September, the kids and I went out to pick pears and apples in huge quantities, we then had a nice apple day in the garden, inviting friends and teenagers to help press and drink the golden juice, the rest is steadily fermenting into cider in my shed!

Along with my good friend Lou, we also organised an Apple Day at the Mansbridge Community Orchard. It had been a couple of years since we had been able to do hold this annual event, so we were unsure how many people would turn up. However, we soon had a substantial crowd of helpers, participants roamed off to gather fruit and returned with bags full of bounty. Back at base camp the keen team smashed and pressed the fruit into delicious juice, which was gulped down and used to fill drinks bottles to take home.