welsh hills again

Harvesting is a two sided coin: on the one side, the satisfaction, the pleasure at the gathering in and the putting into store and on the other the tyranny of the full basket of courgettes or beans, or whatever is this year's glut, crying out to be transformed into something which will keep while the garden sleeps. It is also the time to take stock of how the year has been. What grew well, what failed, what was far more trouble than it was worth, what was wonderful and will go on the list for next year? It has been a good year for apples for us. Yesterday we picked wheelbarrows full from the Howgate Wonder and there is more to come from the less sunny side of the tree. These are not a problem. They store wonderfully and slowly sweeten so that after Christmas they can be eaten by themselves although now they are a cooker and need sugar. The trickier apples are the ones on the old trees in the kitchen garden. They are smaller and sourer but we can't bear to throw them away. This ...

I don't know whether it comes from having a September birthday, but I have always liked the end of summer. Ian went back to work this morning and I am working at home. This is a tricky one because the garden is groaning with produce and it is all calling to me. We are weighed down with courgettes and runner beans and squash and more runner beans and apples by the ton. I should clearly be chutney making, not emailing or making conference calls. And today more than ever the view keeps luring me outside and as soon as I am out there I find flowers to deadhead, weeding to be done, sweetpeas to pick. Inside there are cushions to be made and the imminent arrival of KittyB is making me very aware of the need to clean. We went visiting elder daughter this weekend and I have also come home with a recipe for marrow and ginger jam which I am assured works just as well with overgrown courgettes (I turned my back on them for half an hour, that's all I did. Honestly, they are like children,...

It must be the fashion this year. At least exmoorjane http://exmoorjane.blogspot.com/ and I are doing it so we will call it a trend! The term "staycation" was hers, or that was where I first came across it - taking a holiday by staying at home. We decided to pick a week, take time off work but stay mainly at home. No airports, no queues, no being squashed into plane seats by giant people in front and behind. No lugging heavy cases and still finding you have no deodorant or the wrong shoes. No traffic jams, no sunburn, no prickly heat. Of course, this also means no glorious blue sky, no bougainvillea, no warm wind off a turquoise sea, but you can't have everything. We had promised ourselves that in this week we would not slog away busily on the longest to-do list in the world but would have some days out, even stay away overnight but never to be too far from home. On Tuesday we went to the Ceiriog valley. Lloyd George called this beautiful and hidden place "a little ...

This morning a friend came up for a coffee. In February we made a big seed order together and split our packets so we could have more variety and grow more interesting things. You might not believe this if you looked at my garden and saw the amount of curly kale growing there but at the time that was the plan. Wandering around your garden with another gardener is always interesting. If you are looking at theirs you are busy noticing what is growing well for them that failed for you. If they are looking at yours they will invariably, because gardeners are nice people, exclaim over your successes and make you aware of what has worked well and, just for a fleeting second, allow you to see your garden through another's eyes. I am always aware of what I haven't done: the parsnips which failed to germinate, the succession sowing of salad stuff fallen by the way side, the beetroot left to get too large, the dratted bindweed twining meanly amongst the beans. My friend however exclaimed...

If you live in a very beautiful place (as I am lucky enough to do) what exactly is a holiday for? Clearly it is not for escaping from the hustle of the city although that is mostly what people are looking for when they come to our holiday cottage www.gwenoldy.com . Perhaps it is just the chance to get off the treadmill of every day life, however much every day life is enjoyable? The whole holiday question is a fraught one anyway. There are numerous breaks for which people pay good money which would have me screaming for release: any form of cruise (a floating prison? Who thought of that?); a hotel bursting full on any of the costas with huge dining rooms and compulsory roasting on fought-over sunloungers by over-full pools; the obligatory jollity of any form of holiday camp; anything involving sleeping in dormitories; anything involving Mickey Mouse or rides that make you throw up. Add to that the experience of a huge airport in the British summer holidays and you have a recipe for...

Today I have been spinning plates: trying to make jelly, get an important document off for work, finish off the cottage for visitors tomorrow, pick raspberries, make meringues, shave my legs, pack my bags for my holiday, check my bank balance, make sure I can make a lunch time meeting in the same week elder daughter is coming to visit. While wiping the hot jars of redcurrant jelly and trying to talk on the phone I dropped a jar in all its glorious hot, wet stickiness all over the kitchen floor. Hot red jelly sliding all over the worn red lino, stickiness everywhere, jeans soaked, trainers slipping and sliding in stickiness. What seemed like hours of wiping and mopping and mopping again. So the idea of a simpler life is a powerfully attractive one: no trains, no blackberry, no juggling; lying in every morning and taking breakfast outside in the silence and the sunshine, filling the bird feeders, picking our own vegetables and fruit. Is it a fantasy? A Chimera? Perhaps life can be si...

Yesterday we had a big outdoor party - the day was just about fine but it was noticeable that people kept wandering off to their cars to bring out coats and jackets. Today of course the sun is shining and it is warm. It is time to slow down, to wander, to really look. What is happening in the garden in July? Poppies are so fleeting and so beautiful I have tried to catch some of the best. They self seed wildly in our garden in all shades of pink and purple and this year, for some reason, we also have vivid red ones. Some are extravagant double flowers, like crumpled folded and refolded tissue. Some are perfect simple flowers, like a Remembrance Day poppy but dazzlingly alive. I let them self seed and even allow them in the vegetable beds, except amongst the onions which seem to dislike competition even of these gentle benevolent flowers. In the raspberry beds which were manured in the spring the flowers muscle up, huge and rampant, but they also grow in the walls in the sunny ban...