Plum-full of Plums

Another day at the plum-face, the kids returned and were immediately sent down the mines, where they picked, shoveled and carted the red gold, working alongside the nearby bees and butterflies harvesting their own winter fuel. Many hands made littler work and by nightfall we had 60lbs weighed up, halved, mashed and ready to ferment. Unfortunately, this seems not to have made the smallest dent on the quantity still available on the tree. Is this some sort of endless ‘Jack and Beanstalk’ trick? The kids have a gig tomorrow night, so sadly, no more child (-ish) labour available, a shame we had a laugh, helped along by last year's plum wine laced with brandy, wild stories and dirty jokes. I’m fast running out of plumy ideas and recipes. May have to advertise for takers.



Escaped the conveyor belt production line and came up for air just long enough to cook beautiful borlotti beans and pasta feast for the comrade workers.

Gardening Un-coordinated (A love Letter)

I was so surprised and delighted, when, after all the years of self-sufficiency-dreaming on my behalf, Nick took to gardening when the opportunity presented itself. He had his own style, of course, totally juxtaposed to mine, which, as always, is to be expected. Nevertheless, he embraced it as a new and pleasurable pastime, which could be enjoyed outside, basking in his beloved sun-stoke-inducing weather and rewarded with an ice cooled gin and tonic as the sun hit the yardarm. Weeding was out, (well, how convenient!) nature was all. And, of course, there was the idea of maybe being able to grow a drink or two!

He also re-found a childhood mania for digging holes. Not just any little ten or twelve inch planting holes, but serious here-comes-Australia holes! (Yesterday, a house painter came to size up our windows for a quote and asked me how we grew bamboo as thick and tall as we do. I had to describe the hole Nick dug for the root ball. I don’t think he believed me!) Anyway, what ever turned him on was OK by me, as long as we could do it side by side. (With constant know-it-all comments from both parties.) When he suffered his back injury he was amused to find himself telling the physiotherapist that amongst his ‘hobbies’ was gardening. It took him by surprise, which was more than a little ironic, as that’s what brought him there in the first place.
Well, the truth is, despite the endless banter of ‘my way is the only way’ that we both indulge in, I miss him along side me. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying gardening is a duel process for me; it’s the interplay that keeps me interested and feisty. To get to the nub of the blog and problem, suddenly I’m on my tod and I hate it. Yesterday, I spent four hours slogging at the allotment planting beans, erecting poles and ploughing through general maintenance, which would have seemed like half an hour in his company.
Here is a quick roundup of the varieties of bean and tomato I’m growing this year, with an apology that I’m not blogging as much as I would like due to fact that I’m flying solo so far this growing season. Hope he’s on the mend soon and comes out the other side still retaining his enthusiasm for the task in hand, albeit in our separate camps! Love you, miss you!

Beans
Fagioli Rampicanti (Yard Long Beans)
Fagioli Nani (Cannellino Bush Beans)
Borlotto Rosso (Dwarf Beans)
Borlotto Centofiamme (Climber: the Mystery Bean see previous post)
Triofo Violtto (Climbing Purple French Bean)
My own breed of runner beans (a show stopper)


Tomatoes
Orange Queen
Green Zebra
Russian Prune Noir
Noire De Crimee
Des Andes
Anna Russian
Purple Calabash
Ananas
Ox Heart
Costoluto Fiorentino

Using Your Marbles

Out of the 20 or so allotments in our association, three of our members are Italian.
Last year, I begged some beans from Francesca as I had admired the vigour and productivity of the unknown (to me) climbing dried bean she’d grown last autumn. Returning home with my generous haul, I immediately went on-line to discovery what exact my bounty was. I had some difficulty finding the variety even with the World Wide Web at by fingertips. A type of climbing marble bean was the only clue, so I checked my favourite Italian seed suppliers. The closest I could find was the glorious borlotti bean, but as I had grown those for years as bush beans I had no idea they came in climbing form, anyway these where slightly different. Although a little smaller than other borlotti beans when freshly dried, the beans swell vastly when soaked and cooked, resulting in a much larger, almost butter bean sized seed. They are the most buttery, earthy and delicious beans I’ve ever tasted.
In the photograph, as well as the mystery beans (left), there are some bush borlotti beans I saved for planting this Spring. The difference is small on first glance, I grant you, but when studied more closely there are some variations in colour, particularly around the ‘eye’ which is bright orange in the mystery bean. I think what clinches the climber as a borlotti-type is the occasional, strange, wine-coloured bean in each group, maybe a throw-back to the same genetic parent and speculatively, I think they could be something like Borlotti Bean Lingua di Fuoco or the Fire Tongue Bean, well we’ll see. I’ve just sown the puzzle marble beans, in the conservatory for now, as being so enigmatic and exotic I’m not sure they will take our night time temperatures just yet.
Curzio, another Italian down on the allotment grows solely grapes for his much admired wine, so he and Nick have a ready made conversation based on weather conditions, yield, soil (sorry, terroir!) and general grape-talk. Nick won’t be chin wagging or doing much of anything else at the allotment for a while as he has injured his back digging my half of the plot. So, he can’t bend and I can’t lift (arthritic wrists); we make a pretty pair when trying to empty the dishwasher, I can tell you!

Clematis Montana ' Pink Perfection' rambling across the garden shed.