Nasturtium resurrection
December. The nasturtiums are still scrambling up and down the trellis as brilliantly orange and ebullient as they were at midsummer. The unusual thing about these particular flowers is that they have two flushes, behaving as though they are perennials instead of annuals. The first flush (sown the previous spring) flower when the seeds of the second flush are still in the ground contemplating what to do next. During the previous autumn I will have removed (or think I have removed) all the old tangled growth. But obviously I have not because remnants of the plants will still be hiding in the soil ready to resurrect in the early spring. Their flowers are particularly bright; great scarlet waterfalls of them cascade out of the containers. Their stems and leaves are paler, as though filled with diluted sap, and have an elderly, less vigorous appearance, perhaps exhausted by their unusual perennial existence.
Next year’s growing possibilities
December is an appropriate hibernation period in which to contemplate next year’s growing possibilities. A good place to do the contemplating is in front of the fire, burning the recycled local newspaper ‘logs’, while the headlines waft up the chimney, as ephemeral now as they were in print. ‘Gardener’s Delight’ tomatoes, ‘Salad Bowl’ lettuce, perpetual spinach, Swiss chard and rocket, why not branch out and do something different? The following is a next-year possibility plan: to specialize in sowing different basils and tomatoes – it would be difficult to find better bedfellows. Specializing is rewarding because it enables the gardener to really get to know one plant and all its possibilities, instead of having just a superficial acquaintance. For instance, most people have no idea how many different basils there are. Here is a list taken from just two catalogues (see page 170, C and D).
Basil list
Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum)
Cultivars include:
‘Fino Verde’: with true sweet basil aroma and taste
‘Genovese’ (perfume basil): grown in Italy, almost perfumed aroma and flavour
‘Green Globe’: a refined, compact basil of Italian origin
‘Green Ruffles’: novelty basil, leaves ruffled and fringed
‘Napolitano’ (syn. ‘Mammoth’): large lettuce leaves with crinkled edges; rich, mellow flavour; grown around Naples
Then there are the purple-leaved sweet basils (O. b. var. purpurascens), including:
‘Dark Opal’: strong basil scent and very decorative, with purple leaves and pale pink flowers
‘Purple Ruffles’: dark purple leaves that are fringed and quilted; pinkish-purple flowers; strong basil scent
‘Red Rubin’: purple-bronze leaves
Bush basil (O. minimum): small leaves, spherical shape Cultivars include:
‘Greek’: a popular cultivar which, as its name implies, is often grown in Greek homes and restaurants
‘Spicy Globe’: a form with a dense globular habit; extra-strong spicy flavour and fragrance
Holy basil, sacred ka prao or purple tulsi (O. tenuiflorum): believed to be the sacred basil from Thailand grown around Buddhist temples; clove-like scent; used in India for its medicinal properties – said to be very helpful for ailments such as sinus problems and fungal skin infections. Another variant of O. tenuiflorum is the Thai Horapha basil, with anise scent and red stems and bracts with pinkywhite flowers. Cultivars of Horapha basil include:
‘Anise’: decorative mulberry-tinted plant with pale pink flowers and anise fragrance
‘Liquorice’: used in South-East Asian cooking
Citrus and spicy basils (O. x citriodorum)
Cultivars include:
‘Cinnamon’ (syn. ‘Mexican’): cinnamon-clove aroma, light green leaves with reddish stems
‘Lemon’: Indonesian kemangie; grey-green leaves and lemon scent; use for tea
‘Mrs Burns’ (syn. ‘Lime’): similar to lemon basil but with a distinct lime flavour; dark green small leaves
‘Spice’: dark green, slightly hairy leaves, very aromatic; long stems of pink flowers, decorative when dried
Interesting oddities
New Guinea (O. cambechianum): purple flowers, purple veins Tree (O. gratissimum = most pleasing): also known as East India or clove basil; fuzzy lime-green leaves (burning leaves are used to repel mosquitoes); small pale yellow flowers; can reach 8ft (2.5m) in height
Lists of different tomatoes are more readily available, though for containers it is preferable to keep to the pot-grown varieties; the others can become too domineering.
Something else worth concentrating on would be unusual potatoes (see list on page 122), not those available in shops. Also dill – from a smaller family than basil, but, when added to potatoes, a perfect combination. (If I could take only two herbs to a desert island, I would choose basil and dill.)
Dill (Anethum graveolens): used as a herbal remedy to assist digestion
‘Dukat’: selected for leaf production
‘Fernleaf ’: a unique strain, producing dwarf plants with dark green leaves
‘Herkules’: a cultivated variety, larger than ordinary dill, and bred for strong flavour
Indian (Anethum graveolens var. sowa ): pungent leaves, used extensively in India and the Far East; seeds used for flatulence
‘Mammut’: for seed production
‘Vierling’: extra-strong stems, bluish-green leaves; often used as a cut flower.
Second plan for next year: to plant different fruit. Redcurrants grow well in tubs. So do raspberries, particularly the variety called ‘Autumn Bliss’. Also try a 12in (30cm) tall Pyrus communis ‘Doyenné du Comice’ pear, available from some garden centres.
The ants’ arrival
They arrive by post in a small Jiffy bag labelled ‘Urgent: Live Creatures’. Inside the bag is the playroom-cum-dining-room (a small, transparent, circular magnifier box with lid). Inside it is a little compost and thirty yellow meadow ants – all female workers with wasp waists. The box has a jutting-out tube capped with a plug; so has the antery.
A 1in (2.5cm) piece of the transparent plastic tubing is cut, the plugs removed and then the travelling box and antery are joined by the snipped-off tubing. Any squeamishness concerning ants seems to disappear when your concentration is focused on the actual yellow meadows rather than the idea of them.
Now comes an interesting moment: the crossing of the Rubicon from travelling box to antery. Three workers approach the tunnel. They must sense that something has happened. They seem to be having a discussion. The bravest stands on her back legs and enters the tunnel, but then quickly scampers back to the others. A few seconds later the lone explorer sets off again. This time she goes right into the antery. Will she discover the two introductory tunnels? (These are made when setting up the antery by inserting a pipette-like instrument (supplied) into the sand to make a couple of matchstick-sized tunnel entrances to remind the new residents about tunnelling and give them encouragement.) In the box, discussion continues between the twenty-nine less brave workers.
About five minutes later a few more yellow meadows venture forth. How long will it take them to find the ‘playroom’ and the 16in (40cm) long transparent tube tunnel? Not long. They are already racing along it, travelling by tube. Perhaps there will be a traffic jam. Two workers meet, going in different directions. They slow down and introduce their antennae, then continue in opposite directions. (Each colony has its own scent, and so does each ant, which is how they recognize each other. How many different ant scents are there?) Sometimes they turn round in the tunnel, a feat which would be the envy of most London taxi drivers.
The yellow meadows arrived at 9 a.m. By 10.15 a.m. they had all crossed over into the antery, except for two diffident workers. By noon there was only one left in the box. The others had already started tunnelling.
Ants don’t need to be fed often: just once a week, which seems very reasonable. They like juicy food, particularly apples, bananas and baby food, but only pinhead-sized portions. They also like a little protein occasionally in the form of a dead insect such as a fly. I never imagined I would be going shopping for yellow meadow ants, but as all four of the above items were missing from my larder, I did a) because they had had a traumatic journey and b) because I wanted to see what the ant manual had said they would do – share the food and feed each other. When a worker discovers food, it leaves a scent trail back to the nest so that its colleagues can follow it.
Post shopping-trip report: pinhead-sized portion of banana placed in ‘dining-room’ box. So far no sharing of food has taken place; instead a little gorging has been going on, with one ant lying sprawled across the banana mountain in an almost Roman emperor-ish attitude, probably having eaten too much. When the baby food was offered (a rather unpleasant thick custard concoction of organic ‘Vegetables with rice and chicken’), one of the ants got stuck in what must have felt like the savoury equivalent of sinking sand. The most successful menu item is apple – but not any sort of apple: ‘Gala’, not ‘Braeburn’ (we have the same taste). First one ant discovers it, then another; a great deal of racing up and down the ‘motorway’ tube takes place. Are they informing each other and/or leaving scent trails? After a quarter of an hour the speck of ‘Gala’ apple is covered with banqueting ants. As far as pears are concerned, their preference is for ‘Comice’ and ‘Conference’ – yet again, we agree. Don’t kill with kindness and offer too large a portion of food. I did this once, and the result: ant drowned in ‘Comice’ pear juice. Ants can die of ‘ant indigestion’ and if they are given too much food, they spend less time and energy on tunnelling.
Do ants drink? The ant supplier is not certain.
Dead ants (due to overeating?) are removed from the antery and placed at the far end of the tunnel, perhaps en route to the ‘playroom’. As far as I can see, there has only been one death, which could of course have been caused by old age. Another reason for having an antery is that it creates concern for an individual ant, for a life – not that one can pretend to have become acquainted with a particular individual, but squashing one without thought would now be out of the question.
For those who are not permitted to keep animals, ants could be the answer. There is always something to watch, and observing a quite different world gives another perspective to our own. For a short time each day you leave your world and enter theirs. For people who live alone, an antery could also be beneficial: having something else on the premises besides oneself to think about is better than the alternative. The same applies when taking care of germinating seedlings. After a week or so, the workers were tunnelling in earnest, rushing up and down the tube with grains of sand, one grain at a time, though they are supposed to be able to lift between ten and twenty times their own weight (the equivalent of a man carrying a car). The result of their tunnelling resembles a rock engraving, or a newly discovered script – or perhaps an engraved, curved version of the London Underground. When the tunnels are ready the workers play an ant version of ‘follow my leader’, traipsing one behind the other, at almost equal distances, as up and down and in and out of the tunnels they go. The discarded sand has all been moved to one of the plastic boxes, which is now full. When emptying the box, remember that each grain of sand – how many hundreds in just a pinch? – has been transported by two ant feet.
‘The wisdome of Bees, Annts and Spiders’
Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82), Religio Medici
Ants don’t seem to like getting up early; they are much livelier at 6 p.m. than at 6 a.m. They don’t sleep, say the experts, but rest or pause – sometimes singly, but generally in a little gathering of ten or so, a few millimetres apart from each other. Although an antery is a type of nunnery, it is no place for a recluse.
Edible seed sprouting
Another germination activity for the height of winter is edible seed sprouting – a good introduction to seeds and what happens to them when they encounter water, warmth, light and darkness. There are several ways of sprouting seeds: in a jar, on a tray and in various sprouting apparatuses (see page 170, A and D). However, a glass jar large enough for a hand to enter, plus a piece of muslin and an elastic band, works perfectly well.
Seed sprouting is not a new idea. The Indians, Chinese, Aztecs and Navajo have been sprouting for centuries. Some seed sprouting books contain toxicity information, while others don’t. The potentially toxic sprouts (when eaten raw) are French haricot, broad beans, azuki beans, lentils, alfalfa, fenugreek, clover and buckwheat. Mung and soya beans are among the least toxic. As long as no more than 1 lb (450g) of raw sprouts are eaten per day (which seems enough for a horse) there should be no problem.
Always buy seed, and grain, that is for human consumption or guaranteed untreated. Seed for sowing is often treated with insecticides or fungicides. If possible buy organic seed-sprouting seed or grain (see page 170, A and D).
All sorts of seeds, nuts, beans and grains can be sprouted, such as:
Azuki beans
Alfalfa seeds (a complete food rich in vitamins A, B, C, E and K, plus minerals and trace elements)
Almonds
Bamboo
Barley
Black-eyed beans
Broccoli
Buckwheat
Burdock
Cabbage
Chickpeas
Chinese cabbage
Chrysanthemum greens
Clover, red
Fenugreek
Kale
Leek
Lentils, green
Lima beans
Maize
Mexican chia
Millet
Mint
Mitsuba
Mung beans
Mustard
Oats
Onion
Peas, green and yellow
Pumpkin seeds
Quinoa
Radish – a good crunchy, fiery alternative to mustard and cress
Rape seed
Rice
Rye
Salad rape
Sesame seeds
Soya beans
Sunflower seeds
Turnip seeds
Watercress
Wheat
And there are more. The nutritional content of seeds, beans, grains and nuts seems to vary, depending on who is describing them. The sellers of bean-sprouting apparatus seem to endow them with more nutrients than those who are not selling them. One seed expert maintains that ‘one half cup of almost any sprouted seed provides as much vitamin C as six glasses of orange juice’.
Begin with one of the easiest, mung beans. As most people know what sprouted mung beans look like, they will know roughly what they are aiming for – though will not achieve! This is because Chinese restaurant sprouts (the commercial ones) are grown under pressure.
Another reason to start with mung beans is that their taste and texture are agreeable, unlike some of the extra-healthy seeds, such as alfalfa, whose shoots are thin and almost textureless, resembling leftover pieces of cotton in a sewing box. They taste like the smell of damp cardboard, though obviously this is a matter of opinion.
Sample sproutings: mung beans
Day 1 Sunday is a good day to start because for most people it is less busy. Put a generous tablespoon of beans inside a large glass jar – no more, or the jar will end up with the mung-bean equivalent of rush hour and all the sprouts will be squashed together. Fill with water, shake to clean, then drain in a tea-strainer or sieve. Refill the jar with water. Soak for twenty-four hours.
Day 2 In only twenty-four hours the beans have doubled in size. Cut a piece of muslin so that it fits over the jar’s mouth and secure with an elastic band. Drain the water through the muslin, then examine the beans. Their dark olive-green coats have become a lighter green and some are showing signs of splitting at the waist. The rattling maraca noise they made when dried has changed to a more subdued tone. Fill the jar with fresh water and shake, gently, to clean the beans, then drain again. Most seed-sprouting instructions suggest that the jar should be drained at an angle of 45 degrees and left in this position for a few minutes. Why seeds should like being at this angle I don’t know, unless it is the best one for removing the last drops of water. Put the jar in a dark place, but not an airing cupboard, which is too hot – under the sink is ideal. Or cover it with a brown paper bag – or anything dark to keep out the light. Repeat the washing, draining and covering each day – morning and evening, if possible.
Day 3 The mungs are almost three times the size of the original bean, plumped out by water; all the rattling has stopped. Some have discarded their green coats altogether to reveal plump, creamy bodies; others have started to sprout a determined little, hooked, rhinoceros-like horn. Indians eat their mung beans as soon as they start to sprout; the Chinese wait until the sprouts are a few inches long.
Day 4 The horn shoots are now ¼in (5mm) long. Most of the green coats have been discarded. The two parts of the seed are clear to see and look as though they might divide.
Day 5 A healthy white sprout, plump creamy body and, even though discarded, a green coat.
Day 6 Shoots are now 1¼in (3cm) long. At the base of the bean two small legs appear to be sprouting.
Day 7 Small, pointed, close-together leaves – resembling hares’ ears – have appeared. Eat now, or rather nibble when passing, as this is when the sprouts seem to taste most delectable and crunchy. Taste them at their different sprouting stages to find out which you prefer. Add them to a bowl of simmering soup stock and then eat immediately before they start to cook. Or make them into a salad by simmering briefly, draining, then adding sesame oil, sugar, soy sauce and roasted sesame seeds.
The glass-jar method seems preferable to the trays, mainly because the sprouts look happier, their shoots are whiter, bodies creamier, coats greener. There is no need to go to the trouble of removing the discarded coats; they add more colour, texture and taste, and without the coats the beans can look anaemic and fledgling-ish.
A friend of mine who has always longed to do a little gardening, but lives in a top-floor flat whose windows are window ledge-less, has become a passionate sprouter, her ‘garden’ now being under the sink, on the draining board and on a plate.
Before converting the kitchen into a seed-sprouting laboratory filled with jars, experiment with a few trial soakings and sproutings of different seeds in little jars, like those in which herbs are sold, to see which you like most.
Alfalfa – considered to be the father of all foods
Day 1 Follow mung instructions.
Day 2 Follow mung instructions.
Day 3 Sprouting has started: the jar is filling with ¼in (5mm) long walking sticks with brown seed-head handles.
Day 4 Sprouts are ½in (1.2cm) long – resemble untidy knitting. Wash, rinse, drain and return them to the dark. May be eaten now or when shoots are a little longer.
Day 5 The mass of brown knitting with white specks has now become a tangled mass of white knitting with brown specs. The shoots are 1in (2.5cm) long and sweeter to taste.
Day 6 Sprouts are 1½in (4cm) long.
Day 7 Minute leaves have sprouted. High time they were eaten.
Almonds
Use unskinned, preferably organic almonds.
Day 1 Follow mung instructions.
Day 2 Almonds have plumped out; they don’t sprout, but undergo a metabolic change similar to that of a sprout. The crunch and taste are different, more like a fresh young almond when it is still milky, moist and sweet. Definitely worth soaking them. Eat now.
Wheat
Day 1 Follow mung instructions.
Day 2 Wheat is slightly plumper and softer; looks refreshed. Wash and drain, not forgetting the mysterious 45-degree angle; place in the dark.
Day 3 First sign of sprouting. Looks more complicated than mungs sprouting, as if there might be more than one sprout. Wheat is now soft between the teeth and the divide between the grain more pronounced.
Day 4 Sprouting three tufts – one probably a shoot, the others roots. It is ½in (5mm) long. Don’t wait too long before eating or sprouts will become stringy and ‘elderly’ in taste.
For the impatient sower and reaper: growing indoor scissor salads
Unhulled buckwheat grain and sunflower seeds can be sprouted, sown on soil, covered with more soil and left to come into leaf, when they are snipped with scissors and eaten as salad. They are supposed to be more nutritious than lettuce. Green buckwheat contains rutin, for the treatment of high blood pressure, and lecithin, for regulating cholesterol levels. Sunflower seeds are almost a complete food and, when allowed to grow leaves, have the additional benefit of chlorophyll. Follow the mung bean instructions. As soon as they start to sprout, fill a half-sized seed tray with about ¾in (2cm) of seed compost, making sure it is damp, but not soaking. Cover the compost with the sprouted grains, using a pencil tip to separate them. The seed tray will be packed with sprouting grains with very little space between them. Cover with a thin layer, about ½in (1.2cm) deep, of compost. Mist-spray with water and then place inside the propagator. The use of a propagator for sprouting is not mentioned in any of the seed sprouting books, but it works.
Next day a few sprout tips will have pushed their way up through the compost. Two days later masses of sprouts will be forcing not only their way up, but the top layer of compost too, making it look like an eiderdown about to levitate. Three days later the sprouts burst into leaf. Remove from the propagator and turn the tray clockwise so that backwards-facing stems now face the light. Start trial scissor-snipping. The most spectacular of germinators – more so than buckwheat or even runner beans – is the sunflower seed. It is difficult to imagine that these large, flat seeds in their smart black-and-white-striped coats could cause such an upheaval, and so quickly. The compost rises with the rising shoots, in places leaving the seed tray altogether and becoming vertical, 2in (5cm) away from where it was originally laid to cover the seeds. What is it like for a visiting insect? Being on a big dipper? At first the germination looks more like a hatching of ducklings as the beak-shaped leaves break through the soil – so much so that it would not be too surprising to hear quacking going on inside the propagator.
Growing wheatgrass
Wheatgrass (when made into a juice) is supposed to be good for us. It would take too long to list its benefits. If it was taken regularly, one would end up embarrassingly healthy. The juice is available in health and juice bars where large trays of wheatgrass, resembling lawn samples, can be seen growing. But unless you find it beneficial and are prepared to invest in a juicer there is not much point in growing it – unless you are diabetic, as diabetes is one of the complaints that wheatgrass is supposed to help. As one of my cats suffered from diabetes, I grew it, though both cats enjoyed the portable wheatgrass lawn. I don’t possess a juicer, yet, and as I’m not accustomed to chewing grass, doubt whether addiction to it would ever become a problem. Its taste is not unpleasant – the sort of taste that foods that should do us good tend to have.
Follow the washing, soaking, draining, sprouting and sowing instructions. When wheatgrass shoots first appear they are white and hedgehog-ish. The next day (still inside the propagator) they will be bright green and upright. On the tips of all their shoots dewdrops (or is it a form of sap?) balance.
If a choice had to be made between growing wheatgrass or sunflower seeds (apart from the medicinal reason mentioned above), I would choose the latter, more untidy sunflower shoots, which grow this way and that, leaning to left and right or momentarily keeling over. They are more appealing and less military in formation than the regimented wheatgrass. Their taste borders on the delicious: sappy stems, bright, light green fleshy leaves – one could be nibbling a very young ‘Primo’ cabbage. Taste them at different times during their growth.
The appearance of the mushrooms
One day, while mist-spraying the mushroom box – which is not unlike a small, well-kept field – there will be the unmistakable smell of mushrooms. A few dots of whiteness, probably at the edge of the box, will be seen in the darkness of the compost. If looked at through a magnifying glass, the dots are rounded and smooth, like minute meringues. From now on the speed at which they grow, especially when one’s back is turned, is astonishing: a cap, closed in the morning, will be open by the afternoon. A mushroom can double in size in one day. If one were sufficiently sensible, a whole day would be reserved to watch this drama. The day-old mushroom is covered by the mysterious ‘universal veil’ (a protective membrane that encloses the young mushroom and gradually breaks down as it expands), stem and cap still joined. As the hours pass, the stem grows taller, the cap becomes wider and the ‘universal veil’ begins to split as the pressure of upward and outward growth increases, finally revealing both cap and stem. The fungus has been released but the cap is still closed, gills hidden beneath the ‘partial veil’. Only a few hours later the last of the ‘partial veil’ will part, revealing the gills. The mushroom is ready to release its spores. The ring on its stem, and sometimes a skin-like fragment on the cap, is the remains of the partial veil.
These miniature mushrooms are softer than a baby’s head, but cool to the touch – mysteriously cool; the compost has quite another temperature, and so of course does the box. From where does this coolness come?
If, at this stage, you can resist thinning them out by one or more mushrooms, then you must be over-disciplined and will miss a taste, texture and sound when eating that you may not have had before, certainly when eating a mushroom: creamy, dense, noisy when bitten into and, of course, cool and only faintly imbued with the taste of mushroom. The sight of them is equally tempting, their whiteness being of a rich, almost powdery white. To do the ‘thinning’, gently twist the stem away from the compost; what remains in the compost is the vulva. Cover the missing mushroom space with a little more compost. Once tasted, it is difficult not to continue thinning whenever passing the box, consuming these savoury sweets with an almost carnivorous appetite. To add heat, liquid or flavouring of any sort would be absurd.
At the beginning, most of the mushrooms grow at the edge of the box – is this their fairy-ring inclination? Then gradually one or two will appear towards the centre. They seem to like companionship, growing close together, so much so that some of them start off as stubby Siamese twins, only separating later on. Their stems are squat and plump, like babies’ legs. An insect taking a stroll across the compost might be quite surprised to find itself entering a dense white wood of squat-trunked ‘trees’. As more and more mushrooms push up through the compost, crowding each other, they press against the sides of the box, which gives some of them a straight edge.
Value for money lecture number two: whether you have one or more crops or ‘flushes’ is a matter of luck, and whether the mushrooms are being looked after properly. But at least you have a new word. A ‘flush’ doesn’t only refer to a flight of birds suddenly starting up, the stream from a millwheel, a rush of blood to the face, a glow of light or a hand of cards, but also to a sudden abundance of anything. If there is only one flush it is still worth every penny of your small investment to wait for and see a mushroom grow; then to smell, tend and taste it. There is no point in working out how much mushrooms cost in a supermarket in comparison to the home-grown ones because it is impossible to buy a mushroom with this taste, flavour, texture, colour and ‘sound’.
(Spent mushroom compost can be added to pots, window-boxes and tubs.)
Even Elizabeth David frequently mentioned the cost of food. No doubt this was partly because her first books were written just after the Second World War. But why is it that, of all the endless things we buy, food is the one thing we object most to paying for? It seems to be a combination of the puritanical and the parsimonious. Price is not mentioned in the same way when we buy pillows and sandals (though of course they are not bought so frequently), but then most of us don’t eat pillows or sandals: they don’t become a part of us.
A desktop wormery is ideal, particularly at this time of year, for those who, since establishing their outdoor wormeries, have developed something verging on a passionate interest in worms – and for those who have not. I acquired one for two reasons: 1) because worms can be observed at even closer quarters, and 2) because the desktop’s worms are earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris), which are quite different from the wormery’s reds and tigers: a) they are much bigger, b) they eat mostly soil (extracting their food from it) instead of our leftovers, and c) they burrow much deeper.
Although our lives are spent walking, stamping, running, stomping and jogging over the earth, we never – or only occasionally – think of what is happening under our feet. Beneath each acre (0.4 hectares) of grassland an estimated three million earthworms are living – that is approximately 620 worms per square yard (775 worms per square metre). Beneath a football pitch there may be as many as five million worms tunnelling and aerating the soil to allow roots to run and rain to enter instead of just draining away; at the same time they are providing oxygen for themselves. A worm can move about twenty-five times its own weight of soil each year. Charles Darwin estimated that each year earthworms bring between 8 and 10 tonnes of soil to the surface of each acre of land. (That is about 15 tonnes per football pitch – not Darwin’s estimation.) But when do we ever have the chance to observe this activity, especially at close quarters? The answer is a desktop wormery. It is not expensive and makes an interesting present for adults, children and oneself. However, beware: not everyone will be a delighted recipient, or be in the least eager to take even a fleeting glimpse at your latest present to yourself.
Desktops are made of clear plastic and in size are 12 x 1½ x 7½in (30 x 4 x 19cm) and have a lid. They could equally well be used as sample aquariums for travelling salesmen selling narrow fish. Surrounding the sides is a removable cardboard cover to provide darkness and privacy. Lumbricus terrestris need little attention in the way of feeding and ‘maintenance’; in fact, they almost fall into that unsympathetic category of ‘maintenance free’, so they are much easier to live with than mushrooms. All the worms need is darkness, coolness, an occasional sprinkle of water and a few potato peelings, grass blades and dead leaves.
The desktop is filled to within an inch (2.5 centimetres) or so of the top with tiger-striped layers of beige and brown sand, vermiculite (provided) and garden soil. It looks rather like one of those dustgathering sand-sample ornaments bought at seaside towns, which have no meaning when brought home and placed on a mantelpiece. The different-coloured layers make it easy to observe the worms as they glide through them, eventually mixing them up.
Worms can either be bought with the desktop or imported from a garden. My version included six Olympic-sized worms, perfect specimens in peak physical condition, each about 6in (15cm) long and correspondingly plump in diameter. (In Australia there is a giant earthworm which can grow to 9¾ft or 3m in length. In South Africa there is a worm that is the length of three skipping ropes.)
If worms are included, as soon as they arrive remove them gently from their travelling box and place them on top of the soil. Replace the lid. For a few minutes they will lie there, like large pieces of rug-making wool, heads slightly raised, pondering where to go. Then down they glide into the earth and sand layers, only the tips of their tails visible; then they disappear. It is as though they have been lubricated by some invisible ointment – which in a sense they have been, as the ‘saddle’ (called the clitellum, situated about one-third of the distance between head and tail) produces a mucus that helps worms to slide through the soil. As they enter it a slight eruption of the surface takes place to make room for them. (By how many yards would the earth’s surface sink if all the worms and their burrows and tunnels were removed from it?) Replace the cardboard cover, put the wormery in a coolish spot and leave in peace.
How can something so soft, vulnerable and without bones – much softer than one’s little finger – glide through earth as though it were blancmange? Try pushing your little finger into soil.
Worms glide through the soil by contracting and then relaxing their longitudinal muscles, which makes them long and thin as they stretch their heads forward, before contracting and pulling in the rear part of their body, which makes them plump and short. They also have tiny hook-like bristles, called setae, which help them to grip the sides of the tunnel and pull them along. Lumbricus terrestris can burrow into the earth to a depth of about 6½ft (2m) and in very dry weather they will tunnel even deeper, searching for moisture.
When they have had a few days’ rest, remove the cardboard privacy wrapper and they may be seen gliding along, like the most modern of underground trains. The results of their tunnelling – the burrows – can also be seen. These are rounded and smooth, about the diameter of a little finger, comfortable for roots to delve into or even for a miniature White Rabbit to scamper along. Lumbricus terrestris is a combination of potholer and miner.
After a couple of days a few offerings may be left on the surface. Potato and carrot peelings, dead leaves or blades of grass – not all at once or it will be difficult to see what has been accepted and what not. Allow one potato peeling per worm and the same with blades of grass. My roof garden is grassless, so grass has to be collected from friends’ gardens or parks – I never thought I would be foraging for worms’ nocturnal snacks.
When they are in the wild, earthworms leave their burrows and come to the surface at night; they do the same in the desktop wormery when the inspection of offerings takes place. This is also the time when quite a lot of removal work and rearranging goes on. The six evenly laid out potato peelings will probably have been moved to the side of the desktop. Just the tip of one potato peel will be visible above ground, the rest of the trophy having been pulled down into the underworld, where it can begin composting and be eaten in safety. Earthworms have no eyes, ears or noses, so they cannot see, hear or smell. Instead they sense things by the vibrations on the ground, such as raindrops pattering, which causes them to come to the surface, particularly at night. Occasionally they can be observed mating, lying side by side in opposite directions (for mating information see pages 48–9).
Until I bought this desktop wormery, all the things described above had been hidden and unknown to me. Of course there are excellent films on worms, but even though you sit with your face within a few inches of a television, everything is taking place behind a plastic screen. You can’t touch a television worm, smell the earth in which it lives or feed it.
My desktop wormery (it is just the right size to fit into a laptop computer’s case) has been taken on several outings to friends, without a great deal of success. The first question is, ‘Can they get out?’ (visits to one’s vet are the most rewarding). Desktop wormeries are equally unsuccessful subjects when brought up at dinner parties – if you hope to be invited again. (Compost-making is another subject to avoid.)
Toilet-roll mushrooms
Another mushroom to grow indoors is Pleurotus ostreatus, the oyster mushroom, which is grown on toilet rolls. Two white rolls are placed on separate saucers; their centres are filled with boiling water until they are thoroughly moistened, but not sitting in water. They are then left to cool for quarter of an hour, helping to sterilize the paper. The inner cardboard tubes are then removed and the holes in the middle filled with oyster spore, a white, grain-like substance that does not smell of mushrooms and makes the fingers feel silky when touching it. The rolls and saucers are then loosely enclosed in two plastic bags and placed in a dark, warm (71–80°F or 22–27°C) place, such as an airing cupboard. After ten days the centres and tops of the rolls should be growing short, soft white fur, rather like that found on the underside of a baby rabbit. The smell of Andrex has been replaced by a faint aroma of mushrooms.
What has happened is that the oyster mycelium has grown through the paper, breaking down the cellulose and using it as a source of energy. The oyster spawn for growing toilet-roll mushrooms (as well as outdoor shiitake, tree oyster and lion’s mane mushrooms) is available on the internet (see page 171, P).
After two to four weeks, say the instructions, the rolls should resemble white Stilton cheeses and smell strongly of mushrooms. They do. Now they are moved from their cosy airing-cupboard accommodation and, still in their plastic bags, placed in the refrigerator, at about 39°F (4°C) for two to four days. This drastic change of accommodation should shock them into the fruiting cycle. Is it the equivalent of frost? After a few days they leave the refrigerator and move house yet again, this time to a cool (50–68°F or 10–20°C), light and humid place. Several holes are pierced in the plastic bags at the places where they touch the rolls. At this stage in their life the mushrooms must not dry out. Mist-spray with water every day, moistening the outside of the bags, especially in the pierced hole areas. This will create humidity and encourage fruiting.
Making a spore print
Different mushrooms have different spores, which can be of various shades. The only way to identify some mushrooms is by their spores – as with us and our fingerprints.
Thousands of spores can grow on each gill. Thousands and thousands of spores could fit on a pinhead. Only when the spores are fully grown do they fall to the ground.
Before starting this experiment, examine the underside of a mushroom through a magnifying glass. As far as can be seen, it is sporeless, but miraculous, the fragile gills (similar to a whale’s) radiating out from the stem, resting one against the other.
Take a sheet of white and a sheet of black paper and a mushroom (home-grown or bought) – the larger, more adult ones produce more dramatic prints. Overlap the papers, sticking them at the back with Sellotape. Cut the stem end straight across and a little shorter, so that the downward-facing cap rests almost on the paper, half on the white, half on the black. Cover the mushroom with a bowl and leave overnight. Some fungi release their spores quickly, within three hours; others take a whole day or night.
Next morning remove the bowl and lift up the mushroom; beneath it, on the paper, will be its spore print. The markings are so delicate they could have been left by a feather – certainly no engraver would have produced them. The colour? Shades of Burmese cat. The touch of the spores makes even velvet feel rough. All that is needed now is wind or animals: they are the pollinators.
Some mushrooms continue to rain down spores night after night, the prints becoming paler and paler.
Something else to do this month
In addition to visiting the children’s library for information, join the Heritage Seed Library. Reason for joining: ‘to help preserve back-garden biodiversity’.
Modern plants are genetically uniform, and that brings with it the risk of epidemics of pests and diseases. Protecting modern uniform varieties from epidemics, and making sure they meet their yield potential, requires the use of potentially harmful chemicals. Planting a diversity of crops, including several varieties, is an insurance policy against disaster and protects the environment. Freedom of choice: why shouldn’t we be free to grow the varieties we want, rather than those on a bureaucratic list?
Legislation decrees which varieties may legally be marketed within the European Union. Heritage Seeds are not registered on a national list, so they cannot be offered for sale but may be obtained by joining the Heritage Seed Library. Some of the library seeds were once commercial varieties that seed companies decided they no longer wanted to offer. Then there are the heirloom seeds, passed down from generation to generation. Others are available commercially abroad, but are denied to gardeners in Europe. Garden Organic feels that these seeds are too valuable to lose, which is why it established the library, to make certain that they survive.
So it is not only some species of animals and birds that are endangered but vegetables, too.
Why should all the richness and generosity of the vegetable world be narrowed down to those plants that produce the biggest crops? The seed industry has become the greed industry.
Members of the library can choose six varieties of vegetable each year. The word ‘library’ does not mean that seeds of the seeds have to be returned, though of course they can be. A report on their success, failure or life from seed to seed might be useful for the library.
The seeds’ biographies make them even more interesting. The following will be this year’s choice for my window-boxes and tubs:
Achocha (Cyclanthera pedata): one of the lost crops of the Incas. Produces fruits 2½–6in (6–15cm) long, akin to small cucumbers with a hooked end. A cross between a minty cucumber and a green pepper. (The achocha may be a bit big for a tub, but you can always try.)
Climbing French beans, ‘Cherokee Trail of Tears’: the Cherokee nation was forced out of its homeland in the 1830s on a march that became known as the Trail of Tears. They took their most precious possessions with them; this naturally included their seeds, one of which was this bean with smooth, long, pale green pods that have a chameleon-like quality as they mature. The deep rosy blush turns to a warm chocolate and finally purple, with small black seeds that were usually dried for winter use, although the young pods are also tasty.
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) ‘Loos Tennis Ball’: apparently grown in the 1790s in Thomas Jefferson’s garden at Monticello.
Babington leek (Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii ): a true leek, but more like a garlic and possibly the wild form of elephant garlic, a different species from both. The green shoots may be cut and eaten like leeks, while the bulbs can be lifted and used in place of garlic.
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa): from Russia, where it's called shchavel; stays green throughout the year.
Tomato (Solanum) ‘Estonian Yellow Mini Cherry’: the seed was obtained from ‘an elderly Russian lady at the covered market outside Tallinn'. Typical of a wild tomato.
Continuation of the toilet-roll mushroom story
After eight to ten (the instructions say, but in my case it was fifteen) days of mist-spraying the toilet rolls in their plastic bags, the rolls begin to start sprouting small, pale brownish-grey protuberances, similar to the velvety horns on very young deer. After five more days and a little assistance in directing the ‘horns’ to the holes in the bags – or making additional holes where the horns appear – they start growing through the holes, a light velvety grey in colour. The cap heads expand on their elegant stem necks, which lean outwards and upwards from the toilet-roll trunks, like oriental cat-coloured orchids.
And their taste? They have the intensity of a dried Chinese mushroom.
When the last of the oysters has been picked, the rolls are stored in daylight for four weeks at room temperature. During this rest period they should not be touched.
After the four weeks have passed, submerge the rolls, still in their bags, in cold water for eight hours. Then pour away any excess water that has not been absorbed and put them into the refrigerator again (see page 155), following the same procedure as before. This should produce two or three more flushes. If the roll does not fruit the first time, check the moisture level, allow the rolls to rest for a week or two and begin again with the refrigerator treatment.
Horticultural therapy
If, after ant watching, seed sprouting, worm feeding and mushroom growing indoors, you feel in need of some real outdoor gardening, there are plenty of opportunities as a volunteer. It is sad that for some people the words ‘voluntary work’ seem to have a rather patronizing, Lady Bountiful association. Volunteering is just an opportunity to recycle one’s good fortune.
It can take quite a time to find the right voluntary work. I tried a form of amateur counselling, which involved sitting in a dungeon-like room with a red alarm button (connected to the police) at my side and, on the table, between client and listener, a large box of Kleenex tissues. Before being allowed into the dungeon, I had spent two months of three hours a week whizzing at breakneck speed through all the possible problems that might crop up: incest, divorce, death, a mixture of sexualities, suicide and, of course, child abuse. Armed with a teaspoonful of information, I was then let loose on the unsuspecting public. It all seemed not only dangerous but pointless. (Counsellors – waiting in some hangar for disaster to strike and enable them to pounce – seem equally dubious.)
Then I discovered Horticultural Therapy, as it used to be called, now named Thrive (for details see page 171, J), a name that could just as well be used for baby food or an amateur stockbroker.
Here (at the Battersea Park Thrive centre) there are no boxes of Kleenex or red emergency buttons. Instead there are rakes, packets of seeds, a kitchen for preparing salads and drinks, a vegetable garden, a flower garden and an international herb and vegetable bed, and lots more. It is a working garden.
The people who come to Thrive are men and women, young and old, of different nationalities, races, religions and backgrounds. They may have physical or mental problems, or both. You may or may not learn what those problems are. When something is given a label – such as schizophrenia – what does it really mean, to an amateur? You will probably sense more about the person and their problem when sweeping leaves, pricking out seeds or making a salad together than you could from hours of conversation – or, rather, passive listening – across a table.
Ray had a major stroke and was left almost immobile, with no feeling in his left hand. Boiling water felt cold; sharp knives felt blunt. It was while growing ‘sensitive plants’ that some of the feeling in his hand returned. He noticed that the slightest touching of the plant’s leaves made them descend. He also noticed that he could feel these fragile leaves. It is interesting that it was the lightest of touches he could feel, whereas boiling water or the blade of a sharp knife went unnoticed.
Jack, who used to come once a week and whose confidence was at rock bottom, would plant something and then spend the rest of the week at home in sheltered housing worrying about the plant, feeling certain that it had died. It was with surprise that the following week he found it hadn’t. But then he would remind himself that, if it hadn’t died last week, it probably would next. The plant continued to live.
Daisy is young and deaf and cannot speak, except with her hands and smile.
Why is it that the majority of people we work with at Thrive are so thoughtful and grateful, despite their problems? Being there is a good antidote to grumbling. I never imagined that I would be able to work with people suffering from mental and physical disabilities, but quite often it’s less complicated than working with people without.
Composting one’s identity – yet another way to make compost
I have tried several methods of compost-making, including a plastic sack with pre-punched ventilation holes, a tumbler compost-maker (one of the best but too big for most container gardeners), a bin provided by the council and the Bokashi method (see page 171, K). My favourite, at the moment – though I confess to being a bit fickle about these things – is the last. It is also the most interesting because one can observe more of the different stages in the composting process.
Stage One Begins in the kitchen, where I keep several tin and plastic containers, about 8in (20cm) high x 4in (10cm) in diameter with lids. But anything similar in size will do, depending on how many people the kitchen is feeding. The containers are used for collecting vegetable and fruit peelings and leftovers, coffee grounds, tea leaves, egg shells and dead house flowers. The smaller they are cut, the quicker they will compost. For example, banana skins are cut into four, lemons into four, oranges into six, etcetera. In its initial stage the compost resembles a chunky salad for a large fruitarian mammal. Although it is possible to use leftover meat, fish, poultry, bread and cheese as well as cooked foods, and some people scrape everything off their plates, including bones and gravy, I avoid doing this as I am not fond of rats or mice. Neither creature, the Bokashi instructions assure us, will detect meat and other proteins during the initial composting process, which takes place in an airtight bin indoors. But unless your local rat and mice population suffer from blocked noses, why would they not be able to smell these delicacies when mixed with the soil?
To avoid having my identity stolen, I also add the small slivers of paper torn from envelopes and letters which contain my name, address, bank and credit card details. Why don’t you shred it, you ask? Not because I am anxious that the people who spend their nights collecting shredded paper and their days reassembling it will discover my identity but because I quite like this method. Anyway, my shredder only works in reverse gear. I place the paper slivers in a mug of water and soften them before adding them to the bin.
This may sound a somewhat obsessive activity, but I once met an almost distraught man – the patient of a doctor friend – who had had his identity stolen. I have not forgotten him.
The Japanese Bokashi composting method (invented by Professor Higa) consists of two bins measuring 9 x 15in (23 x 38cm). Each bin has an airtight lid and a sump covered by a perforated base which allows the liquid (the compost equivalent of curds’ whey) from the maturing waste to drain into a sump.
Stage Two When the Stage One containers are full, the contents are transferred to the bin. Each layer of waste should be about 1¼–1½in (3–4 cm) deep. On top of it are sprinkled a couple of handfuls of Bokashi bran. Waste and bran are then pressed down with your hands (or a potato masher for those averse to touching things). The lid is replaced, making certain that it is airtight, and the tap is closed. It is important to exclude air to enable the bran to do its work properly.
Bokashi bran, which looks and smells like a tempting, faintly alcoholic breakfast cereal high in roughage, is a ‘mixture of bran and molasses that has been inoculated with EMs: Effective Micro- organisms, a carefully controlled mixture of microscopic bacteria, yeasts and fungi that work together to speed-up composting, suppress pathogens, prevent putrefaction and eliminate foul odours’. (I don’t find them ‘foul’. This is just what people imagine, before they have really smelt them.)
While continuing to fill the bin, remove the juice/whey from the sump. Do this frequently; it does not keep. As it is extremely concentrated, when you use it for feeding plants dilute it with thirty parts of water. Or you can just pour it down the sink, where it will ‘help to keep drains and septic tanks clean and free from harmful bacteria’.
When the bin is full, press it down for the last time, cover with the lid and leave for two weeks to ferment. At this stage it resembles and smells like a pickled salad.
Why are so many people nervous of smells? How dull and bland a scentless world would be. The sense of smell must be one of the most sensuous of the five senses. The Bokashi ‘whey’ has a ruminative odour, what I imagine medieval mead might smell like. Although it is probably not the sort of scent which Dior would rush to patent, it does not deserve to be on the smell blacklist.
Stage Three, waiting During this time continue removing the whey and collecting waste for the second bin. Although the instructions include a list of Trouble Shooting solutions, so far, nothing has gone wrong with my Bokashi composting.
Stage Four, finale I put the Bokashi compost into the perforated heavy-duty plastic sack, mixing it with about twice the amount of soil (it is very potent). I also add cut-up roof-garden waste and exhausted soil from the containers. The sack is tossed and turned as often as possible.
When spring arrives, the top layer of soil is removed from all the containers, this being replaced by the fresh compost. While doing this, one has pleasant reunions with the kernels and stones of fruit and vegetables eaten the previous summer, such as lychee stones, those slow-to-decompose miniature pieces of polished antique furniture. I like the notion that everything revolves round and round, resurrecting, dying and resurrecting. I hope I will do the same.
PS: In defence of snails
‘How ingenious an animal is a snail. When it encounters a bad neighbour it takes up its house and moves away.’
Philemon (Athenian poet), Fragment, c. 300 BC
If I told you I was going to design a creature whose mobile home it transports sealed to its back, you might be interested. Not only that, this miniature home is also one of the most exquisite pieces of moveable architecture. The domed shell is constructed of gradually diminishing whorls. Imagine St Paul’s dome with similar whorls. They probably wouldn’t suit it as its design is essentially western and down to earth, whereas the snail’s shell has something oriental and voluptuous about it. Unlike the rigid architecture we are accustomed to, snails’ shells change in size and shape from the moment they are hatched to when they die. This can take from three to five years. In the first year the shell has about three whorls; when fully grown it will have about five.
Some snails’ shells are elongated and appear to be carved or fluted, more like baroque wind instruments than snail accommodation.
Every shell is different not only in shape but in colour and design, too – enough to have kept a whole flock of gastropod1 artists busy for centuries. It is obviously the different colours and patterns that inspired the snails’ intriguing names: Amber, Moss, Slipper, Strawberry, Dusky, Silky, Eccentric, Plaited Door, Cheese, Roman, Mouse Ear and Carthusian.
‘As the snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks backward in his shelly cave.’
William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1592
Snails’ shells are not only homes and places to hibernate in, they are also used as air-raid shelters in times of danger. The whole soft body of the snail, called the foot, can glide into the shell. Although it must be somewhat claustrophobic in there, at least it is safe. But this is not the only form of protection. To deter enemies, snails create a whitish, almost transparent bubbly foam – a gastropod version of cappuccino – which emerges from the shell and covers the entrance. If the danger is even more serious, they can seal the entrance with a skin, called an epiphragm. (Some desert snails stay in their shells for years without moving or eating. Not an enviable existence. But they live much longer than garden snails – what a reward.)
‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail. ‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.’
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
Another invaluable product of these busy manufacturers is slime. Without slime, snails would remain motionless. Not only does it enable their soft, vulnerable bodies to glide along on rough surfaces and slowly toboggan up and down the hills and dales of cabbage patches without the assistance of snow, it also enables them to adhere, even when they are upside down, to branches. Apparently snails can slide over razor blades without being hurt – not a particularly useful occupation, but yet another addition to their CV.
Although snails don’t have legs, they make up for this by having four feelers which sprout like antlers from their heads. Two are used for smelling and feeling. At the tip of the other two are two eyes, like lighthouses on stilts. Snails can’t see clearly, but they can tell the difference between bright and dim light.
Snails versus slugs
Although slugs are more disliked and are supposed to do more damage than snails, they both seem to be tarred with the same brush. Even small garden centres stock enough snail killer products to turn the whole population into an endangered species. There are pet-safe pellets, snail traps, organic poison, dog-safe poison and, probably the worst, snail tape to which these extraordinary creatures remain stuck and struggling until they die.
A short snail biography
Mating As I mentioned earlier, the hermaphrodite snails’ way of mating is luxuriously sensuous and unhurried, the lubricated bodies and feelers entwining and gently touching. They are the complete opposite of those other garden dwellers, ladybirds, whose frantic, unladylike mating resembles two fire engines in a hurry.
Hatching eggs Snails lay their moonlight-white eggs in the ground or in hollows, sometimes producing as many as a hundred eggs. After a few weeks the baby snails hatch, their bodies and shells still soft. At this stage, when they are almost transparent, ‘milky white’ and about the size of a pea, they spend their time eating. The mouth is under the head and the tongue is covered with minute hard ‘teeth’ which are used to scrape along leaves and branches.
Breathing They have a breathing hole under their shell about half way down the ‘foot’.
Habitat They live in woods, hedges, leaves, grass, flowerpots and dark damp places.
Menu Brown and pungent plants. If not available, green plants, algae or each other.
Activities When it is very hot, or during a very cold winter, they sleep inside their shells, the entrance sealed. Sometimes, like us, groups of snails like to stay close together.
Enemies Shrews, ducks, rats, hedgehogs, large beetles, snail deterrents, birds and us. How alarming it must be to hear a bird’s beak tapping on one’s shell. Or even worse, having your shell bashed against a stone. Some birds frequently use the same stone for this purpose.
All most of us do to snails is to poison, eat, trap, squash or drown them in alcohol. Seldom do we really look at these intriguing gastropods. Most of the above facts come from a couple of children’s books from the local library. For me, they make looking at snails twice as fascinating.
Seeds to sow now, indoors
Italian flat-leaved parsley (Petroselinum crispum
var. neapolitanum )
Sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica)
Champignons and oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus)
Sprouting seeds, beans, nuts and cereals
Lemongrass – find a specimen with a plump, bulbous end; place in water until roots develop; plant outside in spring
Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) and edoes
Root ginger – put in a screwtop jar in the refrigerator and wait until roots appear; plant in a pot
1 Gastropods, a large class of molluscs which includes snails, slugs, whelks. They have a muscular foot for movement and (in many kinds) a single asymmetrical spiral shell.