plants got there first : greenhouses

 Very pleased to pick up a curious news story about a vine growing its own greenhouse so it can fruit later in the year. I'm aware this sounds a bit bonkers so let's break it down:

• The "greenhouse" is an enclosure made of leaves that grows around ripening fruit
• The leaves do expand and overlap to form an enclosure though!
• Plants at higher altitudes grow thicker leaves for their enclosure as they need more protection

Curcurbits (this one is called Schizopepon bryoniifolius) have flexible leaves and tendrils, good starting construction materials for imaginative leaf repurposing. The leaves are often very large too, perfect for sunshades or umbrellas.

Like many people this year I decided to try a lockdown Curcurbit, and bought a courgette seedling from a supermarket. The "courgette" turned out to be a very nice cucumber with a knobbly skin and firm, strongly flavoured flesh. But in among 2020's various thrilling plot twists that wasn't a bad one; I'm a fan of dressed cucumber. I planted it up in one of the personal plastic shopping baskets the Coop were selling at the beginning of lockdown. (Didn't see these? Imagine an absolutely basic copy of the Reisenthel Nestbasket with solid sides and plain cut handles.) They were impractical for shopping as the handles sliced through your fingers, but with holes punched through the base they make a great squash planter.

These photos shows about how impressive 2020 harvests got:

  

But I did like the wild tumble of leaves, which indeed often did grow over the tops of fruits, like a tiny rain umbrella. I'm definitely going to try these (or, depending on vagaries of what seedlings are available/germinate, some form of squash, who knows what) again next year.

A throwaway line at the end of the article points me at the rather more impressive (and accordingly described very much earlier) Himalayan Rhubarb Greenhouse (this very good blog post provides a fine tour of the many wonders of Rheum Nobile) and several growers in the UK reveal that you can sometimes buy it! It does look rather fine. Tempted.

life stops but the garden continues

I've been absent. No particularly special story. I got ill (not covid), I had an operation to help the ill, it went wrong, I had a stroke, it took me a long time to get diagnosis (because of covid) by which you can deduce that the stroke was an odd one; atypical and paradoxical (standard presentation absent, wrong side of the body) but nevertheless I've lost about a quarter of my vision (bilateral eyesight damage, top right, in the shape of flower) and I'm exhausted. Banned from driving, on a pile of pills. I gave up the allotment (more on that another time) and haven't been able to face the garden. But the first frosts were last week. They haven't reached the ground yet, but I need the tenders away before that happens. In the Sunday dim, I found my November flowers were in bloom:

This fancy Chrysanthemum should make it to Christmas. I think it's even called Santa. I know the name of the ghostly Fuchsia below: Grayrigg. It's a curious beast, so subtle, it's almost sinister. It's growing magnificently in a big fat pot I'll have to dig out some fabulous Begonias from before they start to rot in the frost.

Not yet though because the Begonias are still flowering:

The frost has hit my roof but not descended to ground level yet. But today I whisked some fragile items indoors; Succulents, my Cycad, the Tweedia seedlings, various Pelargoniums, etc. The soft fuchsias which had finished flowering. The annuals I'll leave to go out in a blaze of glory:

I've struggled to get the nasturtiums going the past few years in the flower beds; too much competition? Too soggy ? (I'm right on the clay.) So this year they went out into my concrete troughs and some other planters and I got flowers and seeds (I cook with all parts of the plant, but favour the unripe seeds - they have a lovely peppery flavour, and can be used wherever you might add a caper).

 

The Abutilon present a dilemma, as ever. They should be OK outside, unless we get a crazy cold year, and they prefer it out, as long as it doesn't get too cold or too wet. But what are the chances, 2020? Are you saving up a week at -10 with evil wind chill? I got that one year and lost so. many. plants. But for now, these will stay outside.

 

In the relative shelter of the greenhouse, now I've wrestled the invading passion vine out of it, and removed the end of this year's tomatoes (a bad year for tomatoes, as for so many other things), the tenders are all joining my chilli plants, which have done really well this year. They're hot too! I'll string them and bring them in to dry this week some time. The Petunias are still flowering. I've left them out to die when it gets too cold, but last year a few of them survived that, and went on to flower the following year!

Then the garden will be the domain of the twelve month flowers, like Salvia hot lips and winter sparks like pansies, hellebore and winter jasmine.