orchard – Page 3 – Rumwoldstow

Fake winter

During the summer, I planted three braeburn seeds that had germinated in the apples (perhaps because they’d been shipped over from New Zealand in cold storage). And thus I embarked on the Quest for the Pippin of St Rumwold – to grow a variety of apple unique to Rumwoldstow. As apples don’t breed true, this will be a numbers game and will take probably five years to show results.

I wanted to try some British apples as being more likely to tolerate the climate and perhaps closer to traditional varieties, so collected seeds from various apples over the late summer and autumn. After October, British apples pretty much vanished from the shops, and I felt I had a pretty good number to be working with – if even one in ten germinates, I’ll have a lot of trees! I learned from t’internet that apple seeds need a period of cold to break their dormancy, and that 30 – 60 days in the fridge should do the trick.

I kept the seeds in plastic boxes, meaning they dried out which may not have been a good thing. On the 3rd December 2020, I gave them all about two hours soak in cold water, then drained them and laid them on moist kitchen towel in plastic boxes which I put in the back of the fridge. The plan is to leave them there until perhaps February 2021, checking them every week or so to make sure they aren’t dried out and in case any are germinating already, then take them out and see how many germinate.

Six types of apple seed ready to be refrigerated

August 2020
Apples from behind the forge at Hauksby. The forge burnt down a month or two after I collected the apples, and I don’t know if the tree was damaged. The apples are an early variety, green and red, and good to eat.

August 2020
Discovery apples from Morrisons. I didn’t note whether these were British, but it seems likely.

September 2020
Gala apples from the Coop. Similarly, I didn’t note if these were British but that’s my guess as to why I chose them.

September 2020
Apples I took from a box outside somebody’s garden in Aynho. They looked like Coxes.

October 2020
Egremont Russets from Morrisons; British.

October 2020
Apples brought by my friend Emma from Scotland. She describe them as Cox-like.

Medlar tasting

I picked all the remaining medlars early in November, after they’d had a couple of frosts, and because I noticed they were starting to drop off the tree. They’ve spent a few weeks bletting in a box on the kitchen windowsill. I ate a few in a zoom meeting just to confuse my friends, and they were pretty good – I think people were slightly surprised when after eating one, I then had another! The other day I decided that it was really time to tackle the remaining dozen or so.

The darker medlars are the soft ones, like those that have been cut open (to the right of the bowl)

Inspired by a friend who has a slightly older medlar tree and larger harvest, I scooped out the flesh and pushed it through a sieve, to remove the seeds (not many per fruit but they are annoying) and make the pulp look generally less unappetising. This wasn’t a quick job, and I’m not sure whether with more fruit you’d just get used to eating them as they ripen? But I wanted to try them on my long-suffering partner who has so far refused to tackle the pulp in its unprocessed state – and to be fair, it is finicky to eat and doesn’t look like much.

I ended up with a few tablespoons of brown mush. I have found medlars so far to have an unfamiliar, fruity but tangy flavour, and decided to soften the impact for my chosen victim by putting each portion of medlar puree on some tinned peaches, with a blob of vanilla ice cream by it. Unfortunately this turned out to be a bit of an own goal, in that the peaches and ice cream flavour smothered the medlar. I guess in small quantities it just isn’t that strong a flavour.

On the positive side, it was definitely inoffensive and I think medlar would be a good filling for a tart.

A few of the medlars were not yet bletted, the insides being mostly pale green. Next year, when I hope the tree will have more fruit (2 last year, 20-ish this year), I should have a better idea of how to judge blettedness from outer consistency.

The medlar tree is one of this year’s few orchard successes, as it’s been fully hardy and took no heed of the late frosts which destroyed the entire apple harvest. And it provides fresh fruit rich in vitamin C during November. While I can see why it fell from favour, I can also see it as a valued staple of the Anglo-Saxon orchard.

Last carrots of 2020

I harvested the last few carrots from the Rumwoldstow garden yesterday, as they’re starting to go manky in the ground, plus some beetroots.

The carrots and beets have been surprisingly successful, given the bed was only built this year and the seeds planted in July. The white beetroots are very tasty and the leaves make an excellent spinach substitute. And the fact that they’re providing fresh green veg in November is amazing – even with the mild weather it’s impressive.

Oh, the garden is so full of weeds and overgrown…I have been reluctant to cut back flowers because they feed bees, but I really do need to start tidying things up. Except that right now I have No Time…so it’ll probably be a New Year job.

The orchard is now resting, I guess. The sheep are long gone, all the fruit harvested.

Late grazing

I failed to post a photo earlier, of the damson harvest. I thought we’d lost them all in the May frosts, but one hardy damson survived!

In October, the sheep returned for late grazing in the meadow and orchard.

Mid-May garden updates

Two frosts this week means no plums or damsons, and maybe no pears. But the medlar is in full flower, here’s a picture from a few days ago. The flowers are white and a bit like a wild rose.

The madonna lilies are all up! The third one is still a tiny sprout and the second has a mystery companion which seems to be some other kind of bulb. Was it in the soil below, in which case it’s come up a long way? Or was it somehow stuck to the lily bulb? I may investigate in the winter but for now I’ll let it do its thing and hope that it will reveal its nature some time.

Trio of lilies, with mystery companion, also finger (I’m rubbish with cameras)

I still have some spare skirret seedlings and somebody a few villages over wants them, so today I potted them up, carefully separating the little seedlings. I planted them too close together because I had no confidence in the germination rate, which in the event was very good. Fortunately they seem to be tough little critters. They are now four to a pot and I hope will be fairly easy to plant out once they’re bigger. I still have 16 seedlings left for myself and will have to dig out some space for them real soon now.

I confess, I potted up the biggest seedlings and gave up on the final tiny four which have gone into the hedge and do not appear in this picture.

My grapevine arrived in the post today! All good monasteries should have a grapevine. I chose a Van Der Laan white grape, a Dutch variety which is apparently a reliable fruiter even in the UK and suitably hardy. Planting that out in the Bed of Julian cheered me up some. If it flourishes, we could go Greek and try stuffed vine leaves, maybe with Anglo-Saxon fillings?

It’s between the rhubarb (yeah I know, but it had to go somewhere) and the asparagus, which is still hiding.

Newly planted Van Der Laan grape vine (just pretend you can’t see the rhubarb)

Here’s the other end of the Bed of Julian with two Nine Star Broccoli plants in netting to keep off butterflies, and mama skirret with some babies around her. The broccoli is a perennial that should last four or five years and produce cut-and-come-again mini cauliflowers, with the leaves being edible also. The variety seems to date from the early twentieth century¹.

The Anglo-Saxons has plenty of words for various brassicas, though obviously they wouldn’t have grown this variety. I don’t know how they’d have dealt with caterpillar infestations though – I think people didn’t actually know that caterpillars and butterflies were connected, so they’ll have had no idea how to prevent the eggs being laid. There’s so much knowledge that we take for granted now but that was utterly non-obvious for hundreds, maybe thousands of years prior to microscopes and leisured scientific observation.

A bitter wind

Alas. One late frost, in early May, and the damsons and plums are gone. There are one or two left, but most are now sad shrivelled brown splodges instead of the firm swelling green fruits of a week ago. The farmer’s life is hard – imagine the disaster when this is your livelihood. No photos as it’s too depressing!

What did the Anglo-Saxon orcharder do? Did she shroud the trees in straw or cloth or something when it looked like being frosty?

The pears have suffered too, but I think there are still some left, and the older apple tree may be OK. The quince still seems to have tiny fruits, and the medlar is flowering and apparently perfectly happy. But I grieve for my little damsons.

The only comfort is that I now have no fear of my young trees exhausting themselves by over-producing fruit while still only two years old.

Sunshine and growth

My asparagus crowns arrived in the post so I read up instructions on t’internet and dug out some little trenches for them. I found space for six in the Bed of Brother Julian. Below you can see four of the crowns laid out, with two already buried. Very tentacular. Apparently, when the shoots start to appear, I should add more soil to give them another 5cm of cover.

Asparagus planted, with sticks to mark the spots

Asparagus is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon leech books under various names including eorþ-nafela (earth navel) though there is some discussion over nomenclature.²
Known to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, asparagus found its way into kitchens and herbals at an early date. It is seen in Egyptian wall art from 3000 BCE. The oldest cookbook, called Apicius and dating to the about 350 CE, includes three recipes for preparing asparagus. As a medicinal plant, it was used to treat bladder diseases, and its efficacy as a diuretic was recognized in the earliest herbals, including 5^th century Herbarium Apuleii Plantonici, and the 10^th century Anglo-Saxon Lacnunga.³ While there is no mention of it as a foodstuff, it seems to me pretty likely that the Anglo-Saxons would have eaten this delicacy as well as making it into a salve or medicinal drink.

I planted a lot of skirret seeds, saved from last year’s skirret plants. The pots are now filled with seedlings so I used a teaspoon to hoik them out as gently as I could, separated them and replanted them more thinly. Some of the smaller ones I planted directly in the ground around the one-year-old skirret, next to the asparagus.

Skirret seedlings now directly in the ground, around mama skirret

Now I know how big to expect a skirret to be in its first year – comparable to a good sized carrot – I’m planting them closer together. But I still have dozens left and will have to dig out spaces for them wherever I can shoehorn them in. Normally I’d offer them to friends but with plague upon the land (it’s early May 2020, look it up…) this isn’t really practical. But I may find some takers in the village if I use Ye Old Book of Face.

Today’s reminder of mortality came as I broke my Dungeon Keeper II memorial mug. Alas! Al has saved the biggest shards to bury as part of the Rumwoldstow foundations when we get on to the next bit of building, so at least they will become archaeology. But I’d rather have had my mug.

Almost the last memento of my time at Bullfrog…

Speaking of frogs, the frogs are back in the home garden. One behind the shed – plus a big one in the pond (not pictured here). Rumwoldstow is rather barren for frogs. I’m still pondering whether it’d be practical to put in a pond of some kind, and if so, what would be appropriate.

Madonna lily 1/3 is growing well, and there are finally signs of life from lily #2. Nothing yet from lily #3.

I planted a load of garlic around the rose because apparently it helps to repel the aphids, though it’s a bit late now as the poor rose is well infested with them, and had plenty left so stuck some in by the valerian and a bit more by the lilies. Those areas will be filled with other plants in due course but for now, they might as well be productive.

Rose bush with garlic sprouting around it and a borage seedling to the left

Over in the orchard, the quince has set its first fruits! The pears are doing well and probably will need thinning.

Separatist sheep (rest of the flock in another field)

Rejoicing in a miracle

Did I mention that over the winter, all four doors to the outbuilding rooms swelled in the unprecedented damp and wouldn’t open for six months? And that after the rain finally stopped, in mid March, brother Alf kept trying the doors and seeing how they were beginning to shift in their frames. Finally the left-most door opened (which meant Al could get into the storeroom and get hold of his good drill at last!)…then the next left…then the third door…but the last door to the planned scullery remained firmly sealed shut. Woes! Brother Alf optimistically foretold that it would open at Easter, as a miracle. Good Friday…Easter Sunday…went past. But on Easter Monday the door opened, and Al has been able to get to work fitting out the scullery.

About a kilometre from Rumwoldstow, my nose alerted me to a fine cluster of wild garlic by the brook. I only hope mine will do as well in the garden. I’m a bit worried about it getting too hot – the sunhat doesn’t entirely protect it.

I planted eight pots of skirret seeds that I collected last year, and four pots have germinated well. When they’re a bit bigger, I plan to very gently try and separate the strongest and move them into the pots of failure. Only the strongest skirrets can make it in Rumwoldstow!

A kind neighbour gave me some dwarf french bean plants. The Anglo-Saxons ate various kinds of beans, I don’t know how similar they were to anything we’d recognise but at least it is beans. In return I gave her a spare garlic bulb from those I planted the previous day, mostly around the rose in the monastery garden as I’ve been told this will help keep off greenfly.

The garden’s filled out a bit but there is still no sign of the three madonna lilies which I planted in the bare area behind the mug. I am so far resisting the temptation to excavate and see if they’re sprouting at all…but it’s hard! What there is, is lots of bindweed shoots. Some are growing from bits of root we didn’t manage to sieve out when filling the beds, and some is in the plants like the fennel that I transplanted. I’m pulling out each sprout as I see it, and hope that eventually they’ll give up.

Green beans potted up (in the home garden, not Rumwoldstow)

I just had to check on the sheep…yep, still there!

Back in the orchard the dandelions are turning into clocks. But people won’t have called them clocks back in Anglo-Saxon times! I wonder what they did call them? The quince is in full flower and just starting to look as though it may be setting fruit.

I dug out some of the dock and nettles to give the comfrey which I transplanted into the orchard a bit more light and space. It’s looking pretty healthy, and I hope that once it’s established it’ll be able to hold its own.

Finally I took about a metre off one of the young damson trees, the one which is reaching for the sky. It still looks pretty tall. I used the very fine lopper on a stick which you operate by pulling a string. I’ll probably take a bit more off next year as I want all the fruit trees to stay fairly low so we can pick the fruit.

Spring lambs on the meadow

Now that Lake Meadow has dried out and the grass has started to regrow, the local farmer has moved a small flock of sheep down there. Particularly adorable are the four hand-reared lambs, who love a bit of attention.

The local kites are nesting in a tree nearby after driving crows off their nest. I assume they’re interested in the health of the lambs below…but not in a good way…

The medlar is still not in bloom, but has many tightly-closed roselike buds. And here is one last photo of the sheep, because sheep.

Trees and sheep

After a good rainy day, we’re back to sunshine with a slightly chilly breeze – perfect seasonal weather for April, which seems strange as it’s so unexpected.

A local farmer has put some sheep on the Rumwoldstow meadow. Lambs! We can hear the baaing from the monastery garden.