November in the garden…

 

The last of these posts for this year, I think, although in spite of the darker evenings and far colder temperatures, it’s been a fairly productive garden month. 

We started with a surprising amount of colour still present - the nasturtiums, slow to get going this year, finally started producing flowers with abandon, the Rose Campion was still producing flowers, and the ever enthusiastic Campanula was also still predictably throwing in the occasional burst of blue, too! Regardless, it was time to begin a bit of clearing back  - first the runner beans, the obelisk and frames needed dismantling so the pants were chopping back to a foot or so above the ground and chopped up for composting - which left the bin VERY full! 

Two bags of compost were dug out of the base of the bin to make room for for at least a bit more in the top - the great news is that what we dug out was glorious stuff - black and crumbly, and with few worms present which suggests they’ve done their job and moved up to fresher layers above. Those we found were relocated straight to the top!

Growbags have been split open and upended straight into the main veggie bed as a mulch layer - the winter frosts will help them break down into the soil and the roots will rot down, with any remaining nutrients absorbed into the soil. Tomato pots have been emptied and the contents used in the same way - but only onto areas where we know we won’t want to grow either toms or potatoes in future years, although we haven’t seen any signs of blight we’d sooner not take the risk! 

The remaining tomatoes on the plants had been picked and set on the windowsill to ripen as I mentioned last month - we’ve found in previous years that the living room windowsill is a good spot for this, bright and relatively cool. I got a further batch of pasta sauce from those too - more home grown delight to see us into the winter months. We also stripped the chilli plants, eventually giving up on the hope that any more would ripen to red - the hours of sunshine had just got too short to allow it. I clearly remember taking a photo of those  but there is no sign of it now, annoyingly. We got a great harvest though  - all the more pleasing as these were the “Bishop’s Crown” seeds - free from the gardening magazine we subscribe to. No real heat to speak of but a beautiful flavour. 

We have plans to reorganise things a little in the garden come the spring - with the compost bin being relocated to allow for more room for sun loving tomatoes, peppers and chillies. We’ve also started planning the things we want to grow, and noting any seeds we will need to purchase. I have to track down more of the little bush tomatoes I like, and there are a few other things recommended by various gardening pals I want to try as well.

See you for the next “in the garden” post in the spring! 

Robyn

A World Apart - East London in the 1970s

MrEH and I had plans for Friday evening that involved us being in Central London - for one of the LT Museum’s “Hidden London Hangout” podcasts - but in front of a live audience. We’ve been wanting to get to one of these for a while - this is the third they have done as far as I recall, but the previous two have been on days we have already had other plans.   MrEH announced well ahead of time that he intended to use the day as one of his required days of working from the office, a sensible move as otherwise he would have struggled to get into town in time after finishing his working day, so I decided I may as well travel in with him - saving myself on travel costs. 

While still in the process of deciding what to do with my day, I spotted on the excellent Ian Visits newsletter email  that a gallery in Bethnal Green was running an exhibition of photographs taken in London’s east end during the 1970s - from:the detail given both in the email and on a linked BBC news site article it looked utterly fascinating, so I immediately started structuring my plan around going for a look. 

The gallery is on Roman Road - just a stone’s throw from where MrEH lived when we were first together in fact, and a walk along from where I elected to hop off the bus was fascinating seeing what had changed, and what was still much as I remembered. 

The exhibition - A World Apart - shows the work of a dozen photographers who worked with local communities in Whitechapel, Wapping, Spitalfields, Stepney and thereabouts, documenting the changes as the continuation of the post-war drive to rebuild saw buildings torn down and new immigrants began influencing the shops and businesses. Some of the photographers lived in the areas they were working in and those they were photographing were friends and neighbours and well as subjects, meaning they could achieve a level of trust and relaxation - something which really comes across in the images. 

The common link between the photographs is that they have all been exhibited previously at the time they were taken, in various spaces in the East End - theatres, laundrettes and libraries  all hosted shows. This is the first time they’ve all been seen together though, and they paint a powerful picture of the time, as the communities welcomed the new Bengali & Caribbean incomers. Indeed, that integration stands out as a theme through the exhibition with black, white and brown faces seen working and playing together. 

“A World Apart” exhibition can be seen at the Four Corners Gallery, Roman Road, Bethnal Green until 6th December 2025.

October in the garden…

 It’s been quite a busy month, with more harvesting, more planting, and plenty of colour. 

First up, the front garden is looking glorious at the moment - aiming for a colour palette of mainly pinks, reds and blues has worked wonderfully with a lovely range of colours right through from the vivid pink provided by a stunning Salvia, through the orangey red of a Heuchera which took forever to get going, but finally seems to have settled in, through to another Salvia - deep purple this time. Admittedly I did seize the chance while MrEH’s back was turned at the Farmer’s market of buying a tray of bright orange violas, but somehow even they work well in the mix! 

Out the back, and we’ve still been eating plenty of homegrown stuff this month. The runner beans - although beginning to tail off - have still been providing regular pickings, and I have been picking regular tomatoes as well, with several batches of home made tomato sauce being turned out, and plenty of cherry toms for eating with my lunches. We’ve had the last few courgettes and the final cucumbers as well - with cucumbers being one crop we’ve been self sufficient in all summer, always pleasing! 

We’re probably both agreed that our favourite crop of this year has been the sweet peppers - something which we didn’t even have any real faith we’d have any joy with at all, and only really grew as a curiosity. They’ve done well though with at least a couple of fruit per plant, with some of them reach a good size, too - look…

Easily as good as anything you’d buy in the supermarket we reckon - and tasty too, with a lovely sweet crunch. 

We had to re-sow our cabbages after the pesky slugs noshed the first lot - the second attempt were closely guarded and kept in the mini greenhouse though and survived to be planted out - since they’ve been in we’ve lost a few but the majority seem to be thriving so that’s good news. I need to do some reading up to establish whether we should protect them from frost or if they should be hardy enough not to worry about it. We have a Chinese cabbage variety, and a classic British “Wheeler’s imperial” with both lots of seeds being freebies from our magazine subscription. 

The month ended with making a start on clearing things back for the winter - and notably harvesting all the remaining tomatoes - hopefully those will ripen indoors on the windowsill!

Robyn