june What is one to say about June—the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade? — Gertrude Jekyll, Wood and Garden, 1899
W
e wake with the early light on June mornings, hoping for sunlight on the land. Tendrils of mist rise from the pond, where swallows are already spiralling low in search of food. On fine days we eat lunch on the terrace, inhaling the scents of the garden and listening to the buzz and twitter of hummingbirds among the flowers. Grass is growing long in the fields and clover is in bloom, a treat for the sheep who can hardly wait to get at it. We still shut them in overnight to keep them safe from coyotes, but now in the long warm evenings we have to lure them in before dusk by rattling a little grain in a bucket.
Our egg supply is dwindling, as many of the chickens are moulting and a few have gone broody. The Buff Orpingtons, big blowsy hens, are the worst for deciding to sit their eggs. They hog the nesting boxes like fat golden tea cozies. If they can scrape another hen’s eggs under their capacious breasts they’ll sit those too. When we turf them out of the henhouse, they squat on the ground grumbling and scurry back inside as soon as we turn our backs. The Barred Rocks, more cunning birds, try to find hiding places in the barn, squeezing themselves into narrow gaps between the hay bales. Although we have become very sharp at spotting a lone bird emerging for
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growth habit, and much more susceptible to disease. They did not, in fact, produce more flowers than the old roses; they just spread them out over a longer season. Required to produce a succession of flowers, they had little energy left for rosehips to brighten their canes through the fall and winter months. I like to compare the attraction of old roses to eating all the chocolates in the box in one go, rather than doling them out a few at a time. I am definitely a fan of the whole-hog method. I confess I find it ironic that the same gardeners who demand a longer period of bloom from a rose don’t expect it of rhododendrons or camellias, to name but two of a whole host of much-loved shrubs that flower briefly and then do nothing else all year. Colourful fall foliage? Bright fruit? Forget it. June is also a great month for visiting other people’s gardens for inspiration, especially for someone smitten with roses. In my early days as a gardener, I used to be daunted by how immaculate other people’s realms looked compared with mine. In time, after a few open gardens of my own, I realized how hard the owners worked in the preceding weeks to ensure that everything was well groomed for visitors’ day. I also concluded that gardeners whose pristine roses I admired often worked a lot harder at it than I was prepared to do. Roses that flourished under their constant care did not respond as well to my more fickle
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grain or a quick drink of water, there’s always one who will manage to go unnoticed for a couple of weeks. When we find the nest, we have to drop all the eggs in a bowl of water to make sure they are still good. Rotten ones will float to the surface. Even then, we keep all the found eggs for our own use, as it’s a little unnerving for our friends if they discover a partially formed chick when they break one open. In the early days we’d let the broodies sit their eggs, but we soon found that many of them lost interest after sitting just long enough to ruin that particular clutch for eating purposes. When the Buff Orpingtons showed more tenacity than the Barred Rocks, we allowed one or two to hatch chicks every year. Thanks to our mix of breeds, and the tendency of the broodies to accumulate other hens’ eggs, we ended up with some beautifully patterned hybrids among the purebreds. June is rose time in the flower garden. For me, with close to 200 old and legendary roses competing for attention, it is a moment to savour. Very few of my roses bloom for more than a month, after which they set about turning this season’s flowers into rosehips and making new growth to support next year’s blooms. In the twentieth century, most gardeners turned with enthusiasm to hybrid plants that were more compact and bloomed for much longer. Although I too began with these kinds of roses, I found them graceless in
A Year at Ki llara Farm
e v o l g Fox
attentions. It’s another reason that I’ve modified my choices, confining myself to plants that will thrive with a modicum of neglect. Knowing thyself is sometimes more important than knowing thy roses. I came to roses mainly because they were already in the garden of the property we bought in Vancouver back in 1983. That garden had been a major factor in our purchase. The old house, although neglected and badly in need of a coat of paint, was attractive—but the garden was stunning! The former owner, appropriately named Mrs. Plant, had clearly lavished all her attention on it, filling the beds with old-fashioned flowers like pinks, forgetme-nots, dahlias, poppies, iris and lilies. And, of course, roses, lining the paths both back and front. I wasn’t very knowledgeable about roses at the time,
but I recognized ‘Peace’ and ‘Queen Elizabeth’ among them. That garden made me a gardener and taught me much about plants in the nine years we lived there. By the time we moved to Killara Farm I knew what I wanted to take with me and what to leave behind. Among the latter were the dahlias (too much work to dig up and replant each year) and the roses. Not that I had come to dislike roses. Quite the contrary: I had fallen in love with them and wanted much more space to accommodate as many of them as possible. But I was no longer interested in the kind that Mrs. Plant had bequeathed to us along with her garden. Through meetings and open gardens organized by the Vancouver Rose Society, I had gravitated towards a very different class of roses—the old, summer-blooming shrubs and ramblers that brought with them not just luxuriant blooms and heavenly fragrance, but history and legend from many centuries and many countries. On a more practical note, I discovered that these were tough, disease-resistant plants. Given a good start, they would thrive without any coaxing on my part. No spraying, no pruning required. Many of these roses were, and are, difficult to find. Fortunately for me, fellow rose growers were generous with cuttings from their own stock. Old French names like ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’, ‘Reine des Violettes’ and ‘Belle de Crécy’ became familiar to me as I nurtured my
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tiny plants and set them out in the newly tilled beds, valiant sprigs of green against the dark earth. Most of them grew into large bushes or sprawling ramblers that draped the fences around my garden. One of the first beds I dug when we acquired the farm was a long serpentine curve stretching down the gentle slope towards our boundary fence. Entirely planted with old roses, it slowly became a hedge as they grew towards and eventually into one
another. It was anchored at the high end by powder-pink ‘Duchesse de Montebello’, whose petals hold their colour even after they fall, making a fragrant pool around its base. At the low end, I planted cherry-pink and white ‘Complicata’. This seems an odd name for a rose with simple five-petalled flowers, but it goes back to the old Latin word for “pleated” and refers to the slight fold in the centre of each petal. It makes each flower look as if poised to dance.
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A Year at Ki llara Farm
Around and between the roses I grew other shrubs, perennials and bulbs to give pleasure when the glories of June roses were just a memory. Of course, quite a few other plants bloomed at the same time as the roses. I looked for harmonious combinations and found them particularly among clematis. It is possible to find a clematis in bloom in almost every month of the year, and I know of no other plant that comes in such a variety of sizes, shapes and colours.
e d e n i a e’ l s i h G ‘ d n e o s g o i R Fél For the next decade I sought out more and more old roses. Many, such as the Red Rose of Lancaster, came with a long and intriguing history. Some, like ‘Chapeau de Napoleon’, were linked to a legendary name. Others appeared in flower paintings by famous artists like Fantin Latour, who is himself commemorated in a sumptuous ruffled pink rose. Several were wild roses whose origins could be traced to the Middle East, China and Europe. I even had Rosa nutkana, a native of the Pacific Northwest and, according to some authorities, the oldest known rose in the world, thanks to a perfectly preserved fossil of one of its leaves that was discovered in Colorado and carbon-dated at 35 million years old.
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u a e p a h C ‘ e Ros apoléon’ de N
s i t a m Cle Lyon’ de e l l i ‘V
are delphiniums, whose tall spikes are a convenient contrast to the rounded outlines of the shrub roses. I found that ‘Pacific Giants’ did very well in my heavy soil, and I liked the variation in colour from white through icy blue to deep sapphire. I was also drawn to the Camelot series, at least partly because of their legendary names: ‘King Arthur’, ‘Guinevere’, ‘Galahad’ and ‘Astolat’. Reference books describe these as “short-lived perennials,” but all of mine came back faithfully year after year, expanding gradually into very large clumps.
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Among the large-flowered clematis I had, the earliest into bloom was often ‘Miss Bateman’, a relatively short vine whose pure-white sepals have a pale mid-rib of lime green. In the centre of each bloom is a tuft of dark-chocolate stamens. It doesn’t bloom for long and is a little temperamental, but it certainly is a showstopper. Later come purple ‘Etoile Violette’ and ruby-red ‘Rouge Cardinal’, fighting it out on the same piece of fence. In front of them and blooming at the same time, I had planted spikes of a mullein, Verbascum chaixii, both the yellow and the white form. The yellow has a small purple eye that echoes ‘Etoile Violette’ while ‘Album’, the white one, has a raspberry eye that matches ‘Rouge Cardinal’. Another large-flowered clematis, ‘Ville de Lyon’, shares an arch with a Noisette rambler, ‘Félicité Perpétue’. The showy hot-pink clematis tones with the lipstick buds of the rose before they open into white rosettes. It also complements the opulent crimson flowers of another rambler, the rare and lovely ‘Souvenir d’Alphonse Lavallée’, which reaches towards it from the other side. Clematis ‘Marie Boisselot’, with flowers of satiny white, sends a few exploratory tendrils into the mix from even farther away. In spite of the vast array of colour among clematis, there isn’t really a true blue, though ‘Perle d’Azur’ comes close. Fortunately, there
A Year at Ki llara Farm
Filling in around the bases of the taller plants, I added swathes of cottage pinks that I’d brought from my previous garden. I don’t know what variety they were—‘Inchmery’ perhaps, or ‘Pink Mrs. Sinkins’—but their grey foliage is a delight year-round, and their clove scent amazing for such a dainty little flower. Another staple was lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis), so popular in many romantic English gardens. The way drops of water balance on the fine hairs of its soft-green foliage, pleated like origami, is reason enough to enjoy a rainy day. In summer the clumps billow with tiny lemonlime flowers that froth like surf around the mound of leaves. When their colour turns more yellow, I know I’d better make haste to cut them off before they spread seed far and wide. After that, the leaves continue looking good for a long time, though they get a little shabby in winter. A plantswoman rather than a designer, I am always inclined to settle for one of everything. Pinks, lady’s mantle and their ilk spread themselves around enough to give the garden a unity that I am much too inclined to neglect. One of the things I begin to notice about now is the number of chewed leaves I seem to have, but when I go looking for the culprits among the rolled and stuck-together leaves, they’ve moved on already. Or, more likely, been eaten by the birds. Every year is a good year for birds in my garden: we have goldfinches and
house finches, chickadees, sparrows, starlings, swallows, nuthatches, hummingbirds, woodpeckers and robins. All of them are looking for food and I enjoy seeing the carnivorous types probing among the foliage for the all-you-caneat caterpillar buffet that I’m only too happy to provide. I don’t like to use chemicals to attack the caterpillars, only partly out of respect for the birds. I’m also very well aware that these products don’t discriminate, and at least some of those caterpillars are going to turn into butterflies. Who could possibly want a garden without them? The only birds I don’t care for are the crows. They may be the most intelligent of birds, but they make such an unpleasant racket early in the morning. What is even worse is their taste for the eggs and nestlings of songbirds. Seeing a crow in flight with a naked chick dangling from its beak is heartbreaking. Once we’d found that the best weapon against the crows is the dead body of one of their own, Michael tried to shoot one every year. Although he was a good shot, he rarely succeeded in downing a bird. Their coarse feathers acted like armour and easily deflected pellets from our modest little BB gun. I began furtively to look for roadkill that I could scoop into a plastic bag and bring home where we would tie it to a handy branch in the garden. Within minutes, crows would arrive from nowhere in great numbers to keen over the
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moved in. The count continued to grow but there seemed no lessening of potential new immigrants. Eventually, I took pity on the poor man and told him I couldn’t justify blighting the rest of his life by holding him to his guarantee. Thereafter, the moles and I conducted an uneasy truce. By mid-June, the successive plantings of lettuce, spinach and rapini are supplying us with more than we can eat, and we’re picking daily to stave off the day when they all run to seed. Green salads accompany almost every meal, and visits to friends are always accompanied by a bagful of our garden excess. We’re also harvesting strawberries at a great rate, eating the good ones fresh and trimming the remains of the ones the slugs got to first for a homemade sorbet.
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body, but after 24 hours they’d all be gone. And they wouldn’t come back! Not for a month or so, at least. Another pest that had usually made its appearance felt by the end of spring was the Coastal Mole. Molehills in the grass were bad enough, but as the year progressed, the moles would be making forays into the garden beds, especially anywhere that earth had been freshly turned. I learned to avoid putting bonemeal into the planting hole I dug for any new treasures, as the scent of it drew the little rodents like a magnet. Before I got wise to their proclivities, it was quite common to come upon a wilting plant that had been the picture of health in its pot the day before. Inevitably, a mole had tunnelled under it in search of worms or insects drawn by the loose earth and the smell of decay that the bonemeal gave off. One year I saw a leaflet pinned to a telephone pole advertising a company called Moles Begone! This turned out to be a one-man enterprise, a student who had found a unique way of financing his college courses. He offered a flat rate and guaranteed to continue until all the little beasts had been dispatched. He set traps in all the tunnels and within a couple of weeks had caught 17 moles. The trouble was that moles are territorial: whenever a claim was vacated, a new resident
Potato Galette After reading in a magazine that ‘Desirée’ was England’s favourite potato, we had to get some and try them out. They proved to be prolific and delicious, both as new potatoes and old. Their white flesh and pink skins look attractive in a potato salad and although the skin tends to separate from the flesh when cooked, it is so thin and flavourful that I don’t bother removing it. They are good keepers too, lasting well into early winter if they are stored in a cool place. 1 lb (454 gr) Desirée potatoes 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped ½ cup (125 mL) parsley, finely chopped
Salt and pepper 2 Tbsp (30 mL) vegetable oil 2 Tbsp (30 mL) cold butter, finely diced
Wash potatoes, but do not peel. Slice very thin and pat dry. Combine in a large bowl with garlic and parsley. Add salt, pepper and oil and toss well to mix. Line a pizza pan with parchment paper. Spread potatoes evenly over paper. Dot with butter. Bake at 400F (205C) for 20 to 30 minutes until golden and crisp. Makes four servings as a side dish
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Lady’s Fingers I first encountered lady’s fingers as an appetizer in a Turkish restaurant in Australia, where I enjoyed it so much my sister begged the recipe for me to take home. It is a good recipe for a light lunch, accompanied by fresh bread and a soup or salad. 2 cups (475 mL) spinach leaves ½ cup (125 mL) parsley ¼ cup (60 mL) fresh mint ½ cup (125 mL) green onions ¼ cup (60 mL) pine nuts, lightly fried in olive oil 1½ tsp (7.5 mL) salt ¼ tsp (1 mL) pepper
¼ tsp (1 mL) mixed spices (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg combined) ½ tsp (2.5 mL) dried or 1½ tsp (7.5 mL) fresh thyme ¼ cup (60 mL) olive oil ¼ cup (60 mL) lemon juice 5 sheets phyllo pastry Drizzle of olive oil
Combine spinach, parsley, mint and green onions in a food processor and blend to a coarse mulch. Transfer to a bowl, add remaining ingredients, and mix thoroughly. Brush a sheet of phyllo pastry with olive oil. Top with another sheet. Cut into quarters. Place 1 tablespoon (15 mL) spinach mixture at an end of each sheet and roll up, folding in the ends. Repeat with remaining mixture. Place rolls on well-oiled baking sheet. Brush the tops with a little more oil. Bake at 425F (220C) for 10 to 15 minutes, or until crisp and lightly brown. Serve hot. Makes ten cylinders
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Pasta Puttanesca Once the ingredients are prepared, this doesn’t take long to make, which is a boon in summer. It uses a good amount of arugula, which is one of the leafy greens in great supply by June, and I often add even more than a cup as it reduces so much when cooked. Although chili flakes are more traditional, I prefer to keep a bottle of Indonesian sambal oelek in the fridge and add about a ¼ teaspoon (1 mL) instead. It adds a touch of sweetness along with the heat, and I can put a little pot of it on the table for those who like their food really spicy. 3 Tbsp (45 mL) olive oil 1 clove garlic, crushed 1 French shallot, chopped 4 medium-sized plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped 1 yellow bell pepper, cut in ½-in (1-cm) squares 1 red bell pepper, cut in ½-in (1-cm) squares 2 small zucchini, sliced ½ cup (125 mL) dry black olives, halved and stoned 8–10 large fresh basil leaves, shredded
Sprig of fresh oregano leaves, stripped from stem and shredded ¼ teaspoon (1 mL) sambal oelek or ½ tsp (2.5 mL) chili flakes 1 cup (250 mL) arugula, coarsely chopped Salt and pepper 12 oz (340 gr) rigatoni or penne pasta Parmesan cheese, shaved from the block 1 tsp (5 mL) capers, drained Optional: ¼ cup (60 mL) chicken stock
Sauté garlic and shallot in oil until tender but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, cook 4 minutes. Add peppers, sauté for 4 minutes. Add zucchini, olives, herbs, chili flakes. Cook 4 minutes. Add arugula, stir until wilted. If the mixture seems dry, stir in heated chicken stock. Season to taste. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Serve sauce on pasta, topped with Parmesan and capers. Makes six servings
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Glad Green Salad Lemon-infused olive oil is available in good food markets, but if you can’t find it, simply substitute lemon juice for the vinegar. 3 cups (700 mL) young mixed greens including a few small, tender sorrel leaves, chopped 1 ripe avocado 2 Tbsp (30 mL) walnuts, roughly chopped 1 Tbsp (15 mL) apple cider vinegar
¼ cup (60 mL) lemon-infused olive oil ¼ cup (60 mL) grape seed oil 1 tsp (5 mL) smooth Dijon mustard Salt and pepper Parmesan cheese, shaved from the block
Wash greens and spin dry. Peel, halve and stone the avocado, and slice thinly. Place a bed of mixed greens on individual plates. Fan a few avocado slices over the greens, and sprinkle with nuts. Combine sorrel leaves with remaining ingredients, except cheese, in a small lidded jar and shake well to blend. Drizzle dressing over salad. Top with a few shaved Parmesan curls, and serve immediately. Makes four servings as a side salad
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Strawberry Sorbet Excellent for strawberries that aren’t pretty enough to be served fresh. This recipe enhances the fruit flavour, and the sorbet will keep for several months in the freezer. The kirsch is an essential ingredient. It is worth having a bottle on hand in the pantry for the unique flavour it gives to this and other fruit recipes (such as October’s French Apple Galette). The alcohol evaporates during the cooking process, but the unique flavour remains. ½ cup (125 mL) water ½ cup (125 mL) white sugar 1 Tbsp (15 mL) kirsch
2 cups (475 mL) strawberries ½ cup (125 mL) yogourt
Combine water, sugar and kirsch in a small pan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring slowly to a boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes until mixture thickens slightly but does not change colour. Cool, then chill in refrigerator. Blend strawberries in a food processor and add sugar syrup in a thin stream. Add yogourt and blend again. Scrape into an ice-cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Alternatively, freeze in a shallow dish until slushy, scrape back into blender and beat again for added smoothness. Refreeze. Makes approximately four cups
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july The Summer looks out from her brazen tower Through the flashing bars of July. . . — Francis Thompson, “A Corymbus for Autumn”, 1871
J
uly is a month of barn swallows. They soar in the blue sky of midday, skim low over the grass on cloudy afternoons and dip across the surface of the pond on warm evenings. So light and agile as they pursue insects invisible to us, they also seem to take time out for the sheer joy of flight, playing complicated aerial games with each other, and grazing the water with their small bodies like tiny seaplanes. Every year the summers seem hotter and more parched. The pond is low and murky, but still a source of enjoyment as dragonflies and moulting mallard ducks cruise in and out of the reeds. When I handwater suffering plants with the hose, hummingbirds and chickadees come to frisk in the fine spray, their enjoyment of the water getting the better of their fear of me.
In my garden, July is one tough month. Everything needs regular watering and some plants beyond reach of a hose begin to show their distress. The honeysuckle wilts. The roses shed spent petals. The early perennials go to seed, and hot, dry weather makes most of the remaining foliage look tired and shabby. Repeat-blooming roses, delphiniums and hardy geraniums are between flowers and where I’ve cut these back to encourage a second set of flowers, the garden is full of gaps. Masses of foxgloves so pretty a month ago are now withering to a papery brown. I want to leave them in place until they set seed, but I always leave too many and for too long. In spring there will be armies of tiny plants to pull out.
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I’ve already cut back the springing foliage of the fall asters, ideally in June but at least by the first week of July. Chopped to half their size, they will take a week or two longer to bloom, but will be shorter and bushier so that staking won’t be necessary. It’s hard to stake an aster elegantly—too often you end up with a plant that looks as if it’s been stuffed into a corset. All of this dying off and cutting back means relying on a few staples to keep my interest from flagging. The daylilies can’t do it alone because I don’t have enough of them. They are the easiest of plants to care for, with virtually no enemies I can think of, but they have such a short flowering, and not much to contribute during the rest of the year, so I haven’t acquired many of them. Apart from ‘Wild Wine’, I have a clump of pale-lemon ‘Gentle Shepherd’, chosen because of its appropriate name for our sheep farm, as well as some scattered unknown yellow ones that came with us from our previous home. Knowing more about daylilies than I did then, I should probably replace these oldies with something more interesting, but at least they are extremely fragrant, which I have learned is characteristic of daylilies in that colour range. Another that works for me is tawny-orange Hemerocallis fulva. At the bottom of the garden on either side of our long allée, there are two large clumps of it, also brought from our former garden in Vancouver. It is inclined to
A Year at Ki llara Farm
There’s a trick to that, though, that has served me well. The veins on the backs of young leaves give a hint of what the flower colour will be. I keep mostly white-veined ones to have a majority of white flowers, although I usually let a few purple-veined ones remain for contrast. The rule is fallible and sometimes I get a washed-out pink instead of white, but on the whole it’s a successful strategy.
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There’s not much to be done about the disease, so you either have to ignore it or do without hollyhocks. Fortunately, rusts are very specific so it doesn’t affect any companions. Getting rid of older plants does help a little to keep a relatively healthy crop, and hollyhocks self-seed generously so replacements are readily available. A frieze of lower-growing perennials can hide much of the damage. Artemisia lactiflora ‘Guizhou’ is excellent at this, providing a froth of tiny flowers that screen but don’t entirely hide the hollyhock stems. Persicaria ‘Firetail’ combines well with it, and its muddy-pink flower spikes blend surprisingly well with the purer shades around it. Holding the rest of the garden together is my favourite filler, white campion (Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’). It’s one of those plants that self-seeds, but not rampantly. Gaps in the beds are ideal places for its
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be aggressive, but way down there, it doesn’t matter, and anyway we have a sentimental attachment to it. Every so often I chop some of the root mass off to keep it in check. One year, I threw some of the clumps over the fence to land above the ditch that separates our property from the road. They took root there and now give a cheerful display where there used to be only rank grass and creeping blackberries. It seems that very little can compete with their tightly woven corms. Hollyhocks also come to the rescue. They are so sturdy for such a tall plant, rarely toppled by stray winds or heavy rain. Mine are all singles, as I find the doubles artificiallooking and too reminiscent of those tacky paper pompons on wedding cars. I have a wonderful dark, brooding, burgundy one, and one in light lemon that combines well with it. Others are rich or soft pink, and there are always a couple of spires with in-between colours like peach and melon. As mine is a garden without trees, they add a missing element of height and their spears make a welcome contrast among the bushy silhouettes of roses. Even when the topmost flowers are all that is left, they still look interesting, if not exactly stylish. A visitor once asked me what I did about the unsightly freckles of rust that always mar hollyhock foliage. “I look the other way,” was my reply. I was being only slightly facetious.
A Year at Ki llara Farm
silver leaves to emerge, and the small white flowers add an airy lightness among richer colours. Its shallow roots don’t threaten any treasures in their vicinity, and make the plants easy to remove if they overstep their welcome. Other self-seeders that bloom now include opium poppies. The original ones in my garden I brought unknowingly from Monet’s garden in France. When I was there, just before we moved to the farm, I had purchased a folder of seeds from the gift shop. Stapled inside a card adorned with one of the famous waterlily images were three little packets. One had “petit” printed on it, one said “moyen” and the last, “grand.” On my return, I duly presented the folder to Canada Customs who passed it back to me without comment. When I got home I sowed the seeds, and watched eagerly for them to emerge. All of them did. Most of the “petit” turned out to be alyssum, the “moyen” were predominantly marigolds and all of the “grand” were opium poppies. They bloomed so gloriously and in such profusion that I had visions of a visit from the RCMP. Every year since, they’ve come back, though never so enthusiastically. Over time my favourite, a feathery iridescent-purple double, gradually died out, but pink and scarlet ones return faithfully to give me one of July’s prettiest sights. Along the fences rambling roses hold sway. My long-awaited dream of covering every fence with roses is coming true. I love these huge
beauties more than any other plants when they burst into furious bloom, filling the air with their fragrance. On both sides of the garden Rosa mulliganii stretches a 40-foot waterfall of white, dazzling everyone who sees it. Anyone who arrives at our small dead-end spur of a street cannot miss it the moment they turn the corner. When they step out of the car at our gate, its rich scent wafts over them all the way up our driveway. Nearer to the house, ‘Lykkefund’ spills a fountain of cream over a corner of the garden. Close inspection reveals that each small flower is blushed with pink and most have a fine line of gold down the centre of each petal. This is a rose I imported from England on the basis of a short description in a catalogue. Superb fragrance, beautiful flowers, healthy constitution and a lack of thorns seemed virtues too good to be true, but it has lived up to every one of them. Adjoining it are two more white wonders. ‘Madame Plantier’ is sometimes listed as a bush, but in Killara’s rich soil it has easily topped the fence and spread some distance along it. It is an Alba rose, among the healthiest in the genus. On the other side is ‘Wickwar’, a rose I selected for its soft-grey foliage and orange fruits as much as for its flowers. If the catalogue description had also mentioned its wicked thorns, I might have planted it further from one of the garden gates.
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glamour to my not-so-tropical garden, although it’s a challenge to find them appropriate companions. I first tried a daylily called ‘Green Flutter’ but it was more of a lemon yellow than the lime I had in mind. Though certainly an eyecatching combination, the two plants didn’t look at ease together. I wanted singing, not shouting. So I moved ‘Green Flutter’ to join a clump of golden oregano and replaced it with Monarda ‘Scorpion’, whose small but intensely purple flowers made peace with the phlox. In front of these tall growers sea lavender spreads a haze of softer purple. If I get another phlox, I’m going to choose ‘David’, a relatively new variety whose white flowers have a touch of baby pink at the centre. It’s supposed to be more mildew-proof than the old stalwart ‘Mount Fuji’ and to bloom for longer too. I might also try a few plants of ‘Norah Leigh’, the pink one with variegated foliage in glacial green and cream. I’ve never been keen on variegated plants but I can see that ‘Norah Leigh’ might be just the thing to back up daylily ‘Gentle Shepherd’,
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a i r a c i Pers etail’ ‘Fir
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Reaching towards it, all the way from the next gate is ‘Francis E. Lester’. This is another thorny giant and requires constant trimming where it has rambled over an arch above the gate. I don’t really want tall guests to have their scalps creased by any wayward stems. ‘Francis E.’ produces huge quantities of single flowers in apple-blossom pink and white. It also has a powerful scent that fills the air and mingles with that of its companions. Phlox are blooming too, their unique scent another summer trademark. When we moved from our former home, we brought some roots of these with us. We planted them in two parallel rows leading towards the bottom of the garden where they make a bright green, pink and white combination, reminding me of liquorice allsorts, candies I bought as a child. They are difficult colours to blend, but little else is happening in that part of the garden so they can clash away among themselves and fill the evening air with that peculiar, distinctive perfume that says “summer has come.” Despite their reputation for mildew, these old, nameless stalwarts manage to stay trouble-free most years, at least until they are well past their prime and begging to be cut down anyway. Off on its own in a separate bed I have a different phlox called ‘Starfire’, whose blackinfused leaves make it welcome as a striking foliage plant even before it blooms. When it does, the vivid magenta flowers add tropical
neat rows, measured, I admit, by eye rather than with a tape and string. I keep them well clipped into mounds over the winter, but when they bloom, they make a solid sea of blue. Just visible in the centre, a rusty metal rooster, a birthday present from Michael, crows defiantly on a patch of thyme. On a sunny day when the heat brings out the lavender fragrance and the whole area is abuzz with bees, it’s one of the greatest pleasures of summer to walk the paths, with every step brushing against the overhanging stalks and releasing even more pungent scent into the air. My first order of lavender came from a company that specializes in mail-order plants. I chose plain Lavandula angustifolia, the classic English lavender, for its hardiness and soft colour. Unfortunately, these little tufts turned out to have been grown from seed, a fact that they demonstrated as they grew: some were sprawling, some were compact; some had thick, dark spikes of bloom, while others were long, thin and pale. The result was not so dire that I wanted rid of them so I tolerated their desire to be different for several years, until they started to get woody and break apart at the centres in spite of my annual clipping. When I replaced them, I ordered ‘Hidcote’, a hybrid variety, knowing that it would only come true from cuttings. ‘Hidcote’ is a popular variety and easy to find, and I only slightly regretted its dark hue. My
A Year at Ki llara Farm
which needs something to accent its softcream flowers and offer more interest than the daylily foliage. Best of all in July is lavender. Having always wanted a lavender garden, I finally had the space for one at Killara. It’s a large rectangle, maybe twenty by thirty feet, divided into four equal beds by narrow paths of rectangular pavers. Each bed contains twenty plants in fairly
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more appear lower down on side shoots over quite a long period. In our organic garden, I used to hate the way black aphids hid among the florets of the big heads, often so thickly encrusted that you couldn’t really rinse them out. And I was never a fan of the thick, stringy stems that supported those heads, although the hens were very fond of them diced into bite-sized pieces. With such a wealth of vegetables now ready to eat, we take the time to “put by” some of the bounty for winter use. We harvest our garlic and shallots when a spell of warm, dry weather is forecast, so that we can safely leave the bulbs to dry out and harden off where they lie in the garden. After a week or so, when the necks are shrivelled and crisp, we pack them into paper bags for storage. A few get lashed together with twine and hung on the kitchen rack for immediate use. One year we tried braiding some of the garlic to make it look more decorative, but we weren’t very good at it and reverted to the more basic bundles that seemed to last better. Extra broccoli gets separated into spears, parboiled for two to three minutes, then packed into freezer bags. When thawed it is a bit limp but still green and nutritious, and certainly good enough for a puréed soup or soufflé.
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preference is for a softer, misty blue, but the varieties with that shade of flower don’t have the lovely silver foliage that is the best feature of ‘Hidcote’. In the vegetable garden, basil is ready for harvest. We always plant vast quantities of it to go with the tomatoes, and to make fresh pesto with pasta, one of summer’s best treats. If we need an appetizer at this time of year, either to have with a glass of wine or to take to a dinner party elsewhere, I make a terrine, layering pesto with cream cheese and sundried tomatoes. We dig ‘Yukon Gold’ potatoes, to go into the barn for storage and into the kitchen for potato salads. We don’t wash the potatoes— just pack them, dirt and all, into 10-gallon black plastic flowerpots, cover them with a sheet of paper—and a piece of plywood to deter mice and rats—and store them in the cool, dark barn. As the winter goes by we inspect them regularly to try to winnow out any rotters. Most years we could count on having potatoes to eat at least until April. We’ve begun harvesting broccoli, and will continue to do so right through September, now that we have discovered an Italian strain that doesn’t form the large, tight heads that we North Americans have had pushed on us for so long. Instead, it offers a more branchy type of growth, with many small heads, ideal for the smaller family. As you pick the centre heads,
Pesto A wedge of Parmesan, grated as needed, lasts longer and has a far superior flavour to the pre-grated product. 1 big bunch fresh basil (or 3 basil balls—see recipe on page 131) ¼ cup (60 mL) pine nuts, dry-fried in a heavy
⅓ cup (80 mL) Romano cheese, freshly grated ⅓ cup (80 mL) olive oil 1 Tbsp (15 mL) butter ½ tsp (2.5 mL) salt Pepper Optional: ¼ cup (60 mL) chicken stock
pan until golden 3 large cloves garlic ⅓ cup (80 mL) Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Blend all ingredients in a food processor until desired consistency is reached. For a richer flavour, heat ¼ cup (60 mL) chicken stock, add pesto mixture and stir over low heat until heated through. Serve with fettuccine or linguine. Makes approximately one cup
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Pesto Terrine This is a lovely dish for garden parties and transports easily for a potluck supper. The original recipe included blue cheese, but I found that resulted in too many contrasting flavours. Asiago has a distinctive taste but doesn't clash with the pesto. 8 oz (225 gr) or 1 cup (250 mL) cream cheese ½ cup (125 mL) Asiago cheese, finely grated Salt and pepper ½ cup (125 mL) prepared pesto, blended very smooth (page 96)
½ cup (125 mL) sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped 1 small bunch parsley, finely chopped
Put the cream cheese into a shallow bowl and, with a fork, mash the Asiago cheese, salt and pepper into it until well combined. Line a terrine pan or small bowl with plastic wrap, allowing a generous overhang. Spread half the creamcheese mixture in the base of the pan. Cover with the pesto, then the sun-dried tomatoes. Top with the remaining cream cheese. Fold the plastic wrap over the top, sealing as well as possible. Put a piece of thick cardboard, cut to fit, over the terrine, and place a heavy weight, such as half a brick, on the cardboard. Refrigerate for 24 hours before removing weight. Unwrap and press freshly chopped parsley onto the sides and top. Serve with crackers. Makes approximately two cups
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Spanakopita There are as many recipes for spanakopita as there are Greek cooks. I like this one because it has more filling than pastry, and because I prefer the pungency of oregano to the astringency of the more traditional dill. 1 large bunch spinach Salt 1 large brown onion Olive oil 4 eggs 1 cup (250 mL) crumbled feta cheese
1 tsp (5 mL) dried oregano (or dill) Pepper 6–8 sheets phyllo pastry (or more if you like a lot of pastry) Olive oil or melted butter
Wash spinach well and put leaves in a large colander. Sprinkle them heavily with salt and rub it into the leaves, tearing them as you work. When the spinach is reduced to about one-third of its original bulk, rinse it thoroughly and squeeze as dry as you can. Peel and chop the onion coarsely, and sautĂŠ it in a little olive oil until it begins to brown. Add to the spinach. Beat the eggs, stir in the spinach, onion and crumbled feta cheese. Add the crushed oregano or dill, and season with plenty of pepper. Lightly paint the sheets of phyllo with olive oil or melted butter, stacking them as you go on a cookie sheet with shallow sides or in a shallow baking dish. Pile the spinach mixture on top of the stacked phyllo in a rectangle, fold the long sides over it, overlapping the edges well and sealing the join with cold water. Fold the ends up over the top and seal them also with water. Paint oil or butter over all the exposed surfaces of the packet. Now, slip your hands underneath and carefully flip the whole packet over so that the joined edges are on the bottom. If necessary use a spatula to help with this manoeuvre. Paint the new top with more oil or melted butter and slash it diagonally 3 or 4 times, cutting through all the top layers down to the filling. Bake at 350F (175C) for 40 to 50 minutes until nicely browned. Serve hot or cold. Makes four generous servings
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Hot Potato Salad I much prefer this recipe to a potato salad drowned in mayonnaise. Shaking the pot smashes the potatoes slightly and allows the oil and vinegar to sink in, but if the potatoes are particularly uniform and shapely, I omit that step. Although I like it best with rosemary, any garden herbs can be substituted. Coarse salt Pepper Finely chopped fresh rosemary or parsley
12–15 small new potatoes 1 Tbsp (15 mL) olive oil 1 tsp (5 mL) balsamic vinegar
Scrub potatoes, but do not peel. If necessary cut larger potatoes in half. Bring water to a boil and cook potatoes, covered, until just tender. Drain and return to warm pan. Sprinkle olive oil and vinegar over potatoes, return lid to pan and hold it on while shaking pan briefly. Remove lid, stir in salt, pepper, herbs. Serve immediately, straight from the pan. Makes four servings
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Broccoli Quiche I like broccoli in any form, raw or cooked, but if cooked it has to have a little fresh nutmeg grated over it. To me that’s a classic combination, like tomatoes and basil, mushrooms and thyme, or carrots and tarragon. With all of these vegetables, I automatically add the complementary spice or herb, regardless of what the recipe decrees. Pastry 1 cup (250 mL) flour 1 tsp (5 mL) salt
½ cup (125 mL) cold butter, diced 3 Tbsp (45 mL) iced water
Combine flour and salt. Blend in butter until pieces are between the size of peppercorns and small peas. Sprinkle iced water over and mix with a fork until the mixture clings together. Knead quickly and briefly into a ball. Chill for 1 hour.
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Filling ¼ cup (60 mL) grated Parmesan cheese, divided 2 cups (475 mL) fresh broccoli 1 cup (250 mL) Gruyère cheese, coarsely grated ½ cup (125 mL) green onions, sliced 3 eggs
⅔ cup (160 mL) chicken or vegetable broth ½ cup (125 mL) whipping cream ½ tsp (2.5 mL) salt A few dashes of Tabasco or chili sauce A pinch of nutmeg, freshly grated
Preheat oven to 450F (230C). Roll pastry to fit a 9-in (23-cm) pie plate. Prick bottom and sides with a fork, line with aluminum foil and fill with rice, dried beans or pie-weights. Bake for 5 minutes, remove rice and foil. Bake a further 2 minutes. Remove from oven. Scatter half the Parmesan over the crust, top with sliced broccoli stems and some of the florets. Cover with half the Gruyère cheese, followed by half the green onions. Repeat layers of broccoli, cheese, onions. Beat the eggs with broth, cream, salt and Tabasco until well combined. Pour over the broccoli mixture. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan and a little grated nutmeg. Bake 10 minutes at 450F (230C), reduce heat to 325F (160C), and continue baking for a further 30 minutes until filling is puffy and top is golden brown. Remove from oven and let stand 5 to 10 minutes before cutting. It is equally good served cold. Makes four servings
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august Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer... —William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, ca. 1610
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s the days grow hotter and drier, the barnyard flocks adjust their schedule to suit. The sheep move about in their slow, self-absorbed way, dozing under the trees in the early afternoon heat and hunting for anything still green to graze on the rest of the time, including, somewhat to my regret, the Siberian irises around the pond. Fortunately, these invincible plants rebound with few obvious scars. The hens also seek the shade, lurking under the poplars or scuffling through straw in the gloom of the barn. A succession of roosters has
kept watch over them, eyeing bald eagles high up in the blue sky. Arthur, our first rooster, was a fine black-and-white-striped Plymouth Rock. His successor, Dave, a gorgeous Buff Orpington who shone in the sun like a polished copper shield, was killed protecting his girls from an eagle. Both were buried under roses, like all lambs, cats and ducks that have met their end during our tenure. Most recently, Ron, another golden boy with a white and copper plume of tail feathers, has been guardian of the flock.
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August is get-away month for many families, not just the birds of summer. It is also getaway month for gardeners, but not in the same pleasurable way. I’m talking about get-awayfrom-you plants here—in my case bugle (Ajuga reptans), which has gotten away all over the place in my “hot” corner. I really like its shiny bronze leaves as a groundcover, and the flower is a nice strong blue, but you turn your back on it and it’s off, rampaging through clumps of campanula, enclosing my agapanthus in an
A Year at Ki llara Farm
Mid-month the Rufous hummingbirds leave for the south, vanishing suddenly, leaving the feeder hanging forlornly on its hook. The main flock of barn swallows begins to circle in the sky, morning and evening, preparing for their own departure. There is always one family raising a late brood. Sadly, their young won’t fledge in time, and they will be abandoned in the nest. Every year we see a few late-born babies meeting this fate as nature pressures the parents to start the long flight south.
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but they do need to be planted in big drifts to make a good show. I like them all, from tall, willowy ‘Herbstsonne’ to the shorter, sturdier varieties that hold themselves ramrod straight. Part of their charm for me is that they all have a big black button in the centre that makes a
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unwelcome hug and trampling ‘Mrs J. Bradshaw’, a geum I would prefer to keep. I acquired my original bugle plant in the Monashee Mountains at an old haunt of Michael’s—a fishing lodge on Fraser Lake not far from Cherryville. Those were my novice gardening days when I didn’t know a Parthenocissus from a Periclymenum. Bugle was growing all around the old lodge on the lakeside, and I was so struck by its sprawling beauty that I asked if I could take some home. The lodgekeeper was more than willing to part with a clump, and I paid little heed to his warning that I might be sorry. Actually I’m not, because I like it in spite of its unruly ways. At least it is one of the easy ones to pull out, unlike, say, Welsh poppies (which I also like) or the tenacious perennial cornflower, an over-generous gift from my mother-in-law! Originally I planted tufts of bugle over the top of tulip bulbs, figuring that this was a smart way of identifying where the bulbs were in their dormant season. It did work well for a year or two. The trouble is I didn’t keep an eye on it and the original tufts have grown into sizeable mats. Who knows where the bulbs are? Inevitably, right where I’ll drive the spade in as I try to plant another clump of rudbeckia ‘Rustic Mix’. Looking like small, elegant sunflowers, rudbeckias are among the best plants to keep the flower garden zinging as summer takes hold,
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There is a rudbeckia called ‘Irish Eyes’ that has a green centre instead of a black one, but I find it a rather strident contrast with the bright yellow of the petals. There is also the odd-looking ‘Green Wizard’, which has no petals at all—just the dark central cone held above a little green ruff of a calyx. I think it might look very stylish in the right place, but I haven’t found that place yet. A lot of other daisy-like perennials bloom now, including coreopsis, echinacea and gaillardia. Most of these are quite vivid, a lovely exception being Coreopsis ‘Moonbeam’ with its pale-yellow flower and dusty sage foliage. For more soft tones I plant some of the white and pastel chrysanthemum relatives like Anthemis tinctoria ‘Sauce Hollandaise’. The South African daisies (Osteospermum) are pretty too, especially ‘Whirligig’ with its blue and white petals shaped like the little silver salt spoons that my grandmother used in her cut-glass cruets. These daisies are another species that doesn’t overwinter for me out on the farm, but I’ve noticed that they are reliably hardy in the urban warmth of VanDusen Botanical Garden, which has quite a good selection in its Southern Hemisphere section. August also brings the late lilies, mostly Lilium regale hybrids. The biggest problem with them is their demand for support. I dislike intensely the appearance of stakes or, worse, those corsets of string or wire. Not to
A Year at Ki llara Farm
satisfying contrast with the petals. I am particularly fond of the short, toffee-coloured ‘Rustic Mix’, whose glowing velvet petals demonstrate that brown does not have to be a drab colour, especially when it’s flecked with gold, like a tiger’s eyes. It doesn’t overwinter for me, but it’s worth the cost of a seed packet every year.
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However, it does need support to prevent the oversized flowerheads from collapsing onto the ground. I am counting on a leaner diet than it got in the nursery to reduce the size of the flowers but, just for insurance, I’ve planted most of my second order under the edge of a fothergilla, whose woody branches should hold it up. Ideally, the tinge of autumn purple creeping into the fothergilla’s leaves will complement the colour of the lily. The remaining few lilies are partnering an early blooming rose that I hope will give them a shoulder to lean on when they need it.
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mention the fiddly task of installing them. Species lilies can usually stand unaided and so remain my favourites, but every so often, like all gardeners, I am tempted by a fulsome catalogue description into buying an enticing new variety. One year it was ‘Marco Polo’, an oriental lily that enchanted me enough to rush out and acquire more. The flowers are larger than I normally like a lily to be, but are redeemed by subtle hues of lilac pink around a green and white throat. A dusting of cinnamon freckles the same colour as its bold stamens and an exceptionally strong, sweet fragrance add to its charms.
A Year at Ki llara Farm
One of the most enjoyable tasks of my year falls in August—the cutting of the lavender beds. I never get to this in time to use the flowers for clever things like potpourri or little batons to scent the clothes closet, a deficiency I try to hide by claiming that I’m leaving the flowerheads to provide nectar for the bees. As a result, by the end of August when the tiny petals have all turned dry and brown, it is time to take action. It is a pleasant day’s task to clip the bushes into ball shapes that will keep them neat and compact all winter. There is a practical reason for this clipping as well as an aesthetic one: without tight pruning the plants develop bare, woody bases that gradually collapse outwards, leaving ugly hollow centres surrounded by a few flowering stems. Shears in hand, I wade into the stillfragrant masses of foliage. Seeds and stems fly
everywhere as I slash through the knee-high jungle and the pungent scent fills the air. Once the top growth has been removed I can see again the shapes of individual bushes and each can be trimmed and groomed to stand apart from its neighbours. If I were a perfectionist, each ball would end up exactly matched to its fellows, but some plants have always grown more vigorously than others and the danger of cutting back beyond the point where new growth will sprout stays my hand. As a result, the mounds are all slightly different sizes and it is only the identical shape of the four rectangular beds that gives them formality. I do try, though, to keep the tops aligned so that they are all in the same horizontal plane. New leaves will soon spring from the cut stems and before long each plant will bristle like a hedgehog with silvery prickles. In winter when their frosted tips are bathed in pale early morning sunlight, they will bring me as much pleasure as their sea of purple bloom does in midsummer. But, for now, all the pleasure is concentrated in one sense as I heap armfuls of fragrant stems into the wheelbarrow to be carried off to the compost heap. At the end of the day, I get another reminder of my day’s task when I take off my gardening clogs and shake out little showers of pungent seeds. One August we took a three-week trip to Quebec and New England, coming home to find the garden exhausted by hot, dry weather.
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Among those continuing to bloom, pink ‘Felicia’ was full of flowers. Its sister rose, ‘Buff Beauty’, though more sparing, was also in its second bloom period of the year. ‘Lavender Friendship’, a modest but pretty little climber, would have been more productive if I had been there to deadhead its first display, as would that voluptuous old white tea rose, ‘Sombreuil’. However, the grafted ‘Mme Alfred Carrière’ smothering the northwest corner of the house was in triumphant bloom. My second plant of this, growing on its own roots in considerably more shade under our scruffy Douglas fir, was thriving too, but so far flowerless after its summer flush. A number of perennials were still in lusty form, particularly penstemons. Several had gone to seed, but if I wasted no time in clipping them back, they’d bloom again in a month’s time. And all the rudbeckia were doing just fine, eclipsing their echinacea relatives which, though still flowering, were washed out and drooping. Most of the summer clematis had gone to pretty seed heads, a significant exception being rampant C. rehderiana, whose little bells of pale yellow stand up on stiff stalks like tiny pennants and waft a delicious perfume on the warm evening air. ‘Star of India’, draping a corner of the shed that serves as Michael’s studio, was also brave with bloom. I’m coming
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It was a good opportunity to see what plants coped best with drought. Close inspection showed that most of the brown was just the grass, although some plants and shrubs were suffering too. Of these, the worst was a viburnum that had quite a lot of singed leaves. It is in one of the driest beds, being close to the row of poplars that lines our driveway, but witch hazel ‘Arnold Promise’ is also in that bed and, although looking a bit tired, it was clearly not in trouble. Perennials such as phlox had bloomed and dried out, while the white campion I use so extensively as a filler had gone to seed everywhere. Purple-leafed bugbane, which likes both shade and moisture, was about to flower despite some shrivelled foliage, but its greenleafed relative, growing right beside it, was in a deep sulk with just a miserable leaf or two visible. Nevertheless, many plants were not showing any signs of stress at all, notably the old garden roses, which were green and thriving. Rosa alba ‘Semiplena’, towering over the east border, was clothed in foliage of a fresh, pale, sage green. ‘Wickwar’ was also making a generous fountain of leaves, interspersed with tiny hips just beginning to take on some colour. The apple rose, Rosa villosa, was living up to its name with bright-red crabapple fruits thick on its branches.
A Year at Ki llara Farm
to appreciate it more each year, not just for its deep-purple flower banded with crimson, but also for its exceptionally generous output and long flowering period. Another stalwart, little ‘Duchess of Albany’, one of the Texensis clematis, was still producing a few candy-pinkstriped little trumpets alongside the brass seed heads of earlier bloom. Non-climbing Clematis ‘Olgae’, sprawling through supporting roses, was continuing to put out a few bleached-denim flowers among their stems. It promises to enliven a fairly colourless area of the garden in future years and tones well with Russian sage in bloom farther down the border. However, the sage is ungainly in my heavy soil and might get replaced with something sturdier, perhaps some more of aster ‘Poolicht’ that blooms at the same time in a generous froth of ice blue. This aster, whose name sounds better in the English translation as ‘Polar Light’, so pleased me in its first year that I promptly added more to make a big drift. The drought while we’d been away had given them a hard start and they hadn’t bulked up as expected. I consoled myself with the thought that, after another year’s growth, they would surely become the feature I hoped for. All of the grapevines on the house’s front terrace were thriving and developing trusses of green or purple grapes. Pruning back the leggy tentacles sprawling in every direction was my first task. Behind the house, the fruit
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times his visits from Australia to coincide with their ripening. Those we don’t eat fresh usually go into a free-form pie, or a french flan, or are frozen for winter use. Spring greens are mostly over, and what remains is getting tough and bitter, but there are still good crops of arugula and carrots. Beans and peas will need daily picking while the pods are small and flavourful. We like to grow two venerable varieties: ‘Blue Lake’ beans for their good flavour, and ‘Tall Telephone’ peas for their name. I select some of the straightest young beans for packing into jars in a spicy vinaigrette that keeps in the refrigerator for several weeks. A good side dish with fish or chicken, they can also be chopped and mixed into my Hot Potato Salad (page 99) with some of their pickling liquid if I’m too lazy to make a dressing from scratch.
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on the espaliered apple trees was smaller than usual, partly no doubt from lack of water but also because I hadn’t thinned out the clusters. By contrast, my ‘Doyenne du Comice’ pear tree had a serious crop of fruit for the first time in its life—so thick, in fact, that several branches had broken under the weight. I propped it up on hastily erected supports, anticipating a good harvest of this most delicious of all its kind. Best of all, the first of the blackberries were ripe. We have a huge hedge of them jammed between the concrete apron south of the barn and the ditch that separates our property from the road. In this confined space they provide year-round protection for small birds and, more unfortunately, a colony of rabbits that recently moved in. All kinds of birds arrive to share the crop, as do a few humans including my nonagenarian stepfather, who carefully
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Herb-crusted Salmon Warmed by July’s sunshine, herbs are at their most pungent. We use them fresh in most meals as well as harvesting bunches and drying them on our kitchen rack. And in this same summer month we can anticipate a phone call from our local deep-sea fisherman, returning from northern waters with fresh sockeye salmon. We rush to buy as many as we can afford, and I spend a messy afternoon filleting them and packing them into freezer bags. I always reserve a side of filleted fish to bake with a crust of just-gathered herbs: tarragon, chives, basil, a few new sorrel leaves and lots of thyme. 1 lemon Fillet of half a fresh salmon Salt and pepper ¾ cup (180 mL) breadcrumbs
½ cup (125 mL) fresh herbs, finely chopped (parsley, sorrel, chives, basil, tarragon, thyme) ¼ cup (60 mL) butter, melted 1–2 Tbsp (15–30 mL) dry white wine
Finely grate the zest of the lemon and set aside. Cut lemon and squeeze half over the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay the fillet in a well-buttered baking dish. Process the breadcrumbs and herbs until the bread is fine and the mixture is pale green. Add the lemon zest, a little salt and pepper, two-thirds of the butter and the juice of the remaining half-lemon. Process until the mixture begins to bind together. If necessary, add a little cold water. Spoon the mixture over the salmon fillet and press down lightly to form an even layer. Drizzle the remain ing butter over, and pour the wine around the salmon. Cover with buttered parchment and bake at 450F (230C) for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet, removing the parchment paper for the last couple of minutes to crisp the crust. Alternatively, microwave the salmon on high for 2½ minutes, then spread on the crust and place under a very hot grill until lightly browned. Cut into serving-sized pieces and serve. Makes six servings
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Diane’s Arkansas Green Beans This recipe dates back to my early carefree and footloose days in Vancouver. Diane was a native of Arkansas who, like me, was passing through the city and somehow ended up staying. I lost touch with her decades ago, but still remember her whenever I make this recipe. Tarragon vinegar is easy to make at home: just combine half a dozen sprigs of fresh tarragon with 2 cups (475 mL) of good-quality white-wine vinegar in a clean glass container. Store in a cool, dark place. After a couple of weeks, when the tarragon has lost much of its colour, strain into sterilized bottles. For a decorative touch, add a fresh sprig to each bottle. 2 big handfuls of green beans 1 clove garlic, crushed ½ cup (125 mL) sugar ½ cup (125 mL) vinegar (preferably tarragon vinegar) 1 tsp (5 mL) paprika
½ tsp (2.5 mL) pepper 1 Tbsp (15 mL) Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp (5 mL) salt 1 cup (250 mL) olive oil Juice of 1 lemon
Steam beans until just barely tender. Drain and cool slightly. Pack into a canning jar large enough to hold the beans vertically. In a screw-top jar, mix and shake remaining ingredients. Pour over beans and allow to marinate at least 24 hours. Beans will keep in refrigerator for a week or more as long as they are well covered by the liquid. Makes two eight-ounce jars
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Fresh Herb Butter This is also good on grilled or barbecued meat or fish. ½ cup (125 mL) butter, softened 1 Tbsp (15 mL) fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 Tbsp (15 mL) fresh chives, finely chopped 1 Tbsp (15 mL) fresh thyme, finely chopped
Blend or process all ingredients. Spoon onto a sheet of foil in a log shape, roll up firmly and refrigerate until firm. Makes eight portions
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Carrot Crepes This makes a good luncheon dish or light supper, accompanied by a mixed salad. The crepe recipe makes too many for the two of us; I freeze the extras with a layer of wax paper between each one. They thaw quickly at room temperature, ready to be filled for a last-minute meal. Crepes ½ cup (125 mL) flour 2 eggs ž cup (180 mL) milk 2 tsp (10 mL) light oil Put all ingredients into food processor or blender, and process until smooth. Pour into jug and let stand for 30 minutes. Over medium heat, lightly grease a shallow, heavybased pan and pour in just enough batter to swirl over the base. Cook until the underside is lightly browned and bubbles appear on the upper surface. Flip and brown the other side. Invert onto a wire rack. Continue to cook the rest of the crepes, stacking them on top of each other as they are done. You should not need to re-grease the pan.
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Filling 2 medium carrots, chopped 1 Tbsp (15 mL) cream 2 eggs, separated 2 Tbsp (30 mL) Parmesan cheese, grated
1 Tbsp (15 mL) fresh tarragon, finely chopped (or 1 tsp/5 mL dried tarragon) Salt and pepper Fresh herb butter (page 115)
Boil, steam or microwave carrots until tender. Drain. PurĂŠe until well blended but still with some texture. Beat together carrot purĂŠe, cream and egg yolks. Stir in cheese and tarragon. Whip egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold them into mixture. Season with salt and pepper. With a spatula, spread a thin layer over a crepe, fold in half. If your crepes are quite large, fold again to form a triangle. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Arrange crepes in a single, slightly overlapping layer on an oven tray. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan. Bake until heated through and puffy, about 15 minutes. Slice fresh herb butter into rounds and set a round on each hot crepe just before serving. Makes eight crepes
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Blackberry Tart This is almost as good with frozen blackberries, but let them partially thaw and drain them before using. Blueberries are also good. Pastry 1⅔ cups (410 mL) flour ¼ cup (60 mL) sugar ⅔ cup (160 mL) unsalted butter, chilled
Yolk of 1 large egg 3 Tbsp (45 mL) iced water Pinch of salt
With a pastry blender, cut flour, sugar and butter together until butter is the size of small peas. Blend egg yolk with 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the water and add to the flour mixture, adding additional water if necessary until the pastry just comes together. Or, put all ingredients except 1 tablespoon (15 mL) of water into a food processor and blend until just binding together, adding the additional water if required. Turn pastry out onto a floured board and knead gently until the texture is smooth. Don’t overwork at this stage or the pastry will be tough. Wrap in foil or plastic wrap and chill for an hour. Roll out the pastry to fit a 10-in (25-cm) tart pan with a removable base. Filling 2 large eggs
2 Tbsp (30 mL) sugar 3 cups (700 mL) blackberries 2 Tbsp (30 mL) sugar, additional
2 Tbsp (30 mL) flour 1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Beat eggs, flour, baking powder and sugar together until light and very pale. Fold in the blackberries, pour into the prepared crust and sprinkle with the additional sugar. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the top is nicely browned. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing the tart-pan ring. Makes six to eight servings
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