26 minute read
À La Carte
À La Carte Taking Better Photographs ...
Colour
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by Steve Marshall
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
Human beings are a visual species. Dogs see most of the world with their noses but we use our eyes. One of the most important aspects of our seeing the world is colour, or lack of it.
Ansel Adams’ black & white photographs of the American west are part of my understanding of photography. The photography of Henri Cartier Bresson is a lesson in black & white photography and photo-journalism.
As newspapers and London theatres dropped their black & white images for colour in the 1970s, I remember feeling something was being lost, whereas colour was being given its place.
We live in a world of colour and most of us carry a colour camera wherever we go.
As I have said before, most of the images captured with modern cameras loose a little contrast and a little colour when they are taken.
The easiest way to bring this back is with one of the many free photo editors you can download from the internet, such as Gimp, Canva, Fotor, FastStone and InPixio. Each will have a method of adjusting contrast and colour saturation.
Contrast is for another day, but why adjust colour?
The simplest of adjustments is to turn an image from colour to black & white. This works for some images but
not all. Black & white makes the image about tone, about highlights and shadows and the shades of grey in between. It can make it more about shape and texture than about the subject itself.
And I think a lot of this is personal. As colour film became available, Ansel Adams did use it to produce some wonderful images. Henri Cartier Bresson famously quipped that ‘colour is bullshit’.
My examples here are two sprays of grass from May of this year.
They have been chosen because neither is particularly strong in colour but both have an interesting tonal range – from highlights that head toward white through to near blacks. And neither suffers from burnt out whites that loose detail or deep blacks that absorb and kill detail.
If you increase the saturation on a bright red flower it can very soon become over-coloured and appear artificial. Similarly, if you take a pale subject without much tonal variation and reduce the saturation to black & white, it can feel limp and diminished.
These images pushed in each direction produce a gradation from black & white to depths of colour that I do not feel slip over into the false or synthetic.
And you may disagree, which would be great. There is no ‘best’ colour level for any photograph. The best photograph is the one the audience likes and that may be an audience of just you or just me. I know which of these images I like the most. Your choice may well be different.
I want to encourage you to try this. Not necessarily with favourite family photos or precious memories but with the photographs you have taken to create an image.
Download one of these programs. FastStone is the free one I use and it is very easy to make these adjustments.
Take a few of your photographs and see what happens. I have discovered a growing enjoyment in images that are not fully black & white but are heading that way. And then there are some where pushing some extra colour adds a layer of interest that cannot be seen in the image straight out of the camera..
If you want to talk about the software or what you may be able to do with your photographs please get in touch. There are a number of photographers in the area, and we get together on an informal basis from time to time. Looking at and commenting on each other’s images has, I think, improved everyone’s photography.
I can be contacted on stevemarshall128@gmail.com
lOve yOur garden
by Greenfingers
We have been making most of the fine, warm weather and continued our walking in the countryside. It never fails to amaze me just how much you can see and hear on a long walk in the outdoors. The wealth of wild flowers (I’m trying to learn the French names for them!) and insect life, particularly the butterflies, has been interesting and rewarding to see. The most common variety (we see a lot of them) seems to be the Orange Tip. It has brilliant orange tips and a grey/cream colour to the upper pair of wings, with a creamy/buff colouring to the lower pair. We do see some that have both sets of wings completely orange in colour, though. There is the occasional pure yellow variety also. The Red Admiral seems to have bred in abundance this year and I have had many in the garden. I think the other brown/orange coloured variety we have noticed is the Comma, very delicate looking with wings that have ‘sculpted’ edges. One of the roads that we often walk along has a totally different population of wild flowers on the right, compared to the species on the left hand side. This is due mainly to the shade cast by trees on the right, against the absence of trees on the left. The right is more prolific, with large populations of cow parsley, stinging nettles, hawthorn, blackberries and elder. The mallow flowers are there in their pink ‘skirts’, but the stems are much shorter and the flowers smaller. The wild clematis is twining everywhere and that will look stunning when it comes into flower. The wild fruits, although plentiful, are much smaller, due to the lack of rain needed to swell them properly, but the Deadly Nightshade berries are looking stunning, in orangey-red against their lovely purple flowers. The wild grass species are doing very well, if a little dry. On the left hand side, it is very, very dry and most of the plants are stunted or dying and the brambles are making the most of overwhelming everything they can scramble over. As we walk up towards what we call the ‘plateau’, we walk past the two etangs that feed into the larger lake further down the hill, and it is very distressing to see that all the water has gone and they are completely empty and dry. The sad thing is that all the wild life that lived in them has disappeared; the birds that fed on the insects that skimmed their surfaces, are having to feed on something else now. Perhaps some of the amphibians’ will have been able to bury themselves in the muddy sediment at the bottom of the etang and be able to emerge unscathed. Hopefully when the rain does return, perhaps a little later in the season, the wildlife will return too.
Now is the time to :
• Plant up as many spring bulbs as you can, to encourage pollinators into the garden. In addition to the usual narcissi, daffodils and crocuses, try snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) and winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis). It’s a good time to plant cyclamen corms too, they self- seed after the first flowering and are delightful, delicate looking flowers to have in pots or borders.
• Plant hardy spring
‘flowerers’. Among the best are; wallflowers, primulas, forget-menots, bergenia and erythroniums, all of which are easy to grow and look after. • Collect up any leaves that are still lying on the ground or the grass and make them into leaf mold. Place damp leaves into large plastic bags (dustbin sized) seal the bags and pierce holes in the sides. Leave the bags in a corner of the garden and forget about them. A quicker way of preparing the leaves, is to rake them all together and run the mower over them. This increases their surface area, but reduces the volume so they are easier to bag up. The smaller the size, the quicker they decompose. The leaves in the bags will slowly rot down and turn into a dry, sweet smelling mixture which will act as a very useful mulch and when added to pots or flower beds acts as a soil conditioner and enricher. • Give the compost heap a vigorous turn to help speed up decomposition. Doing it at this slightly earlier time of year will avoid disturbing any hibernating hedgehogs and other small mammals or snakes which may take up residence later. • Remove any leaves on roses which show signs of black spot or have become yellowed or brown. • Whilst the soil is moist, it’s a good time to plant or move trees and shrubs. This allows the roots to become established before the first frosts arrive. I’m mentioning frost deliberately, as when the winter arrived in our area last year, the frosts were severe enough to damage the foliage of several of the trees and scorched foliage on some of the shrubs and larger perennials too. The flower bud formation was also affected and some of the blooms were distorted when they flowered.
As we have seen real evidence of climate change with our
drought and very high temperatures this year, I would rather be cautious and plant earlier in case our winter brings an extra cold surprise with it! • Lift and divide perennials that have formed large clumps.
Geraniums, hemerocallis, hedychiums, irises, hebes etc.
Dividing perennials not only gives you more plants for free, but also encourages new and more vigorous, healthy growth of the original plants. If you prefer to leave them in large clumps, then just cut them back to ground level, leaving those with pretty seed-heads as a bit of winter interest and also to provide habitat and shelter for wildlife. • Cut back any clematis plants that have been wind damaged or have just become very ‘leggy’, this will encourage new growth that will have a chance to ‘harden off’ before the end of the year. • Lift some summer flowering bulbs now, including gladioli, galtonia and tigridia, and be store them in trays in a dry, frostfree place. • Check fig trees for any remaining figs and harvest them.
Leave any tiny figs on the tree, but cover with fleece if frost is forecast and there will be a chance that they will overwinter and ripen at the end of spring. • Potato foliage which has turned yellow should be removed and the last of the maincrop potatoes can be lifted ready to store. Allow the tubers to dry out properly and then place them in a dry, dark place. Examine them regularly for signs of rot. • Complete the harvest of apples and pears and peaches. I’ve had an abundant crop of pears this year, but the peaches, although numerous in quantity, all suffered from rot or were eaten by birds. I’m trying to find out what the rot was, and will give the tree an anti-fungal wash treatment at the end of the year. • Grapes should be harvested now too. • Once blackberries, loganberries and tayberries have been harvested, the fruited canes can be pruned down to ground level and any new canes can be tied in to supports. • Spring cabbage can be planted out when they have produced five or six true leaves. The lowest leaves should be at ground level when the cabbages are planted. Brussels sprouts plants should be mounded up around their bases with compost or mulch to prevent root rock during windy weather. • Generally speaking, shrubs that flower in winter and early summer, should not be pruned now. Next years’ flower buds are already being formed and pruning will just remove some of them or damage them. The dead flower heads of hydrangea should be left on to protect the buds forming underneath them. Hardy fuchsias and salvias should be pruned in early spring. Other shrubs not to prune now include, forsythia, hamamelis, kerria, mahonia, philadelphus, weigela, camellia, buddleia, and berberis. • Clear away any stakes, poles or plant supports that may still be in the ground but are not being used - it prevents getting a poke in the eye when bending over to look at something and also looks tidier. • If you have tree ferns in the garden, don’t forget to protect the crowns by folding the fronds over and pushing them into the exposed centre. Rolling up some garden fleece and filling the central cone to protect it is useful as an ‘add on’ protection. If really cold weather is forecast, wrap the trunk in fleece or hessian too. • Prune back roses by a third, removing the soft, slightly floppy new growth at the top, creating a tidy shape and reducing the height at the same time. This helps to prevent root rock caused by high winds. If the rose produces lots of hips then leave them for the birds and postpone the pruning until spring. • Keep flowering pots colourful by taking out the summer bedding plants and replacing them with pansies, muscari bulbs, tulips, primulas or wallflowers. • Some hardy perennial seeds can be collected and sown straight away; these include, astrantia and valerian. • If planted up pots are going to be left outside, then lift them up by using house bricks, pot feet or flat pieces of stone. This allows water to drain away from the holes in the bottom of the pot and prevents waterlogging and frost damage.
• If you haven’t installed a water butt or a recuperateur, then try and do it soon so that autumn and winter rainfall can be collected and used next year ... even more important now after the drought of this year. A simple dustbin can suffice! • As the light levels drop and the damp increases, grey mould can easily develop on the leaves of some plants, particularly those with hairy leaves. Keep inspecting them and if any of them show signs of this infection, cut the leaves off. • Sweet peas seeds can be sown now. It’s a good idea to use root trainer pots for these as they give more space for a longer root run, but any tall pot will do. This gives the plants a
Continued .....
chance to develop stronger root systems and they will have a more prolonged flowering season next year. • Once the fern like foliage on asparagus has turned yellow, cut it back. Cut the shoots back to ground level and mulch well. • Leave an area in the garden for a log pile and a leaf pile, for wildlife to use as a shelter when the colder weather arrives. • Do regular snail and slug hunts after wet weather to remove these pests before they can do any damage. • Dahlia tubers need lifting after the foliage has been blackened by frost. If you live in a milder area with not much risk of frost, the tubers can be left in the ground covered with a thick layer of mulch to protect them. • If there is an empty flower bed available, sow it with rye grass or vetch. These seeds will germinate and grow during the autumn and winter and the resulting plants can be dug into the soil next spring. If you prefer to leave the bed fallow, cover it with plastic sheeting to prevent weed growth. • Garlic bulbs need a touch of cold or frost to help the bulbs to develop, so don’t cover them unless they are the soft necked varieties. • Collect the seed-heads from climbing plants ready for sowing in the spring. Collect on a dry day and allow the seeds to dry for a day or two, then remove the husks and pour the seeds into paper bags or envelopes to store them. Keep in a dry, dark place. • Check any outdoor pots for weeds and pest damage.
Deadhead and cut back some of the softer, green growth.
The plants will not grow as actively now, so reduce the level of watering too. If pots feel very light, they probably need watering. Another easy check, just push your fingers into the compost a few centimetres down, to feel moisture levels. • Trim back hardy geraniums such as ‘Rozanne’, which has quite a ‘sprawling’ habit, as this will tidy up the shape and also allow more air and light to circulate around the plant. If spring bulbs have been planted nearby, these will also have more room to emerge. • Cover any salad plants that are still growing with cloches or fleece to prolong their productivity. • Divide large clumps of herbs such as marjoram and thyme. • Harvest pumpkins and squashes once they are ripe and ready to eat and store the others for later. • It is the time to order bare root trees and shrubs. These are cheaper than potted varieties and have established root systems already, and are hardened to growing in open ground. Make sure the ground is well prepared and not too wet when planting. • Sow some broad beans now for a crop that will be ready by
May next year. If sown at monthly intervals,, they will provide a good successional crop. • Strim wildflower areas, but don’t cut too short; the slightly longer grass helps insect life to overwinter safely. • It is a good time to plan and plant a hedge. Dig a trench in your chosen site, then replace all the soil into it and level it off. Place the hedging plants along the centre of the now refilled trench ... for deciduous species, about 45cms apart; for evergreen species, about 90cms apart. Prepare a hole for each plant that is equal to the depth of the pot it was in when you bought it, or from the beginning of the root growth.
Put firmly into the hole and refill with earth. Tamp down to exclude air and water in with diluted plant feed. The hedge won’t need feeding again until next year. • If you have the space, think about planting a couple of flowering trees. There are some beautiful varieties available which will add interest to the garden and also support more wildlife. It is a less stressful time of year for the trees too ...
there is very little water loss from the plants, so they can put all their energies into root production whilst there is still a bit of warmth left in the soil. Apparently when deciduous trees lose their leaves in autumn, there is a natural surge in root growth! With evergreen trees they lose their leaves continuously, a few at a time throughout the year, so their growth never stops. Some good examples include : • Albizia (the silk tree) with its’ delicate looking pink blossom. It can grow from 4-8 metres in height. It is a very popular tree here and I have seen many flowering well this year ... they are gorgeous to look at and will enhance any garden. Albizia does best in a sheltered site, south or west facing and in well drained soil and is hardy down to about -10°C. • Punica granatum (the Pomegranate), which is available as a small tree and suitable even for a small garden. The flowers are bright orange and the fruits are edible if a little small.
Small specimens will reach a height of around a metre or two.
Punica does best in a sheltered position near a south facing wall and prefers well drained soil. It won’t normally survive a very hard frost, but can take up to -4°C
• Another popular tree here, is Largerstroemia indica, the crape myrtle. This has privet like foliage and abundant pink flowers. I have one in a pot on the terrace and it is full of buds at the moment. Most of the garden centres can supply them in various sizes. They can reach a height of 8m, but it can be pruned to keep it smaller. These trees enjoy full sun, in a sheltered south or west facing aspect in moist, well drained soil. Hardy down to about -5°C. • The Cornus family has several very popular varieties which are normally very easy to grow. These are members of the dogwood family and one of their main attractions is their colourful stems, particularly those with a reddish hue ... a real show piece on a dull winter day. These trees are firm favourites in Japan, China and Korea. They flower in early summer ... the petals of the flowers are really bracts that are often white or cream. Cornus can reach a height of 8m, but again can be pruned to keep it smaller. Cornus kousa is a well known variety that has the usual cream coloured flowers that are then followed by deep pink strawberry like fruits and orange-red autumn leaves. A real dazzler! Cornus does best in well drained soil in sun or partial shade and is very hardy down to about 15°C. • I’m basing all these measurements and figures on my own reading of various books and magazines, and my own practice, but remember temperatures vary enormously depending on the aspect. Soils in each area vary greatly too and we all add, compost, mulch, soil enhancers etc., etc. which can change pH from time to time. You may well
find that something that grows really well in your particular garden, might not perform as well in mine. Much of what we do is trial and error which always brings more positive surprises than failures. I don’t give up easily and sometimes push the boundaries, but it gives us experience and adds to our knowledge,learning and enjoyment! I’ve just gained a really useful little book, given away free with one of my French gardening magazines. The title is just ‘End of Summer cuttings’ A fabulous little tome which lays out the basics of all cutting methods and then devotes a page to several individual/different plants, including hedging, aromatic herbs, shrubs (buddleia, citrus plants, conifers, dahlias, fig trees, etc. There are 66 mini pages in the book and lots of advice on increasing the stock of each plant, how to do it and when to do it. This mini book was given away free with Détente Jardin no.157. If you see the magazine with the right number, it’s well worth buying it just for the book! Whatever you do in your garden, enjoy it! Don’t forget to stand back from time to time and relish what you have done, even if it’s just planting some seeds. Keep the woolly hats ready for the cooler temperatures and make sure you stop and look whilst enjoying that cuppa outside. Greenfingers
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit, the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, and all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting, careless on the granary floor, thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, drows’d with the fume of poppies while thy hook, Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; and sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; or by a cyder press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. John Keats
The most famous Autumn poem of all time possibly? If you ever studied English Lit at school, you will have read this one many times and grown to love it or loathe it.
DONNA IN HER POTAGER
October 2022
The transition has begun!
As the weather has cooled to normal temperatures and the rain arrived over the last few weeks, I’ve felt much happier about working outside so I’ve managed to spend some time working on the transition to a no dig bed in the area where the straw bales were. The leeks planted in the straw were pulled and eaten in various dishes (a frittata, a Homity pie [one of my favourites!] and pasta) and the Brussels sprouts and rainbow chard were transplanted to no dig beds already established and both are looking very happy and growing well. The nasturtiums were pulled and some were transplanted, but the rest had the leaves and flowers removed and a big batch of pesto was made for the freezer. I use walnuts in my pesto – I have two trees making it a much cheaper pesto than one made with pine nuts! I have another swathe of nasturtiums that requires ‘tidying’ and I’m going to make a batch of pesto using sunflower seeds.
After umming and aahing about the layout of that part of the potager post bale removal, I set my mind on a layout … which changed. My initial thought was to remove half the ‘C’ of bales, roll back the ground cover and spread the straw over the
by Donna Palframan
bare earth, leaving the other half of the bales until later in the year. I would have a path between the two parts and leave the fence posts with supporting wires for climbers. That was the first change – the posts came up as it would be easier to lift the ground cover, which I feared might be difficult. However, it peeled back really easily with only a couple of dandelion anchors, although the roll of ground cover still needs to be rolled right back but it is too heavy for me on my own. Very pleased with my progress, I surveyed the bed and decided that really I wanted one big bed, giving me three distinct growing areas in the potager, divided by three paths running parallel. So, up came the other fence posts and as much ground cover peeled back as I could but there was the problem of the sweet potatoes growing in the remaining bales. Hmm. Should I try moving them? Then came the lightbulb moment – leave an island of bales for them. I lifted as much ground cover as I could, but had to cut it one side of the island with the other sides having the ground cover rolled up around it. This would also help to keep the straw in place and help keep the straw moist and, when the sweet potatoes are harvested, it can be lifted and put on
the bank to help suppress the weeds on there. There is a nice thick layer of rotting straw on my new bed and for the next few months, when the chicken house is cleaned out, the straw and poo will go directly onto it with leaves and other vegetable matter (peelings etc) before being topped with compost; so it will be a sort of lasagna meets no dig bed.
I was hoping to get some more seeds in but other things have taken over a bit as cider and poiré making has started earlier this year. It’s all been very strange really, as with the incredibly dry summer we’ve had, I expected the trees to want to hold onto their fruit for longer and I thought the blackberries would be little, dry, sharp fruits but they are enormous in places and so juicy! The apples and pears are the same – very juicy with lots of flavour. Cider making has changed a little this year with some single varieties being made in small batches and fermented in demi -johns and the bulk of the apples are going to be fermented in a variable capacity vessel. This, for those of you who didn’t know (and I certainly didn’t), is a vessel made of fibreglass that has a lid with an air chamber, rather like the inner tube of a bicycle tyre around its Cherry Tree Forest circumference. When there is a volume of juice in the vessel, the lid can be lowered and the chamber inflated thus preventing contamination of the juice. The lid is vented so the fermentation gases can escape. It also means that we can take a bit longer collecting the apples and pressing them. So far, we’ve picked apples on low branches from two of our orchards and collected them from the ground using the mechanised apple picker and there are still a lot of apples on the trees. The third and largest orchard will be tackled in the next week or two. I have been told we are aiming for 750 bottles this year…. Harvesting is well under way with a good crop of tomatoes, although there is competition with slugs and snails. I made the mistake of not harvesting for a couple of days and, just as the tomatoes ripen, they were being eaten by the little creatures, so now as soon as they have the tinge of ripeness, they are picked and finished off in safety. The courgettes are producing well now too. Not so many that I have nightmares, but enough to make plenty of ratatouille, grate some for the freezer and eat them fresh but plenty for our needs. Last year’s curly kale flowered and went to seed and is now producing lots of leaves, so that can stay in the ground and this year’s sowings of kale are coming on in leaps and bounds, although the nasturtiums are being a bit too effusive so they will be pesto before we next meet. After the disastrous start to my first encounters with collards, we have finally managed to eat some, although the leaves were quite small but they are now getting big so are ready to be experimented with. The Brussel sprouts are growing very well so we should have a bumper crop – just as well we like them! I can see a lot of Brussels and blue cheese bakes on the menu this winter followed by leftovers being made into soup! As for the rainbow chard I transplanted, the beautiful rain has perked them up and now they are looking luscious.
The triffids amazingly survived the drought and their fruits, the potimarron, are ripening and I have cut one to make squash, chard and chilli pasties. I need to be patient as the stalks aren’t completely withered yet but I will have about seven or eight fruits, so I didn’t think one would be missed. On the subject of squashes, I am also happy to tell you that I have four butternuts! It is now a race for them to ripen but the skins are changing colour so I’m hopeful they will. The weather has reverted to how it should be and everything is looking great in the potager – thank you for doing the rain dance!
