A Garden in the Hills E-Book

Katharine Stewart

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 217

Beschreibung

From the author of the Highland classic A Croft in the Hills, this illustrated book celebrates one of mankind's oldest pleasures. Month by month we are taken through a year in the life of Katharine Stewart's garden. The circle of the seasons is luminously evoked as we are told of the practicalities of gardening, cooking, bee-keeping and wine-making. Peppered with warm, personal insights, good humour and a love of living things, the joy of nature has never sounded so rewarding.

Leseprobe

Other books by Katharine Stewart include:

A Croft in the Hills

Crofts and Crofting

A School in the Hills

The Post in the Hills

First published in 1995 by Mercat Press Reprinted in 2006 This edition published in 2012 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © Katharine Stewart 1995, 2012 Illustrations copyright © Anne Shortreed 1995, 2012

The moral right of Katharine Stewart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher

ISBN-13: 978 1 78027 037 1 eBook ISBN: 978 0 85790 743 1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Bembo at Birlinn

Dedication

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Foreword

In the Beginning . . .

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

ILLUSTRATIONS

‘Weeds . . . the ever-recurring problem’

‘A boletus or two to cook in a little oil’

‘Down the wooded slope towards the big loch’

‘A Victorian water-can, bought at a garden sale’

‘But gardens must rest . . .’

‘A swarm landed on a sturdy plant’

‘I look on this old garden with new eyes’

‘Drawing back the curtain, I looked out’

‘They will fashion most beautiful wreaths’

‘A white foxglove stands, tall and straight’

‘A sleek, dark body scrambles ashore’

‘You have orchids growing in the yard!’

‘It will always be June’

FOREWORD

BY

NAOMI MITCHISON

A garden is always pulling one like a three-year old grandchild wanting to get away and do something that the grown-ups don’t want him to do. Things you put in carefully just decide not to grow. Or else something you almost throw away produces a flower that takes your breath away with its beauty. What you see from a book may show things as they are in a garden, or it may only show you things that someone—the gardener—chooses to let you see. When you read this book you must decide how real is the picture that goes into your mind’s eyes. I think this book will help you to see things as they are, their problems and difficulties, but also the special beauty of a garden in a difficult place, the excitement when everything goes well. In a book like this the happiness, the flowers and the people go on and on for as long as you read it.

Naomi Mitchison

In the Beginning . . .

God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed, it is the purest of Human Pleasures. It is the greatest Refreshment to the Spirits of Man.

Francis Bacon

When the three of us—my husband, my daughter and I—came to live in the old schoolhouse at Abriachan we had just, reluctantly, had to give up working our croft a little further up the hill. Before long, therefore, we had the three-quarters of an acre of school garden made into a mini-croft with chickens, a goat and honey bees, as well as many kinds of vegetables and flowers.

It had been hard going, as the ground had been neglected since the closure of the school some years previously. But we worked away, clearing drains, mending fences and dykes. We planted a plum tree to companion the old apple-bearer and brought in fantail pigeons to delight the eye. Soon we were able to see a pattern emerging and to relax a little.

My husband was postmaster, working from a tiny office in the front porch, and I was teaching in Inverness. As his health was beginning to fail, though he would never give in, I took early retirement to be at home full time, but sadly, a few years later, he died. By that time, our daughter was married, with a growing family, and living on a farm some twenty miles away.

I carried on the work of the Post Office. Now, left on my own, I found the garden my source of joy. Since that first garden was planted ‘east in Eden’, so many have blossomed, in so many different ways, and have been at the heart of so many peoples’ lives. Thousands of years ago, in Arabia, South America and elsewhere, men scraped over some ground, drove off marauding animals, made a hole with a stick and dibbled in some seed.

Since then we have seen such miracles as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Tudor Knot Gardens, Versailles, Sissinghurst, Giverny, Pitmedden, Inverewe, and beloved plots such as the one tended by the mother of Laurie Lee.

To me, my garden has given me the chance to consider many things. For instance, there’s the mystery of growth—how that tiny acorn can become that massive oak; that small, brown bulb develop into that dazzling flower. Sometimes I wonder whether this whole planet of ours is capable of growth, of change, of evolution. Of course, I am not a scientist, but science itself now acknowledges, I believe, that there are, perhaps, things it does not fully comprehend.

By recording some of the days spent in and around this garden, I may, I hope, be able to share it with people, unknown to me, who love gardens and the hills and with those, too, who may not have the blessing of a garden of their own.

My friend Anne Shortreed who captured so happily, in line, the spirit of the place, died a few years ago. She came often to see me. She loved the garden and the hills surrounding it. Naomi Mitchison, whose appreciation I cherished, she too is no longer with us.

But life is here. My daughter and her husband and family, with their combined youth and strength and love of plants, have made a most beautiful garden, full of colour and greenery, out of these beginnings. It will give joy for many years to come.

I should like to thank Tom Johnstone of the Mercat Press for his ever sympathetic handling of the text and I am grateful to Highland Regional Council for permission to quote from the Log Book of Abriachan School.

OCTOBER

October 19th

‘The snow-birds are here!’ That’s a form of neighbourly greeting, the first acknowledged signal that winter has really arrived in these uplands. This year the snow-birds—the fieldfares and redwings—are having a feast, for the rowans are loaded with berries. The old trees at the top of the garden are alive with the flutter of wings and the delighted chatter of hungry birds. A long flight they’ve had of it from their northern homes and we’re glad to make them welcome, reminding ourselves that they’re fleeing from winters colder than ours.

The geese came in some weeks ago, and are still coming, some stopping in nearby firths, some making for estuaries further south. It’s always thrilling to hear their wild voices and to stand in amazement, staring at the brilliant formation of their flight.

Through the window it’s a delight to watch the antics of our own small garden birds—blue-tits, coal-tits, great tits, siskins, chaffinches—as they chase from one nut container to another. A robin looks on angrily, frustrated by his lack of acrobatic skill. A couple of wrens, who sometimes seek shelter in the house, and a tree-creeper or two, along with the blackbirds and thrushes, make up our winter company, now that the summer birds have gone. A flock of long-tailed tits sometimes flits through the garden on its way to the plantation up the road, where the bullfinches dazzle the dark pines.

As everything settles into winter retreat, we miss the company of butterflies and bumble-bees. This has been the year of the butterfly. In early summer the small blue and the Scotch argus came out in the welcome warmth, then white cabbage and tortoiseshell were everywhere, orange-tip on the wayside flowers and, in late September, four red admirals on the marguerites, so unafraid one could have reached out a hand to touch them. One memorable summer, painted ladies appeared among the herbs.

The honey bees are snug now in their winter cluster. Walking up to check the hive, on the well-trodden path through the stand of willowherb which makes their summer paradise, one comes back, covered in white fluff, to tackle the last of the garden harvests—the late potato crop. The shaws are blackened by early frost, but the tubers come up safe and sound, dry and handsome, with a lift of the big garden fork. They’re a joy on the plate, as they crumble and melt in the mouth, almost before there’s time to savour the taste! The peas and beans have cropped well. Carrots and beetroot gave more meagre returns. The onions are small but well ripened and good keepers. Leeks and turnips are always a great stand-by and are the making of many a pot of broth. The kale crop looks ready to survive the winter through. This year I sowed some extra seed to supply a neighbour whose plants always get decimated by rabbits.

October 23rd

Waking to find a scattering of snow above the tree-line on the hill, I think ‘time to gather the apples’. The day turns brilliant, blue and gold and windless, and just to gaze at the apples—some red, some green, tinged with yellow—against the deep blue of the sky is a moment of delight. They come crisply from their stalks, the ones within reach. A good shake of the higher branches and soon the biggest and brightest are lying on the mossy turf. The old tree—it must be nearly a centenarian—is still putting out new shoots. I think it’s a happy old tree. The scholars would scramble over the garden wall, when the master was having his dinner, to pillage the forbidden fruit. Though it looked so attractive it had a bitter taste, being meant for pies and jelly. The discarded cores must have given many a night-time meal to playground rodents of many kinds.

The plums are not so plentiful this year. The tree must have been having a year off, though the blossom was beautiful. But wild fruit is everywhere. The rowan berries we make into jelly, a bitter jelly, even when mixed with crab-apple juice, but good as a relish. Our great favourite is rowan wine. We simply steep the berries in boiling water, with a small piece of whole ginger, let it stand for ten days, strain, and add sugar, a pound to a pint. Then, after three weeks, or when fermentation has ceased, you have a drink of a colour to delight the eye and which possesses, so they say, the secret of eternal youth. I drink a glass at suppertime each day!

On the wooded slopes down towards the big loch there are brambles, rose-hips, haws, sloes, fruit enough to fill a store-cupboard for the longest winter. And this has been the year of the mushroom, as well as the butterfly. I think the early warmth in May and June, followed by plenty of moisture, may well have done the trick. Fungi are everywhere. I keep to the three I’m sure of—boletus, field white and chanterelle. This year I’ve tried drying the last two, with some success. At the moment I can gather supper from the roadside—a boletus or two to cook in a little oil, perhaps with an egg, and a cupful of brambles to eat with a dash of yoghourt or cream.

There are hazel nuts in plenty, too, for protein. They do well in the grinder, then mixed with onion and oatmeal to make ‘hazelburgers’. I often think that at this time of ‘Oktoberfest’ one could survive quite happily on natural produce. Time is needed, of course, to gather in the harvests and to prepare them for keeping, with sugar or vinegar or salt. We’re lucky, indeed, to find so much almost on our doorstep, or within easy reach.

October 25th

A glorious blue sky and time for a day off from harvesting and preserving garden or natural produce. So—into the hills above the tree-line, past the russet and gold of larch and birch and, warily, into the domain of the red deer. The stag’s roar reminds us to keep our distance, as we watch him, through the field-glasses, lording it over his placid hinds. The roar is echoed from across the hill, a rival stag appears, there is the clash of antlers. It’s thrilling to watch and hear this annual ritual, which ensures the survival of the fitter hero and so of the fit herd. We stay a while, then retreat, before we’re mistaken for possible rivals of another ilk. Homeward bound, we stop at the river to watch for leaping salmon. Sure enough, a huge fish jumps, leaving a widening circular ripple on the smooth, black water. This shatters the reflections of the golden trees, then subsides till another fish emerges. It’s good to know that all this roaring and leaping means that another generation of these marvellous species is assured.

On our own territory there’s another stop to be made—at the small hill loch up the road. It’s mostly covered in thin ice this day, but over by the rushes there are patches of melt and there, upending or sailing majestically, their necks proud and straight, four whooper swans, dazzling white in the dark water, have stopped overnight. Another sure sign of winter, this, but a happy sign. We hope others will come and that they’ll stay for a while, keeping company with other winter visitors—golden-eye, goosander, pochard, little grebe, along with tufted duck and mallard.

October 31st

Back to work again! Gertrude Jekyll, I remember from her writings, was a great believer in hard work, so she must lead the way. A walk up the bedraggled garden reveals a massive tidying-up operation is waiting. But the wind’s in the east, with scutters of sleety rain numbing the fingers. This is when you long for a greenhouse, preferably a heated one. The small one I bought second-hand, some years ago, for a few pounds, has, alas, not survived the gales. In it tomatoes ripened, along with peppers and even a cucumber or two. But one can make do in other ways. One year a crop of mushrooms appeared mysteriously in some compost in the garden shed. And I’ve grown marigolds, sweet william and pinks in trays on a sunny bedroom windowsill.

So with thoughts firmly fixed on next year’s bounty, I set about gathering burnable dead growth to add to the pile already lying dry under a plastic cover. Dried stalks of willowherb and docken, withered raspberry canes, wind-blown branches of birch, pine and rowan, the garden trees, all make excellent ash to scatter on the strawberry bed. I can almost feel the sweet succulence of the first fruits of next June.

At dusk the bonfire rushes into light, defying cold and sleet and roaring a welcome to the guisers. In twos and threes they come, in the strangest assortment of garments, some with painted faces shining weirdly in the firelight, some carrying traditional turnip lanterns. A song or poem or a dance for apples and nuts makes a great celebration, as the evil spirits are banished for another year. Better than any firework display is the light of colours—red, yellow, blue, green—in the heart of the fire and the swoop of flame and spark into the black sky. And there’s the warmth for numbed fingers and the prospect of tatties baked in the embers later on. Far into the night the glow lingers, till we cover it with earth for fear of a rising wind. Under the ash will be one spot of really weed-free ground, we reflect.

Weeds . . . the ever-recurring problem, that’s the one we shall have to get down to again next day. The persisters—docken, sorrel, bishopweed, creeping buttercup—will be carted by the barrow-load to the compost heap. Smaller growth—shepherd’s purse, chickweed et al, will be dug in with the lime or organic fertiliser.

NOVEMBER

November 4th

A sudden blast of cold air from the east and hoar-frost transforms the picture from the window. The trees stand motionless in a dazzle of white, as though decked out for Christmas. The grasses are tall still, and strong enough to carry their own small crowns of crystal. And over this whole amazing scene the sky is an arch of deepest blues.

It’s a day to be out, to forget indoor chores, to put every available scrap on the bird-table and to don scarves, gloves, thick stockings and balaclavas. The garden ground gives the ring of iron to the spade. There’s no chance of digging up a carrot for the soup-pot. It’s not even a day for a bonfire. The pile of debris set aside for burning is stiff with rime.

So it’s down the road to the woodland while there’s warmth in the unclouded sun. Rose-hips are still bright on the bushes, each one capped in white. And the darker red of berries on the old hawthorn glows bright in the wayside hedge. What of the sloes, I wonder, as I turn off to follow the track through the wood. A touch of frost improves most berries, but this freeze-up may be just too hard. The rowan berries were few this year and the meagre crop had gone to beleagured birds.

The path is slippery with frosted leaves. I search in vain for a few fallen hazel nuts. There will be time to gather them yet. In older times the women would walk barefoot the ten miles to the town, carrying baskets of nuts to sell for Hallowe’en. This is deserted woodland, with its own feel of enchantment and intrigue. Big hazel trees, blown down in gales, lie across the way. This is where a neighbour and his brother used to gather the wood to make superb walking sticks. Delicately tapered, with a curved and polished handle, they are a joy to finger and to use. I treasure mine.

Walking on, stepping over fallen trunks, stooping under branches, I reach the outcrops of rock under the high banks. Here, in little hidden bothies with a camouflage of heather, the illicit brew was distilled. Some was sold to meet the ever-increasing cost of rents. The elixir was renowned. Excisemen would sail up and down the big loch, looking for tell-tale signs of fires, but the distillers knew of a smokeless fuel—the juniper. Bribes were offered for information, but to accept would be unthinkable, unless the information were misleading and the money could be used to buy new equipment!

I wander on, taking a short cut down the wooded slope towards the big loch. Enormous oaks grow here, dwarfing the birch and hazel. Druids must surely have found it a place to offer sacrifice, perhaps to teach the young, to heal the sick. It is certain that on the sheltered ground below, where the great burn cascades into the loch, Columba’s followers made a settlement when the saint was on a mission to Inverness. His ‘font’ stone is there, a huge slab of bedrock with a hole in the middle, which, mysteriously, is always filled with water, though there is no apparent source. Within living memory the women would come to give their babies a surreptitious lick of this water, though the minister had baptised them officially in church. There are still signs of early occupation here—marked stones and grave slabs—and a preaching site is recorded in the eighteenth century. The monks were skilled agriculturalists, growing food crops and healing herbs, so it is appropriate that this is where our local Nursery Garden is, on the site of the monks’ garden of 1,300 years ago.

The big loch steams when the frost is hard. The water level is strangely low. This has been a sunless summer, but the rainfall can’t have been as great as it seemed. Rocks show up stark and black, especially the big one, once used as a look-out post for the steamer coming. Legend has it that it was thrown across the loch by a witch on the other side to avenge a quarrel. As the sun dips behind the hill, I make my way back by the road, refreshed by a foray into what seemed like another age.

When the thaw comes there will be jobs in plenty. Leaves, leaves, leaves are everywhere. We curse the clutter of them in rhones and ‘valleys’ on the roof, but we’re glad to gather them, to make nourishment for generations of growth to come. The trees discard them graciously, leaving branches bare and fragile, outlined in delicate shades of mauve and orange. Some leaves, not twisted by frost or wind, I gather for their shapes and colours—red, yellow, brown. In my hand I have an ivy leaf, dried but still green, pale green, with gold veining. Tall grasses, with rushes from the loch shore, myrtle and heather shoots, all from the moor, dried, bring the beloved outdoors into the house for the winter.

November 8th

A glorious day. Very often we get this bounty in November, an out-of-season day of still-warm sun and brilliant sky. Spring is always late and often disappointing, but autumn makes amends with these bright surprises.

The grass is still green, though the bracken’s golden. It’s a time to leave spade, rake, hoe and barrow in the shed and take a jaunt up the road. Coming quietly on the loch, round the edge of the trees, we check that the swans are still there. Once, on a day such as this, we chanced on a rare surprise. The air was still, with a touch of frost. The water was calm, yet there was a sound of splashing. We looked back along the tree-lined shore. A family of otters was having a marvellous game together, totally unaware of any intruding eyes. We sat to watch as the heads bobbed, the tails thrashed to the tune of happy grunts and squeaks. Then, as though exhausted, the two adults and the two young quietly submerged and swam away to their resting place among the rushes.

Today there is no sign of otters, but the swans are superb as they come gliding towards us, heads held high on long, straight necks. They seem as tame as the curved-neck swans of picture post-card fame. But, looking at them, we remember the hazardous flight they’ve made from the ice-floes of the north. Here, they’ll gather strength for the flight back in spring to rear their young in the brief arctic summer.

A heron rises laboriously from the small island and flaps his way, with slow wing-beats, into the rushes on the far shore. He knows all the likely spots for a feed.

We make our way back through the pines on the shore. The needles are inches deep underfoot. We gather them in handfuls. Well-rotted as they are, would they make a mulch to keep some of those weeds at bay? Would they be too acid? We’ll be back another day with a bag and give it a try.

Reaching the road again we find other treasures that must be fetched. Contractors have been at work gouging out great ditches at either side, revealing layers of peat, quite irresistible for making compost of John Innes type, along with saltless sand the builders have left behind at a housing project. Everywhere there are stones for rockeries or raised beds, most beautiful chunks of rose-red granite and shiny whinstone. Further along are small deposits of abandoned grit and gravel, fine and large, ideal for mulching rock plants or making plantings on scree.

So, planning to return on a real recycling trip another day, we reach home at dusk.

With twigs as kindlers and a couple of logs from the old pine that fell to a gale last winter the fire is soon blazing. And there’s toast with a spread of last summer’s honey and a huge cup of tea. Thus energised and thinking of the treasures of the roadside, I sit down to write a reasonable letter to the Council asking them, please, not to send the mower up next year to trim the wayside verges. A neighbouring council, I hear, is very progressive in this respect. We hope ours may take heed. The wild flowers must be allowed to come again. The early ones—primrose, wood-sorrel, violets—are safe enough, growing well in from the verge. Those at risk are the summer ones, in particular lady’s smock, the cuckoo-flower, beloved of orange-tip and other butterflies.

November 12th

We’re back to more normal weather now, with days closing in long before tea-time, skies of several different shades of grey and a hint of sleet in the rain. Soon we shall begin to count the weeks to the shortest day, as if counting had the miraculous power to make the time go more quickly. But no one can tamper with time. It must have its own way.

Meanwhile, the most boring jobs begin to loom. The outhouse across the back yard hasn’t been turned out for years. Taking a deep breath, putting on thick boots and gloves and pocketing a torch, I venture in. There is a strange mixture of smells—of damp sacking, perished rubber, turpentine—some quite impossible to identify. I shine a light into the far corners. Some stones have fallen from the wall where ivy had encroached under the eaves. There is broken glass on the cobbled floor. I gather the stones and lay them ready for replacement with cement later on. The ivy has now been cut back. It would gladly rampage everywhere, even through the smallest cracks round the window of a disused room.