It’s a hangover from the first days of River Cottage, where a good number of us—Hugh, gardeners, and chefs—would battle to come up with the first peas of the season. I got the idea when reading about Thomas Jefferson, who, as well as being a US Founding Father, was an extraordinary and enthusiastic gardener. He held a pea-growing competition every year and the grower of the earliest ones hosted a supper for all the contestants, with the peas high on the menu. Bragging rights in the kitchen garden where the only prize then, but it was worth it, nevertheless.
The years I won, I owe to two varieties. The first was Kelvedon Wonder, which can go from sowing to picking in 10 weeks, three or four weeks quicker than most. When someone cottoned on to Kelvedon Wonder and stole my title the following year, Makana—a dwarf variety growing only 28in to 32in tall— came to my rescue. My theory was that Markana didn’t have to grow much before its energies turned to pods and it paid off. As well as being quick to produce, it’s great for exposed sites or for where a short variety would work aesthetically.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 06, 2020-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 06, 2020-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
