Pumpkins and penny sweets.

Pumpkins can be fickle creatures at Hill Top, some years they grow like Topsy and threaten to take over the whole garden and other years they seem to just sit and sulk for weeks before reluctantly producing a few bowling ball sized fruits. This year hasn't been great, I only managed to produce two decent sized pumpkins, one of which was snaffled by Jess for the Wray Castle halloween shop display and another smaller one which I've left 'on display' in the garden too long and is slowly being eaten by slugs.

This years pumpkins - must try harder next year.

The pumpkins I grow at Hill Top are the French heirloom variety 'Rouge Vif d'Etampes which are yellowy orange 'cinderella' type and in a good year will produce 4 or 5 large fruits per plant. 
I usually sow the seeds in the greenhouse in May and plant the seedlings out in mid June but they can also be sown in late April directly in the soil. Either way it's a good idea to make a planting pocket by digging a hole about 30cm square and filling it with a mixture of compost or well-rotted manure and soil. Add some general purpose fertiliser too if you've got some. If you've grown plants in the greenhouse, make sure you harden them off before planting them out.
Once they're established, it's just a matter of feeding every couple of weeks with a high potash fertilizer once the fruits appear and making sure they have plenty of water. 
If you don't have a garden you can even grow pumpkins in a growbag.

Spooky spider's web!

The association between halloween and pumpkins and the rise of 'trick or treating' is, like Miley Cyrus, a recent (and some would say unwelcome) American import. When I was growing up in the 1960's only the really well-off kids had pumpkins, we had to make do with the more traditional hollowed out turnip (I'm not joking here - anyone under 40, ask your parents)! If you've ever tried hollowing out a turnip you can imagine the number of cuts and stab wounds which resulted from the combination of small children, sharp knives and rock hard root vegetables - never was the Blue Peter advice 'get a grown-up to help you' more appropriate!
Having hollowed out our turnips and bandaged our fingers, a string handle was attached, a candle placed inside and the turnip lid put on. This was invariably followed by the acrid smell of burning turnip as the flame from your Mum's 'power cut candle'  slowly cooked the turnip lid (tea lights hadn't been invented in the '60s kids).
The more entrepreneurial children would then set off around the estate stopping at houses and reciting the enchanting verse

"The sky is blue
 The grass is green
 Can you spare a penny for Halloween"

The 24p profit from an evening trudging round in the drizzle was spent the next day on Curly Wurlys, Black Jacks and white mice (again - under 40's- ask your parents) or sometimes a box of bangers to be let off well before bonfire night (don't do it kids, it's not big or clever).

Autumn colours

Anyway, I digress! Elsewhere in the garden the Autumn colours are in full swing. The Crimson Glory vine on the pub wall has been...er...glorious, as have the deciduous azaleas. The Eucryphia and the Enkianthus are just colouring up now but the Wisteria on the house is staying steadfastly green, probably kept warm by the warmth from the south facing wall.

Flower-wise, the Michaelmas daisies have given up and the soapwort is all but over. Rose 'Felicia' is still bravely flowering as are the Evening Primroses and the Pot Marigolds. My runner beans, still not killed off by frost, were blown over in the tail end of hurricane Gonzalo.

Glory-ous

Hill Top house closes on Sunday, although the garden and shop are open right through to Christmas eve, so with fewer visitors around, the hard work of cutting back the borders, lifting and dividing perennials and digging over the vegetable garden can begin. My fingers are crossed for a nice dry, frosty winter.

With all this talk of Halloween my musical link this week had to have a spooky theme so I could have gone for 'Walking With a Ghost' by The White Stripes or 'Ghost Train' by Elvis Costello or even the very obscure 'Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead by XTC but in the end I couldn't decide between the old school Halloween-ness of this or the rather tenuous Trick or Treatiness of this (skip the advert).

Happy Halloween and see you next time.

Words and pictures by Pete the Gardener

Exploring the Lake District by foot, bus, bike and boat with Peter rabbit

The Lake District is full of options for people wishing to leave their cars behind.  You really don't need to be an athlete to explore the countryside without a car.  Buses, bikes and boats allow everyone to enjoy the view and avoid congestion on the narrow roads.
 We have explored one of these possibilities with a very famous character; Peter Rabbit.  Peter wanted to follow in the steps of the woman who created him and learn more about her life, talents and legacy as well as seeing her home and many of his friends.

Peter was staying on the Eastern side of Lake Windermere near Bowness and so he decided to set out on his journey by boat.  First decision - whether to get the passenger ferry from Bowness or the car ferry from Ferry Nab.  Owing to Beatrix Potter's connection with Cockshott Point he decided to lollop a few steps south and get the car ferry.  It runs every 20 minutes and takes cars, bikes and pedestrians (and horses).

The next step can be done on foot or by bike or bus.  Peter tried bike but couldn't quite reach the pedals!

He wanted to see where Beatrix Potter first met the Lake District so he set out on the beautiful 4 mile walk along the lake shore to Wray Castle.

Beatrix Potter discovered the Lake District almost by mistake when her parents' regular holiday home in Scotland was unavailable.  She celebrated her 16th birthday at Wray Castle and fell in love with the area ....Maybe you will too!

Peter decided to explore the Castle.  The tour told him all about the castle and the link between Beatrix and one of the founders of the National Trust.  Then he had a play with some friends, built his own castle and polished off his picnic with some hot chocolate.

Then a quick scamper round the outdoor play area   ....

....Then on to discover more about Beatrix's passion and skills in sketching, drawing and painting at the Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead - but this time on the bus from Wray Castle.

The bus only takes 10 minutes and the service also runs to and from the ferry if you don't fancy the 4 mile walk Peter did. 

From the bus stop it's only a couple of minutes walk through the village to the Gallery.  Peter couldn't resist a visit to the National Trust shop.

Back to the bus stop and another 10 minute bus ride to Beatrix Potter's house, Hill Top.

The village of Near Sawrey is where Beatrix Potter settled and took refuge from the London life.  It is where she found inspiration for many of her little books.  It was as wonderful as Peter hoped and he managed to catch up with some old friends hopping around the orchard!

Peter had intended to finish his journey by following the footpath through the fields and down to the ferry but he fancied a cup of tea at the Tower Bank Arms which he remembered from reading the story of Jemima Puddleduck  ....

..so, after some refreshment, he caught the bus back to the ferry.

Why don't you follow in the steps of Beatrix Potter like Peter did?  If you're staying in Ambleside you can get a boat directly to Wray Castle.  Maybe Peter will try that on his next visit ...

Bye for now.

Enjoy your holidays  using your feet, bikes, boats and bus to explore!

Go forth and propagate!

It's starting to seem like the back end of summer in Hill Top garden. The Eucryphia has finished its all too brief flowering, most of the roses have dropped their petals, the alchemilla flowers have turned a crispy brown and as I write this a fine drizzle is enveloping Near Sawrey.

Still lots of flowers

 But there's still plenty to see in the borders; dahlias, phlox, buddlia, soapwort and even my very late germinating sweet-peas are  looking (and smelling) good. The veg garden has been quite productive despite the attentions of my furry nemeses, with beetroot ready to harvest, leeks growing nicely and autumn-fruiting raspberries just starting to crop. At the bottom of the main border is a very healthy-looking pumpkin plant, which at one time threatened to take over the whole garden! The fruits are growing at quite a pace and may even be good enough for the world famous Sawrey Marrow Show held at The Tower Bank Arms (next door to Hill Top) on September 15th.

If you watch long enough you can see it growing!

There's a red hardy fuchsia round the back of Hill Top away from the public area which matches one that Beatrix described in one of her letters.  It's flowering beautifully at the moment and really deserves a wider audience. It's an old bush so rather than try to dig it up and risk it dying in the process I decided to propagate it from cuttings. 

Fuchsias are very easy to grow from cuttings, just select healthy, non-flowering shoots and snip them off with secateurs. Remove most of the leaves and trim them to about 5cm long.

  
Then dip the bases in hormone rooting powder and 'dibble' them into a pot of compost with a pencil or a bamboo cane.

 

Water them well and put a clear plastic bag over the pot to stop the cuttings from drying out. Put the pot somewhere shady.

After a couple of weeks remove the poly bag and put the pot in a greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill. When you can see roots coming out of the bottom of the pot, tip the cuttings out and pot them up seperately. Keep them in their pots over the winter and plant them out in the garden (or a bigger pot) in the spring. It's as easy as that!

See you next time.

Words and pictures by Pete the Gardener.