Read the rest of the piece here in House and Garden magazine...
A blog about gardening and cooking. To book Secret Garden Club sessions or supper clubs email marmitelover@mac.com
Sunday 21 February 2016
The Painted Garden: impressionism and horticulture
Tiffany
A London Afternoon in February
After my Calcotada meal near Piccadilly, I visited the Royal Academy exhibition Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse to recap on some much-loved impressionist paintings. I'd seen many of them before but this was a new perspective.
The theme was the role of gardens and gardening in impressionism. Many of the impressionist painters were keen gardeners; Monet had more books on horticulture than he did on art. The exhibition also showed the Japanese prints with arched bridges that so influenced the water gardens at Giverny, which Monet worked on for forty years. Monet first saw a water garden at the Exhibition of Paris and employed landscape gardeners and botanists to recreate the water lily landscape that became so celebrated. A whole room is dreamily devoted to Monet's Nymphéas.
Moving further south, the exhibition hung a couple of works from Matisse, scratched out on thin paint with areas absent of detail, revealing warmer tones.
I discovered the oeuvre of Joaquin Sorolla, a Spanish impressionist whose paintings had a golden glow similar to the luminous work of his contemporary Maxfield Parrish. I love his painting of Tiffany, the stained glass artist who created the famous Art Nouveau lamps. Sorolla's paintings had a very different look to those of the French impressionists, reflecting the dusty burnt umber colours, palms and tropical fronds of Spanish gardens.
It's always worth going to see the original paintings: reproductions simply cannot do justice to the subtlety of colours, the strength of brush strokes. It was inspiring, both as a gardener and as a sometimes painter.
You can book to visit this exhibition at the Royal Academy here. It closes April 20th.
Labels:
Art,
Impressionists,
Monet,
Painting and gardening,
Royal Academy
Location:
London, UK
Saturday 13 February 2016
Growing basil varieties for flavour
Basil is best used fresh. Dried basil is pretty tasteless, frozen
can be OK, although much of the flavour is lost and you certainly don’t get
that fragrance hit that you get with the fresh growing leaf.
The supermarkets will sell you sweet, or Genovese, basil
growing in a pot. If you’re lucky you can keep this growing for several weeks,
supplying you with fresh leaves when you need them. Once you get the pot home,
unwrap the cellophane wrapping, stand it in a drip tray and water really
thoroughly. Then place it in as bright a position as possible – a south-facing
windowsill is ideal - and keep the soil moist. When you pick the leaves, don’t
denude the stems completely: you can cut the stems to just above the first set
of true leaves and it should regrow.
Although Genovese basil, with its punchy aroma, is the
classic version for making pesto, it’s only one of many different varieties.
Milder in flavour but with large, floppy lettuce-like leaves, is Neapolitan
basil – great for wrapping small balls of mozzarella or tearing over a pizza.
Purple basil brings dramatic colour to salads. Greek basil has tiny leaves but
great fresh taste. Lemon, lime, and pineapple basils bring an astringency to
the classic clove fragrance and cinnamon basil adds warmth.
Greek basil leaves are much smaller, with a slightly milder, sweeter flavout. |
These varieties are all just as easy to grow as Genovese
basil but are almost impossible to find in the shops - you may occasionally find Greek basil plants in Sainsburys and Waitrose, and Thai basil leaves in the latter. Luckily you can find the
seeds in some major and many specialist catalogues, and now is the time of year
to start thinking about sowing them.
After a lot of experimentation I’ve come to the conclusion
that in the UK, basil is an indoor plant. Its fleshy leaves don’t stand up well
to wind and rain, they fall prey to slugs and snails and act as a magnet for
greenfly. Better tend them indoors and cosset them.
Basil needs light and warmth to grow well. Sown in February,
the emerging seedlings can take advantage of the increased daylight hours in
March to put on strong growth and keep you in basil right through the summer.
All basil varieties can be grown the same way. Fill a
medium-sized pot – you need one at least 16cm across to get a decent crop –
with multi-purpose compost to 2cm below the brim. Water well. Sprinkle the basil
seeds over the surface in a single layer – two pinches should be enough. Similarly,
sprinkle more compost over the seeds, just enough to barely cover them. Put a
clear polythene bag over the pot and place it somewhere sunny and warm. You
should see the seedlings start to emerge in three to six days – you can then remove
the plastic bag.
Keep the soil nice and moist and you should have leaves ready
to cut in a couple of months’ time. So long as you don’t remove all the leaves
from any one stem, harvesting will make the plant grow back more strongly and
your pot sown now will keep you in basil for the rest of the summer.
Tuesday 9 February 2016
Oranges aren't the only fruit
HOW TO GROW CITRUS PLANTS...
Citrus trees are incredibly rewarding to grow: apart from the edible fruit, many have edible leaves and flowers and are beautifully scented.
They are perhaps not for the low-maintenance gardener, although - like many plants - once given the right conditions they can thrive for years. The right conditions, however, can be quite specific.
Read the rest here at House and Garden....
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