Parallel lives

Long-standing readers of this blog (sit down, take the weight off your feet) will recall my interest (obsession?) with the life and works of David Douglas, botanist & plant collector extraordinaire, 1799-1834. I've followed him around the world, from his birthplace in Scone to where he died in Hawaii and his grave in Honolulu. If you have a flowering currant or California poppy in your garden you have a direct connection to Douglas. If you live in a house built in the UK since the late 1800s you have an even more direct connection because all your structural timbers are probably from species introduced by Douglas.

Anyway, later this summer I'm off following him again, to York Factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay. To mark this I thought I'd give you some contemporaneous accounts from his 1827 journal of his trek across the continent from the Pacific Northwest to Hudson's Bay.

Douglas has a very laconic style. Always travelling in hard, nay harsh, circumstances he makes light of his difficulties. This is a man who observes that "...so much worn out was I three times by fatigue and hunger that twice I crawled, for I could hardly walk, to a small abandoned hut. I had in my knapsack one biscuit."

Later, on the Columbia River, he observes the effect of the native's diet - "Lewis observes that when eaten in a large quantity they [Camass roots] occasion bowel complaints. This I am not aware of but assuredly they produce flatulence.; when in the Indian hut I was almost blown out by strength of wind."

He ends 1826 on the Multnomah River above present-day Portland, Oregon ending a hard-bargaining session with an Indian with the immortal words "He had my blessing and promise of a sound flogging should I ever meet him in a convenient place."

Now let's pick him up contemporaneously. Here he is on May 13th, 1827 on the Athabasca River, on his cross-continent journey with the voyageurs of the Hudson's Bay Express. He has already spent two months coming up the Columbia, over the Rockies through the Athabasca Pass and is now working his way down the Athabasca River.

"Sunday 13th. Close and cloudy. By making an early start 10 miles was gained to breakfast; shortly afterwards we left the canoe and cut over a low point of wood and arrived at Assiniboine at two o'clock. Mr Stuart killed a male partridge. I make some small slug and procure a pair of this fine bird."

Watch this space for more from David Douglas, as well as normal service from his mate Woody Wilbury at Allotment 81.

Kew!!!!

Just look at this

It is of course the Titan Arum, fast approaching flowering. It currently stands at around 2 metres tall and will reach 3 metres before flowering. Then you need to batten down your nostrils because the smell it emits is obnoxious. And the female flowers are receptive for one night only, the night before the male flowers produce pollen. There's playing hard to get and there's being positively awkward. Hand pollination is difficult and involves two inflorescenses flowering in perfect sequence or the use of frozen pollen. Frozen pollen!! Ye Gods.

You'll deduce from this that Woody has been to Kew, where this is growing in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. Kew is fabulous, and I hadn't been since I was a teenager, umpty years ago. Why? Fool.

Outside Woody was pleased to spot Kew's Gingko biloba, dating from 1762.

This is one of the few trees remaining from the first botanic garden established by Princess Augusta, George III's mother, in 1759.

And just for North Atlantic balance, here's the oldest Gingko in North America, growing in Bartram's Garden, Philadelphia, and also dating from the late 1700s (1785 to be [fairly] precise). The tree was there when David Douglas visited Bartram (King's Botanist in N America) in 1823. Bartram himself wasn't there, having inconsiderately died 6 weeks earlier. The tree is still in good shape, or at least it was in 2001 when I was there, but if you look closely you can see steel cables holding it together. But at 250+ yrs old I think it deserves a bit of support.

Massive Attack....

..... on the weeds and general herbage, which is going forth like ye olde clappers at the moment, it being moist and waarm (a Sheffield word for 'not-quite-hot'; usually prefacing a nice pint of Waards - a Sheffield word for beer, sadly now defunct in it's home town). I work less than a hundred yaards from the former Waards brewery and lament the lack most days.

Anyway, back to the point (terrible stuff for making you wander, this Waards). Weeds seen orf today, don't y' know:

Yer garlic patch

Yer onion patch

Yer blackberry patch, and

Yer raspberroonie patch.

Only one of them proved photogenic so here's the garlic patch, newly weeded and pristine, with a quick glimpse of AlcaBrassica behind.

And here's a bluebell looking very Young At Heart, we're so Yo-ung at Heart.

Very pleased with the blackberries, which are sending out new shoots like they mean it, much ahead of where they were last year. Perhaps piling manure around their rootstock really does work? Perhaps they're trying to get away from it? I would if you piled manure around my rootstock.

And the raspberoonies; what about the raspberoonies, eh? Thought dead, no signs of life, nailed to perch, choir invisibule etc. But no, 19 of the 20 have rooted and are putting forth new growth. Well pleased about this because the last attempt was an unmitigated failure.

And finally, the grapevine looks as though bud break is imminent. The buds are huge and furry and look truly fecund. Fecund, I tell you, Fecund. Pictures next time.

Heading North, not South

I should, as I type this, be on a ferry in the middle of the North Sea, en route to Denmark to start the first leg of Short Way Round, my motorcycle trip round the edge of Europe from the very top of Denmark to Istanbul and beyond. For all you know, I may be on that ferry. But I’m not, I’m at home. Short Way Round is postponed, in favour of an equally big adventure on a different continent.

Those of you with long memories may recall me banging on about my Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship in 2001, following in the footsteps of David Douglas (Google him), botanist and plant collector (1799-1834). This adventure is to do some unfinished business from my Fellowship and start an entirely new project.

Context first. In 1827 Douglas set off from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest with the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company to travel east across the continent. Their destination was York Factory, the HBC’s eastern supply base for the fur trade in the Canadian sub-arctic, from which Douglas was to sail on an HBC ship back to England. They made it, walking and birch-bark canoeing. D caught the ship and made it safe home for further adventures before a gory end on Hawaii in 1834 (I’ve stood where he died and at his grave in Honolulu).

York Factory is still there (Google it) and almost as hard to access now as in 1827. There’s no road or rail link; there’s no electricity and no food, apart from what you bring in. But I’m going there in the summer, with two colleagues (one from Scotland and one from Oregon) to start filming a television documentary on Douglas.

None of us have been to York Factory before; indeed it only gets about 70 visitors a year. Only being open for 3 months of the year, frozen tight the rest of the year and at risk of polar bear attack may have something to do with that of course! It’s only about 60 miles south of Churchill, where the bears congregate in the town waiting for the sea to freeze (it’s still frozen now).

The route runs something like, fly to Winnipeg, fly further north in a smaller plane, get a Greyhound bus for three hours on a gravel road to (literally) the end of the road. Then get an even smaller plane (5-seater, float plane I suspect) to fly to York Factory. Then do it all in reverse 3 days later.

And in due course there’ll be more filming to fill in more of the blanks of the Douglas story.

This is an opportunity which has been a long time coming and can’t be turned down. Short Way Round, on the other hand, can be done ‘later’. And it’s only postponed, not ‘off’. I’m really looking forward to this; can you guess?!!

Fort Brassica

At last planting has got under way, with cabbages (spring, round and red) and cauliflower. We love red cabbage. Monty Don describes it as being only slightly ahead of boiled rat in culinary acceptability, at least by his children. All I can say is they've never had any of ours, cooked with red wine, apple and marmalade. Yummy.

But growing brassicas round here is an iffy business on account of they pigeons, curse 'em. I've tried various half-baked approaches with dangling CDs to scare them off but I think they treat them as vanity mirrors; certainly doesn't scare them off. And I've nearly broken my neck innumerable times getting my feet tangled up in the netting I've carefully draped over the cabbages to keep pigey off. None of it is much good.

The best I've found so far is Fort Brassica, constructed from uprights of chicken wire, lovingly garnished with tatty old netting and tenderly enrobed with string. Let's see the beggars get through that.

Running low on blood sugar by the end of the afternoon and lacking the energy to construct a smaller version for the cauliflower plot, I cobbled together Mark 2. The observant among you will notice what were once wardrobe drawers from IKEA forming a key part of the construction.

Lest you think I idle my time away just pratting about with cabbages, chicken wire and string I should show you my other pride and joy. Just look at these mangetout; sown in a gutter at home (no, it wasn't attached to the house at the time, honestly, you do take this too seriously sometimes) and raised in the conservatory. Then simply slid into a wee trenchette and Bob is your father's brother. Still need plenty of anti-pigeon fortifications though.

I've also discovered another reader, just over the grapevine at the bottom. Good to speak to you today; hope all this makes sense.

And finally, longstanding readers of this blog may be wondering about a progress report on Woody's motorcycle adventure around Europe (working title Short Way Round). Tune in on Wednesday (30th) for an update. A bientot; tot siens!!

Crikey

Turn your back for a moment and you never know what will happen. In this case Ivan-on-the-next-plot has had a massive burst of enthusiastic hedge trimming and the hedge between us is now down to about 3 feet or less and very thin.

Hmm

Not sure what i think of this. It'll certainly be easier to keep tidy, once it's regrown a bit, but it compromises my privacy a bit and offers no security at all.

Hmm.

I'd like to have known he was going to do it too. Didn't necessarily want to be asked, in the sense of being asked for permission, but it would have been nice to be consulted, it being a joint hedge and all. Ah well, it's done now & not worth falling out over.

What else is new? The grapevine is now tied in to three posts and two strands of wire, ready for some growth this summer.

Chris, my on-plot neighbour has been very active and threatens to put me to shame. He now seems better established, having done lots of work over the winter.

And finally, I've now joined the plot association.

I've belatedly realised that they aren't just an association for plot holders but a shop, cheap garden stuff for the selling of but only between 10.30 & 12 on Sunday mornings. Still think they could be more proactive in marketing themselves to plotholders but no matter, I've joined now. Lots of amusement from Wilma Wilbury, who sees this as a sign that I'll soon be growing chrymanthesums and wearing a cardigan. Pah.

Really love that Lovage

Gnome asked for a feature on Lovage, after my comment about it waking up from the winter and heading for a Lovage hedge this year.

Herewith, from a combination of Wikipedia & my experience of it. Lovage (Levisticum officinale) - well, you didn't expect a former botanist not to give you the full name did you? - is dead easy to grow and once you've got it it'll take a JCB to get rid of it. But why would you want to get rid of it? It has a lovely flavour, akin to celery which it vaguely resembles, and the leaves and seeds are used to flavor food, especially in South European cuisine. It is a tall (3 to 9 ft) perennial , hence the reference to a Lovage hedge. It looks pretty impenetrable when in full flow but is quite soft really and dies back completely in the autumn so is no use at all as a 'real' hedge. Lovage also sometimes gets referred to as smallage, but anything less appropriate is hard to imagine. Mine was grown from seed last year and I confidently expect it to get to at least four feet this year. Here it is now:

Lovage is considered to be a "magic bullet" companion plant; much as borage helps protect almost all plants from pests, so lovage is thought to improve the health of almost all plants. In Germany and Holland, one of the common names of Lovage is Maggikraut (German) or Maggiplant (Dutch) because the plant's taste is reminiscent of Maggi soup seasoning. Or could this perhaps be a vice versa?? We use it a lot in Wilma Wilbury's damn fine fish stew.

Finally, Lovage tea can be applied to wounds as an antiseptic, or drunk to stimulate digestion.

There you are then; all the news that's fit to print about Lovage. I particularly liked Maggikraut; I think I met her once.