Why Churros Might Just Be the Dessert of Summer

A lot of new gardening and plant books have landed on my mat this spring, and I need to up my book reviewing game! I like to do them justice, and spend some time reading them before I write a review, so that does create a bit of a backlog. Right at the time when the garden is demanding my attention. Anyway, the book that has found itself at the top of the list is one that really encompasses the gardening zeitgeist – The Community Gardening Handbook, by Ben Raskin. I looked him up, and he has impeccable credentials. He’s currently Head of Horticulture for the Soil Association; prior experiences include working for Garden Organic, running a walled garden and being a Horticultural Advisor for the Community Farm near Bristol.

Header image: Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage leaves prior to harvest aboard the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

Move over, Mark Watney, there’s a new space botanist heading for Mars! Ryan and I have just finished watching the new Netflix series Away, which follows (over 10 episodes) the quest of five international astronauts to be the first people to set foot on the red planet.

In previous years, my garden plan has revolved around what I want to grow. There are a lot of unusual plants that grow, or might grow, in our climate, and I enjoy trying them out. With my experimental impulses mainly focused on the Hydroponicum, I have been thinking about what we would like to eat from the garden.

The lotus is a remarkable plant. I’m referring to Nelumbo nucifera, which is native to Asia and sacred to both buddhists and Hindus. (It’s related to the American lotus, N. lutea, but not to the lotus that appears in ancient Egyptian images – that’s Nymphaea lotus. Plants in the Nymphaea genus are more commonly referred to as waterlillies in the UK.)

The political weather has been stormy of late, and as the sun has come out to play at last, the garden seems the safest place to be. There’s a lot to be done to get it ready for the growing season, so time spent outside is never wasted. A lot of what I’m doing at the moment could best be termed ungardening, clearing out the contents from last year’s containers, and reusing the potting compost in the bottom of new pots, or as a soil improving mulch.

Last weekend, as the temperatures soared, I found a certain amount of solace in learning more about how plants are being grown in Antarctica – the coldest place on Earth. 

When the weather was still warm and dry, I lifted my onion crop. According to last year’s records, I planted 60 onion sets in 6 rows of 10 on 12th September 2017. I left them outside to dry, but then the weather turned wetter and I had to bring them inside to finish off. I wasn’t in a hurry to lift them, or use them, because we were still eating our way through the previous onion crop (chopped and frozen) that we hadn’t needed earlier in the year because of the plentiful leeks.

Guy Singh-Watson of Riverford Organics is warning about the risks of Brexit-related disruptions to our food supply, timed to coincide with the ‘Hungry Gap‘. He says “to be told by people who have no idea how their food is produced that this is ‘project fear’ makes me incandescent with rage”. Farmers and seasoned gardeners will be nodding their heads, but everyone else may be a little perplexed. What’s the Hungry Gap?

As I mentioned last month, for the time being I have decided to use my low-level trough planter for flowers, rather than the mini pond I had originally intended it for. Still, at some point in the future I would like a garden with a water feature. A natural swimming pool would be my first choice, but that seems unlikely. A fish pond would be lovely – as long as I was also blessed with hours to while away next to it, watching the fishes do their thing.

A year ago, the first seeds sprouted on the Moon. China’s Chang’e-4 mission was the first to land on the far side of the Moon, which faces away from Earth. The lander carried a sealed container filled with soil, cotton, rapeseed, Arabidopsis (rock cress) and potato seeds, yeast and fruit fly eggs. The aim of the experiment was to form an artificial, self-sustaining environment – a mini biosphere. The six components were chosen to act “producers, consumers and decomposers”, with the plants producing oxygen and food to sustain the fruit flies. The yeast was to process waste from the flies the dead plants to create more insect food. 

Header image: Rendering of Tiangong Space Station in late July 2022, along with June 2022 with Tianhe core module in the middle, Wentian lab module on the left, Tianzhou cargo spacecrafts on right, and Shenzhou-14 crewed spacecraft at nadir. Image credit Shujianyang via Wikipedia.