Tag Archives: Chartwell

The reality and rhythm of pea-planting.

my garden, reality, , , , , , , , ,

I was thrilled when my newly planted peas came up within a few days. That was one benefit of the Hot Week, when it was over 100 degrees for many days in a row. The seeds were bedded in a temporarily partly shady place behind the zinnias and parsley, so the earth stayed moist.

They are petite and very cute, growing close together next to the tall trellis where I planned to train them upward… until after they were up I read online, and then confirmed it by checking the packet, that Sugar Ann snap peas are a Bush Type of plant, and typically grow only 1-2 feet tall. I have grown peas for more than half my life, so why would I have read the description and instructions?? The packet had been a kind gift a few months ago from Hearth and Field; my thought process on rediscovering them in my box of seeds went quickly from “Oh, goody!” to “Must plant these right away!” and I did that very efficiently.

Chartwell Sweet Peas

Efficiency is not one of the guiding principles of Hearth and Field, however, and I should have embarked on my pea project more in the spirit and manner of the vision expressed on the website of that journal:

Welcome to Hearth & Field!
We are the only journal you’ll find
that makes the internet move
at the pace and rhythm of real life.

Hearth and Field also quotes G.K. Chesterton at the top of that home page, saying,

“The simplification of anything is always sensational.” 

I don’t have time to think more about how that second quote relates to my peas. [Update: I originally put something here about Winston Churchill’s Chartwell peas, which I attributed to Chesterton, which is very embarrassing, and there is no way to fix it, so I removed it. Thank you to my blessed reader Amy who noticed.]

In Real Life, “Haste makes waste,” right? But that motto doesn’t convey quite everything about how I will need to spend an extra hour today that I was not planning on. I will transplant those little starts to the middle of the planter box, so as to free up the trellis for planting Green Beauty snow peas from Baker Creek, because it would be a waste of my beautiful trellis to do otherwise. This is how “the pace and rhythm of real life” works in real life!

Green Beauty pea blossom from February 2021

Seven feet and sweet.

history, my garden,

P1100126Every two or three days I try to cut all of the flowers off my sweet pea vines. I have to stretch way up now to reach the top ones, because they are seven feet tall and still growing.

Since the weather turned hot the stems have shortened and I need something like this half-pint milk jar to put them in. I found it earlier this month in a Carson City antique store when Mrs. C. and I were browsing there. Now I wish I’d bought several more.

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I’ve been scrounging around my cupboards and in the garage to find jars, so that I can take bouquets to friends – so far everyone has been welcoming of their bouquets, but I know that the heavy scent is too much for some people.

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Chartwell sweet peas

My vines are very messy compared to the sweet pea rows Pippin and I saw at Chartwell in Kent, Winston Churchill’s country house. I was quite impressed to see such a wealth of sweet peas so meticulously trained and cared for. The English are famously devoted gardeners, aren’t they?

Last night Mr. Glad and I watched the movie “The Last September,” about the English in Cork, Ireland about 1920, and in one scene I was excited to see a bouquet of sweet peas on a table. They looked very like mine!

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To get a good crop of sweet peas in our area, we have to start them in October. If we wait until Spring, the weather heats up too soon and cuts your pea season short. This is the case with edible peas, too. That white board is what I use to stand on when I’m picking so that I don’t sink in the mud.sweet pea seeds 2013

These are the packets I bought last Fall, but I didn’t get around to using the two dwarf packets, which I had planned to put into pots.

And for the sake of history, a picture of what I think was the last time I made the effort, already seven years ago, in almost the same place, against the previous fence.

roses & sweet peas 07
2007 with roses

Sweet Peas make me so happy, I’m already planning
for more seeds and a longer patch of vines for next year.

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My encounter with Churchill’s friend.

books, history, quotes, travel, ,
 

Almost nine years ago I was in the middle of a Winston Churchill immersion experience, in England with my daughter who is a big fan of the man. We visited the Churchill War Rooms museum in London, his country estate at Chartwell, his birthplace at Blenheim Palace, and his grave.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was a huge collection of quotes, unfortunately displayed in an “interactive” touchscreen format so that I couldn’t easily or thoroughly access them, and I didn’t have the time to write any down, but the essence of one stuck in my mind the way a tasty seed lodges between the teeth and surprises you later on with its savor. I counted on the trusty Internet to help me find the quote after I returned home.

From London we’d taken a side trip to Chartwell, Churchill’s beloved country estate in Kent. We were in his very library, with his own books and furniture. I could just imagine him sitting there enjoying some book that had nothing to do with the government or war; this was the place he came to when he needed to decompress from the strain of his usual days.

from the Internet

I told the docent about the quote I had read the day before, in which Churchill had advised us to think of our books as our friends, and if we couldn’t read them all, at least we could take them off the shelves and touch the pages, and perhaps read a line or two. She didn’t know of this quote, but it was permitted to handle the books on the library shelves, so I did take one down and try to follow his advice.

It was one of those times when I just want to sit down and be there. I’d have liked to read a few lines from several books, or a chapter from one book, or see how they all were organized.  But I was so nervous about meeting this book friend that I didn’t even catch his name. I was trying to keep up a conversation with the docent, and we needed to get through the house to the grounds before the rain started….Now it seems like a fairy story that I was ever there at all.

It’s the anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill, Anna reminded me on her blog that is a compilation of “Seven Quick Takes” on him today. I was going to leave a comment on her blog about how I never could find that quote — and I had tried so hard. But then I thought, it’s been a couple of years since I searched; maybe, just maybe if I look again….

And it came up in flash, on Goodreads. One of these experiences that makes you love the Internet.

If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.

The last Churchill place we saw was his humble grave not far from Blenheim Palace, at St. Martin’s Church, Bladon. It was more humble then than now, as it was renovated in 2006.

Mr. Churchill, I honor you on the day of your death; may you rest in peace. One day I hope to get back and spend an hour soaking up your library and making friends with your books.