The big melt

It's all turning into a grubby puddle like the wicked witch of the west. But some things look quite lovely, half-frozen.

Best in snow

It very much puts the kybosh on gardening all this snow. I have sorted out my tin of seed packets (they're all neatly labelled now), thought about which new veg I want to try this summer at the allotment and organised all the back issues of my gardening magazines in newly-assembled ikea shelves (in a mildly obsessive compulsive fashion). In the garden, I've brushed what snow I can off more vulnerable plants, but am resigning myself to some severe losses come spring (I'm secretly okay with this as it will be chance for a bit of a reshuffle and an opportunity to try new plants).
But now what? Those last late bulbs will not get planted. So I must simply settle down and wait for spring and just enjoy the narnia landscape while it lasts.
Walking through and past snowladen parks and gardens has made me think about one of the tenets of good garden design - all year interest. The rulebooks advise on lots of good evergreen structure - yew hedges, box balls, topiary, and any other shrubs with a strong form and good foliage. Then there are the spent grasses and seedheads that look ethereally fragile but stunning.  Add to this coloured barks, berries and winter scent and you've ticked all the boxes for the successful winter garden.
But few of the design books have a chapter on designing gardens for snow. Is this even possible?  Even stalwart evergreens can't compete with the blanketing of white stuff that we've had this week. No, this is where trees come into their own. Big handsome plane trees on the streets and in parks, copper beeches, chestnuts and oaks. It's as if those giant silhouettes of leafless branches were always meant to be seen against an icy white backdrop. And I love the dusting of snow that just catches on the topsides of branches. They are the perfect foil for the snow garden. So, my advice on designing for winter is to find a big space and plant trees. Very big trees.
It may be quite far removed from Ansel Adams at Yosemite, but snowy Gunnersbury Park  looked quite magical, even with the peaks of the M4's highrise blocks in the distance

Teaching a half-italian to cure olives

I inherited two mature olive trees with my north-facing back garden. They aren't quite in the right place - no self-respecting gardening book would advise planting Olea europea in a location where not even the slightest ray of sunshine peeps over the rooftops in deepest winter. However, it is a very sheltered spot and  the high summer sun is soaked up and absorbed by the brick paving to create a micro mediterranean climate which seems have persuaded my trees to flourish gloriously.
So, for the second time in three years, they have produced what I think is a pretty abundant harvest for west London. Two years, ago, I wondered what to do with them, and as I wondered, they dropped and rotted. The wildlife wasn't interested - birds and squirrels tried them, but obviously find raw olives as bitter as we do. But this time around, I couldn't let all those fruits go to waste.
It might be a bit of a stretch to get my own bottle of extra virgin. So, although, I am not a big fan of the pickled cocktail olive (make that pickles in general), I am attempting to cure some of my Acton olives (friends, this could be your next birthday present). My Italian mother taught me to speak her language fluently and the secrets of making a mean lasagne, but olive curing was not part of her repertoire. So thank goodness for the web. It's probably a bit late in the season, but I'm trying two methods. One jar of brine, which I just have to leave alone for six months and one of water changed daily for a month to remove the bitterness, and then the brine can be added. My thanks go to the honest food blog. I will have to see if what works for Californian and greek olives works for London olives. I'm already looking forward to a Martini under the trees next summer.