At a time of year when there’s not much fruit to harvest in the garden, rhubarb that has been forced for an early crop is a rare treat. Of course, rhubarb is not technically a fruit but a vegetable, and the part that is eaten is the long fleshy petiole or leafstalk. It is rich in vitamin C and fibre, and it contains reasonable amounts of vitamins A and K, potassium and calcium.

During January, rhubarb is forced by covering the crowns with a forcing pot, large bucket, or anything that will exclude the light. The dormant buds inside the pot are then insulated with straw or dry leaves. Champagne is an early variety that forces well, while Victoria is also good for forcing and is a heavy cropper.

In Yorkshire, rhubarb is forced commercially by growing in forcing sheds, where it is harvested in mid-winter by candlelight.

From late winter onwards, harvest rhubarb stems by pulling them outwards with a slight twist. Pick only the young pink stems, before they become green and thick, coarser and more acidic. Allow plenty of leaves to remain on the plant to continue to photosynthesise and encourage further growth. During a glut, freeze surplus rhubarb by cutting into chunks, open-freezing and then storing in bags. Rhubarb will continue to crop until midsummer, but forced crowns should be left for 2-3 years to recover before they are forced again.

At the end of the season, around mid-autumn, when the leaves start to die back, remove the old foliage and expose the crowns to frost. Divide the crowns every 4-5 years in mid-spring, just as the soil is warming up. Don’t pick any stems from these plants until the second year so that they have time to develop.

Forced rhubarb is mild, sweet and tender and needs less cooking than the main crop. Stew or roast with orange or ginger for an easy dessert.

Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid and, in consequence, are poisonous. Exploiting this characteristic, the leaves have traditionally been used to make an insecticide to control aphids on non-edible plants such as roses, and planting rhubarb near aquilegias is said to keep red spider mite away. Rhubarb also deters blackspot from roses, while small pieces of rhubarb included in the planting hole are said to protect brassicas from clubroot.

Last month Norfolk was treated to a rare sight, the Aurora Borealis. The spectacular show was due to a coronal mass ejection from the sun. This is a fast moving cloud of charged particles emitted when a sunspot erupts, producing a solar flare. The charged particles interact with atoms of the Earth’s atmospheric gases near the magnetic poles, and the burning gases create a display of ethereal coloured lights – oxygen produces green and yellow lights, nitrogen produces blue, and red and violet can also be seen. The aurora is usually only visible above the north and south magnetic poles, but under the right conditions can be seen at other latitudes. The display in Norfolk is said to have started around 8 pm in the evening and to have lasted for several hours.

The Aurora Borealis is also known as the Northern Lights, and the equivalent in the southern hemisphere, the Aurora Australis, is known as the Southern Lights. Other names for the Northern Lights include Merry Dancers and Lord Derwentwater’s Lights. This last name refers to James Radclyffe, the third Earl of Derwentwater, who was an English Jacobite beheaded for rebellion on 24 February 1716, when the lights were said to be unusually brilliant.

There are many myths associated with the Northern Lights. They take the name Aurora from the Roman goddess of the dawn who flies across the sky every morning to announce the arrival of her brother, Sol, the sun. Her sister is Luna, the moon, and the morning dew is referred to as Aurora’s tears. According to Brewer’s 1870 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the lights were ascribed by “northern savages” to the merriment of ghosts, while Finnish legend suggests that the lights are caused by magical fire-foxes whose tails brush the sky, creating sparks. The Saami people of Lapland believed that the lights were the energies of the souls of the departed, or the fire of torches lighting their way to heaven. In Norway they were thought to be the spirits of old maids dancing in the sky, the Vikings called them the bridge to Valhalla, and the Australian aborigines interpreted them as the gods dancing. The lights may also have been the origin of early dragon legends from China and Europe, where they were interpreted as the dragons’ firey breath.

If you missed out this time you may like to use Lancaster University’s AuroraWatch service. Sign up at http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/alerts and they will alert you by email or Twitter when an aurora is likely to be visible from the UK.

February 6 was Waitangi Day in New Zealand, commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. The treaty sought to formalise the relationship between the colonising British and the native Maori people, making New Zealand part of the British Empire, establishing a British Governor there, and guaranteeing Maoris rights to their land. However, Maori beliefs about the ownership and use of land are very different from those that were prevalent in Britain in the nineteenth century. Their spirituality is strongly associated with the land, and they believe there is a deep kinship between humans and the natural world. They appoint individuals or groups as guardians to protect the land, while customary practices maintain a balance between the human communities and nature.

This relationship with the land and nature is found in many indigenous cultures. Humans, nature and spirits have a place in an ordered universe, and the environment is protected by religion and ritual as well as by traditional management practices. Together with an intimate knowledge of the environment, this enables indigenous cultures to co-exist with, rather than exploit, nature. The land also gives indigenous people a sense of belonging to a place, and connects them with their past, present and future – their past because it is the home of their ancestors, the present because it provides all of their material needs, and the future because it is a legacy that they hold in trust for their children and grandchildren.

The importance of the land is reflected in the statement by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples that “next to shooting indigenous peoples, the surest way to kill us is to separate us from our part of the Earth”.

Many of us in the Western world do not have such an intimate connection with the land. We may not live in the same place as our forebears, and our children may not remain where we are living now. We do not rely on the area where we live for our material needs since much of our food and other provisions are produced in, and imported from, faraway places. We do not feel a sense of kinship with the natural world but, instead, see it as a source of material assets with economic value.

However, the Western world is increasingly recognising the value of traditional land management practices, and is seeking to protect them through “community protocols” that formalise in written form the customary laws that have sustained biodiversity for generations.

Today was a cold, wet, muddy winter day at the Diss Community Farm, but what does that matter if you are having fun? Most of the regulars turned up to do some harvesting, planting, and generally getting prepared for the next growing season. It is looking very neat and organised these days, a far cry from last year when we were overwhelmed. Lots of straw between the rows, membrane down to prevent weeds, manure ready. Had to remember not to worker harder than my body is comfortable with. This is not a competition.

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January is a time of new beginnings, when many people set – and break! – their new year resolutions. The month is named after the god Janus, who had two faces, signifying that January looks back over the past year as well as looking forward to the new year.

Despite the blustery weather, the first week of January has been mild, but this does not bode well for the spring. According to several old proverbs, “March in January, January in March” or, worse still, “If January’s calends be summerly gay, ‘twill be winterly weather till the calends of May.” Another proverb suggests that “January commits the fault and May bears the blame”, but this is thought to refer to human behaviour as much as to the weather. But “if the grass looks green in January”, as it undoubtedly does this year, “it will grow the worse all the year”.

It is interesting to consider the accuracy of these old sayings. Some are undoubtedly true, especially those that make short-term predictions. For example, the Met Office website explains the saying “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”. Dust and small particles, trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure, scatter blue light leaving only red light to tint the sky. If this happens at sunset it shows that the high pressure is moving in from the west, but in the morning a red sky shows that the high pressure weather system has already moved east and the good weather has past.

A longer-term prediction is the saying “Oak before ash, we’ll have a splash, ash before oak, we’ll have a soak”. The Woodland Trust looked at the accuracy of this and found that the breaking of buds on the trees depends on spring temperatures, but records collected over 250 years suggest there is no correlation between these temperature and summer rainfall.

Another longer-term prediction is the suggestion that the weather on St Swithun’s Day (15 July) predicts the weather for the following forty days. This prediction might have some justification since around the middle of July the jet stream takes one of two paths. If it moves south it pulls in cold air from the Arctic bringing cloud and rain, while if it moves north it pulls in sub-tropical air that brings warm and sunny weather. However, while a general trend may be indicated, the Met Office reports that there hasn’t been forty days of rain since records began!

We had a good day at Winfarthing and came home with sprouts, parsnips, celeariac, leeks, leaves, and probably slugs! There are still some potatoes in the shed that haven’t been taken.

We also celebrated Christmas with some mulled wine and for those who wanted the recipe, it’s below.

1/2 (as in half) pint water 4 oz sugar 4 cloves 2 in stick cinnamon

1 or 2 lemons, thinly sliced 1 bottle of red wine.

Boil water, sugar and spices together. Add the lemons, stir and leave to stand for 10 minutes. Pour back into the saucepan and add the red wine. Heat, but do not boil. Strain the wine into a bowl and serve hot. Makes about 1 1/2 pts.

Jeff and Frances

Christmas decorations started appearing in the streets, shops and house windows throughout December, but I’m pleased to report that I only spotted one house with Christmas lights ablaze before November was out. While Christmas preparations seem to start earlier each year, William Howitt, in his Rural Life of England published in 1840, reports that Christmas Eve was traditionally the day when the house was decorated.

Howitt describes Christmas as “the festival of the fireside; the most domestic and heartfelt carnival of the year”. Homes from stately houses to cottages were enthusiastically decorated, not with shop-bought ornaments of tinsel and foil but with the natural decorations of the English countryside. “Holly, ivy and mistletoe appear in vast quantities in the markets, and almost every housekeeper…furnishes herself with a quantity to decorate her windows”.

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable claims that the origin of Christmas decorations lies not with Christian celebrations but in the Roman feast of Saturnalia, held in December, which Brewer describes as a “time of licensed disorder and misrule”. But Folkard, writing in 1892, suggests that the practice of decorating houses with mistletoe and holly “is undoubtedly of Druidic origin…[when] the houses were decked with boughs in order that the spirits of the forest might seek shelter among them during the bleak winds and frosts of winter”. But the foliage had to be put out of doors before Candlemas (2 February) to allow the spirits to return to the forest ready for the spring. This belief, transferred from Candlemas to Twelfth Night, is said to be the origin of the superstition that it is unlucky to leave decorations up after Twelfth Night.

In fact, the period around the winter solstice, with its associated use of evergreen decorations, has been celebrated within many traditions. For both agricultural and hunter gatherer cultures, understanding the cycle of the year was critical to their survival, and winter was the hardest time of all. So the lengthening of days was something to be celebrated, and in the dead of winter, evergreen trees were a reminder that life continues and would return in spring.

Holly, in particular, was associated with the winter solstice. The holly king and the oak king are, respectively, the god of dark and god of light, ruling over the solar year. In early mummers’ plays the holly king fights the oak king for the hand of a fair maiden and is victorious at the summer solstice, ruling over the six months of the declining sun. But at the midwinter solstice he is defeated by the oak king, who rules for the following six months of lengthening days.

At this time of year the back garden is strewn with fallen quinces, the large, yellow and velvet-skinned fruit combining with fallen leaves and dried flower stems to create an enchanting autumnal scene. The old quince tree is no doubt a remnant of the time when the garden, together with land from adjoining properties, was an orchard. Despite its age it still produces an abundant crop.

The quince was once widely grown but then fell out of fashion. The eponymous author of Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book says “Not much good my giving advice on choosing quinces. You have to buy what you can find, and be thankful.” However, there are signs that interest is returning, and articles on the fruit in both cookery and gardening magazines are no longer uncommon.

The fruit was known to the ancient Greeks, who called it Chrysomelon, meaning “golden apple”. This may well have been the golden apple that was offered by Eris, the goddess of discord, to the most beautiful of the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Paris gave judgement in favour of Aphrodite, an action that contributed to the Trojan war and the fall of the city of Troy. The quince was consecrated to Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite, and was considered a love token. It has also been suggested that quinces were the golden apples that grew in the Garden of the Hesperides and were protected by a dragon with a hundred heads. Hercules slew the dragon as the twelfth and last of his labours. The quince rather than the apple may also have been the fruit that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Quinces have been used in this country for many centuries. Dorothy Hartley, in Food in England, gives a recipe for quince honey that she says is a twelfth century English translation from the Greek. In addition, she includes a fourteenth century recipe for quince pie, and several eighteenth century recipes. A quince preserve is likely to have been the origin of our familiar marmalade. The Portuguese word for quince is marmelo, and marmelada is a preserve made from the fruit.

If you can get hold of some quinces, try stewing one with apples, where it will add a delicate flavour and a rose-coloured tint. You could also make the Spanish membrillo, which is a firm quince paste that can be cut in slices and eaten with cheese. Or just place a couple in a decorative bowl and leave to delicately scent the whole room with an aroma that is something between apples and roses.

With the early mists and slanting sunlight, the mornings are beginning to feel very autumnal. The leaves have not yet turned, but the hedgerows are full of fruits, and the birds have deserted my offered food for this abundant harvest. One of the most delicious and accessible of these hedgerow fruits is the blackberry. The plant is widespread, and an early flora, published in 1911, declares that a hedgerow without a blackberry bush “would seem to be sadly wanting”.

The blackberry or bramble, like the dandelion, is an apomictic plant. This means that, rather than a single species, there are a large number of slightly differing forms, which are sometimes called microspecies. A Handbook of the British Flora, published in 1858, notes the considerable variation, “especially in the prickles and hairs, and in the shape of the leaflets” leading to “an excessive multiplication of supposed species”. The later (1911) flora records the disagreement between botanists over the number of different forms. The author finds that “one text-book gives us the Blackberry pure and simple, one and indivisible, another tells of seven, another describes twenty-three, while yet another asks us to believe that in Great Britain there are six-and-thirty distinct types”. How amazed he would be to find that botanists now recognise nearly 400 different microspecies!

The bramble has sometimes been said to have been the burning bush seen by Moses, or to have formed the crown of thorns. It has been valued in the past as a medicinal plant. The Greeks used blackberries to treat gout, and both the fruit and flowers were considered effective against the bites of serpents. It was also used to soothe scalds and burns, and to fix loose teeth.

The bramble is shade tolerant, but heavy shade severely limits the production of flowers and fruit. So for productive blackberrying, look out for bushes in sunlit hedgerows, on the margins of woods or beneath gaps in the woodland tree canopy.

But make haste, and make the most of September’s crop, for after Old Michaelmas Day on 10 October they become inedible. The reason, according to country folk, is that on Old Michaelmas Day the devil fell from heaven into a bramble patch. So angry was he that, every year on the anniversary of his fall, he spits on the fruit and renders them inedible. The more down to earth explanation is probably that early frosts damage the fruits and render them vulnerable to mildew.