Shall I or shall I not?

I've been doing some overdue leaf clearing and digging over the soil before the frosts and really bad weather strike. Not much of a job really in my little space and I don't know why I haven't got round to it before.

Thoughts turned to next year and what to plant as I was working. I had been intending to ditch the space right at the back of the garden where the sun hardly shines. The combination of the leylandii in the neighbouring garden and our shed have combined to make it a dodgy spot for growing anything. The spuds of 2009 were meagre and the beans of this year failed to take off.

My relatively new compost bin now sits in part of this patch, but I was wondering if I should make use of part of the ground. Garlic could go there, I thought. Also, my eye has been caught by a short piece about shallots in the Yorkshire Post gardening column. Both the garlic and shallots could be planted now.

Mmm, I wonder. Should I give this spot another chance? Wouldn't do any harm, I suppose.

Well, we tried some

We've started buying potatoes again after using up the modest stocks of Lady Balfour spuds which I grew this year in the garden.

Our eye was caught the other day by Albert Bartlett Purple Majesty potatoes. That's right, purple. A novelty we could not resist and so we duly trotted off to home from Sainsbury's with a bag.

It was our suspicion that this potato was genetically modified. But not so, says Perthshire-based Albert Bartlett, who reveal it was developed at Colorado State University from a traditional variety. The benefits? According to the growers, the purple potato is healthier than the standard variety of white potato because it contains up to 10 times the level of antioxidants.

All very well, but the proof of the pudding is always in the eating. They didn't taste bad, but we decided the producers have got a mountain to climb because of the colour. First impression on opening up the bag was that they looked like beetroot (no bad thing), but on cooking the outcome is that they take on the appearance of a grey sludge. It didn't look good.

An interesting experiment, but I'm afraid we won't be buying again.

I thought so

The mystery object turned out to be parsley after all. And very nice too in a little parsley & lemon butter I cobbled up at teatime tonight.

At least I hope it was parsley. Come back in a few hours and I'll let you know.

Today's mystery object is...

A real autumn mist pervaded our neighbourhood for most of yesterday morning, the first day on which the clocks had gone back. The days are cracking on now and even I am starting to think of Christmas, have previously slated the shops for starting the season too early. I've succumbed already to buying some bottles of Christmas ale, an offer at the Co-op being too good to refuse. They are sitting there on the shelf now. Will I resist temptation, I wonder?

Among the presents I got last year from my daughter was what I described at the time as a teabag full of herb seeds, bought at the Imperial War Museum North. You had to place it in a bowl of water for a day, then plant under a thin layer of soil.

The label said the bag was embedded with a mix of herbs including parsley, chives and basil. I don't know what has happened to the mixture, but I have succeeded in getting one herb only after about four months of growing very slowly in the pot. But what is it?

Susan suspects it's parsley. In truth, so do I. But I'm not totally sure. I am a dunce, aren't I?

My pungent aroma

It always seems right to make jam and chutney on a Sunday. And in autumn too. They just seem to go together.

I spent a very happy morning yesterday using up the last of my store of green tomatoes during a session in the kitchen. Mind you, there were complaints about the strong smell of vinegar. I don’t mind it. In fact, I find it rather pleasant, preferring to use the word aroma rather than  smell. Do other people think the same?

There was only a jar and a half of chutney, but it was good to make use of the green tomatoes before they went off. The green tomato jam was a bit of an experiment in my state-of-the-art bread maker. But hey, why not try the jam setting if you’ve got it? No-one quite believes me that you can have such a flavour of jam and indeed it’s something I’ve never had before. Time will tell if it’s OK.

And so ends this year’s crop of tomatoes. Not a very successful growing season. Let’s hope it goes better next year.

I've bin thinking

Munching on a banana this lunchtime, the thought occurred to me: Can I compost the skins?

I've been slowly getting to grips with the idea of composting after my friend Kate gave me the bin which now nestles at the bottom of the garden. But it seems a subject fraught with difficulties, different ideas and plain bonkers obsession.

I don't want to carry it to extremes, I just want to know what's safe to chuck in the bin. My wife Susan can usually answer most of my questions, but composting is a blank in her knowledge. Can I compost egg shells? Dunno. Can I compost lemons? Dunno. What about egg boxes? Ditto.

Luckily, I have now found the wonderful Compost This website run by Louisa Parry and John Leach. The beauty of it is that they keep it simple and concise. Browse each of the categories and it gives you a plain yes, no or maybe, leaving it up to you to click and find out why.

It's a bonus that these two active recyclers, reusers and composters live together in Leeds, a city where I spent 17 very happy years after moving north from Kent when I went to university.

Banana skins? Yes. Egg shells? Yes. Lemons? Maybe. Thank goodness for help like this.

And, with Christmas coming, it seems opportune to say that all I need now is a kitchen caddy (hint, hint).

And these I forgot

I realised that I left out a few things in my posting Taking Stock. I forgot about the lettuce and salad leaves.

Well, the salad leaves did OK. Both seeds in pots and straight in the ground outside worked well. The La Rossa lettuce didn't go too well. All right in the beginning, but soon seemed to taste bitter.

Ah well. Try again.

Taking stock

At my suggestion, I snipped off some mint to add to our home-cooked meal tonight. Susan quietly threw it away, telling me later she didn't think it was mint and it just didn't seem right. Obviously past its best and a reminder that the season has grown to a conclusion.

Time to take stock and examine the failures and successes of this year and what I can learn from them.

1. Potatoes - absolutely brilliant. But I need to plant more than one variety.
2. Courgettes - three plants in pots produced about half a courgette between them, but the one planted outside in the soil has been wonderful. It's producing even now.
3. Raspberries - about five grew, a welcome gift for the birds. Bushes dug up after two seasons of failure with them.
4. Rhubarb - continues to baffle me. We've had about one pudding this year from the two crowns in the garden. Susan says it's because I don't feed them.
5. Spinach beet - has done OK.
6. Tomatoes - a major disappointment after being such a winner last year. The outdoor plants caught blight early on and had to go. The plants in the conservatory were hardly big producers. The lesson I have learned is to use growbags rather than pots and to stay away from heritage seeds. They're heritage for a reason, I feel. Mainstream toms for me next summer.
7. Broccoli - doing all right, although it was my friend Kate who started them off before giving them to me as a present.
8. Pak choi - a waste of time. Has failed to grow.
9. Mizuna - also not very successful. Failed to grow outdoors, the indoor pot produced just a few leaves and then stubbornly refused to grow more.
10. Squash - nothing doing from the single plant in the conservatory.
11. Herbs (that's thyme, oregano & basil) - fairly successful, although I don't think we've utilised them to their full extent in our cooking.
12. Broad beans - blighted.
13. Cherokee Trail of Tears beans - about two handfuls produced, a bitter disappointment. 

More failures than successes, but I'm not crying. I'll be trying even harder next year.

Lessons? More effort needed, composting needed, I should learn to propogate more plants in the conservatory rather than planting seed directly in the ground and I must ditch the back plot where I put the broad beans and the Cherokee Trail of Tears this year. The sun just doesn't shine there and also it is very stony, this being the land where they did a lot of quarrying in the past. I plan on digging out a further patch elsewhere in the garden.

Massacre of the innocents

You bring them up, feed them, nurture them, love them - then they let you down.

My tomatoes have been a bit of a disaster after the runaway success of last year. The outdoor ones were ditched a little while ago after being blighted, while the indoor ones have produced very little red fruit. It's been a poor season.

One lesson learned is not to put them in pots again. Growbags did very well last year and they are what I will have next year.

The nine potted plants in the conservatory were finally ditched today, having gradually wilted and yellowed over the last week. There was, though, a bit of a haul of green tomatoes from them and I have saved them to make chutney.

But that job will have to wait until next weekend as we are going on holiday. Hay-on-Wye, seeing as you ask.

Yes, I know it's about time

I've got a compost bin!

My good friend Kate gave it to me last weekend, she having got a splendid new wooden structure for her compost.

To be honest, it's just dumped in the corner at the moment as I have spent hardly any time in the garden this week. It's going to remain where I have put it, at the side of the shed in the corner where the sun don't shine, and I've just got the small job of making sure it's level before I pile the stuff in.

I've written before about how my soil really needs improving, so I'm hoping this will be just the thing. I must say I don't know much about the art of composting and so will have to read up about it.

I'm off now to mull over the debate about whether you should or should not compost teabags.

Oh dear, I hope I don't become obsessed.

Something to bear in mind

I have had a very successful courgette harvest this year, losing count of the number produced by the single outdoor plant which survived. They've gone into innumerable meals and into chutney. Sometimes we haven't known what to do with them.

So I was tickled when I came across this story on the First Post website about a new use for a courgette:

WOMAN FIGHTS BEAR WITH COURGETTE

A US woman fought off a black bear which attacked on the porch of her Montana home by hurling the nearest item to hand at it - a courgette. The woman’s dog was attacked by the bear first. She kicked the animal and it retaliated by swiping at her leg, ripping her jeans. She retreated into her house but the bear followed – until a vegetable to the nose sent it running.

Power of veg!

I go a'foraging

I spent a pleasant hour or so the other day raiding the blackberry bushes that border the unmade and unadopted lane that leads to our house and which also grow in the woods around the corner.

Each year I plunder as many as I can for jam and puddings and consider myself lucky that there is not generally a race with other people to get them.

Armed with a plastic container from the kitchen, I managed to get a decent batch for immediate use. No need to be greedy as our freezer is full and there is always tomorrow for another harvest.

There was a deviation this year when I decided to make blackberry & apple jam in the breadmaker. A lazy way? I don't know, but it makes good bread and I thought it worth experimenting with the jam setting to see what would happen. You never know until you try.

The Morphy Richards Fast Bake model is, by the way, almost brand new and was donated to me by one of my followers on Twitter, who knew from my tweets that I made bread. This was an extraordinary act by a complete stranger who no longer wanted the machine as her husband has to lay off the bread for health reasons. It was so kind of her to think of me.

As this was my first time, I made enough jam just for one jar. Seemed to taste all right when it came out of the pan, while have a proper taste when it settles down in the jar.

The remainder of the blackberries went into a crumble which we shall have for tea tonight (the others being out of the house at the moment on visiting duties).

Only too late did I come across this recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for blackberry brandy to drink at Christmas. Mmm, that's mighty tempting. Looks like it's back down the woods in a few days.

A satisfying job

I don't have a big lawn or pretend to keep it in pristine condition, but I find something deeply satisfying about mowing.

And so a session this afternoon - long put off because of rain, wet and lethargy - proved to be calming and just what the mind needed. It was 30 minutes or so of gentle work away from everyday cares as I pushed the mower up and down the lawn.

I have a trusty electric lawnmower bought from Woolworths I don't know how many years ago and at one time I used to hurry the job. But since I gave up newspaper work, I don't mind taking a bit more time. I've developed the patience to switch off the mower to move the lead into a better position as I go around the lawn.

As I was cutting the grass, it was chilly and became overcast at one point. I realised there won't be many days left this year for mowing.

A bargain day out

It was a very generous act when Harewood House waived all admission fees on the occasion of Heritage Open Days. We could not resist it and took full advantage.

Summer days may be ending, but the sun was shining and it was very warm for our visit to this stately home near Leeds. We took a pleasant walk in the grounds to see the Himalayan garden and the walled garden, where they grow fruit and vegetables for the house.

I'm a sucker for walled gardens and I enjoyed this one very much, while at the same time wondering why it is so far from the house. Everything was so neat and tidy, the produce growing well and the soil something to envy.

It helps of course to have a team of gardeners, but a lesson for us commoners is that you do need to put a bit of effort into your gardening.

Thank you for small mercies

Dashed out just now to retrieve the washing from the line before it rained. Had a quick inspection of my Cherokee Trail of Tears beans and was absolutely delighted to see some are finally appearing - probably about a fortnight later than last year.

It's good news. But I'm not going back out to take a photo - it's now chucking it down with rain and rumbling with thunder.

A windy day

I spent most of the day working on things inside the house, listening to the wind whistling all around. It was the sort of force bound to dislodge things and so it proved when I did venture out. Nothing grave, just three of my outdoor pots of tomatoes, and righted in a jiffy. My little wigwam of Cherokee Trail of Tears beans survived (fingers crossed, the wind hasn't died down at all), but still no crop from the plants.

I cut three courgettes, two from the plant in the ground and one from a plant in a pot. Decided that now was the time to give up on the three courgette plants in pots and emptied them out. Why is it that they didn't take? The pots were massive, but I only got one courgette from them. Seems it's a plant much happier in the ground.

New website for veg growers

I'm a little remiss in having failed to mention the new UK Veg Gardeners website launched by Gillian Carson, who blogs at My Tiny Plot. Her aim is to help vegetable gardeners meet each other, share ideas and gain inspiration (that's what it says on the welcome page) and at the time of writing 299 people have signed up as members.

I'm one of them, although I confess my contribution has been non-existent so far. Maybe remedy that in time and maybe join the Yorkshire Gardeners group formed by some of the site's members.

One posting on the forum has drawn my attention to the grow2eat website aimed at individual gardeners, clubs and societies and which offers discounts on a wide range of grow-your-own items. Certainly worth keeping an eye on as I'm partial to a bargain.

We are a bit equivocal

The first of this year's tomatoes have been picked and the verdict is a bit iffy. A few of the Lightfruit and Yellow Pear-Shaped were available so we had them with a light lunch of boiled potatoes and lettuce (both mine), together with a Scotch egg (Sainsburys).

In all honesty, they tasted a bit soggy. In fact, Susan kept most of hers aside to put in a curry tonight. I'm more of a gannet and tucked into mine, although I could see what she meant.

Still, they're only the first of the crop and we shall have to see how the rest fare. They were varieties acquired more or less by accident and at this stage my thinking for next year is to have a go with good old Gardener's Delight.

While looking back on this blog to remind myself what sort of tomatoes I had last year, I came across a posting about the first of the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans being ready on August 25. One year on and we've gone almost 10 days beyond that date with no beans ready. A good sign is that there are plenty of little purple flowers, so perhaps soon...

Handy hint

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Just when I'm thinking about green manure, along comes this handy video from the BBC Dig In website. Thanks.

A bountiful harvest

Absolutely wonderful weather over the last few days in our part of Yorkshire and I have dug up the remainder of my Lady Balfour potatoes. Half were lifted a fortnight or so ago and I left the rest in the ground mainly because of the storage issue. A mountain of spuds has come from the 20 tubers I planted earlier this year, far more than the measly crop of last year. I am really pleased.

I think that next year I shall return to two types of potatoes, say an early and a maincrop, just for variety and to ensure a better flow of produce. At the moment I am quite taken with Bonnie Dundee, simply because of the name's association with my Scottish roots, but we will see. As always, it will be enjoyable looking through the catalogues.

A question arises as to the bare soil left after the harvest. Too late to plant anything now and in any case I will need to improve the soil structure, I guess. Time for green manure. I have two types, phacelia and a rye and I think I will go with the latter, simply because I've tried phacelia before and fancy something different.

Now, what for tea...?

Rainy day musings

Lush countryside around Auchterhouse

Really heavy rain yesterday morning prevented all activity in the garden, but we were going out in any case to a family occasion in Derbyshire so I would not have had time.

I have been researching my family history over the course of the last six months or so, a subject you perhaps tend to get more interested in as you get older. Specifically, I have been delving into the background of my mother. She was a very private person and only mentioned it once or twice, so I thought it was time I cracked the mystery.

One of things I know for definite is that she was born at 10 Glebe Street, Dundee, a holy grail address for fans of the Broons cartoon characters. They have lived at this tenement since first appearing in print in the Sunday Post in 1936 and I am now the proud owner of Ma Broon's Cookbook, the inside of which contains an illustration of a postcard addressed to the Broons at 10 Glebe Street, Dundee. I am now officially Oor Andy.

The other thing I know is that my mother's mother, the maternal grandmother I never knew, was the daughter of a ploughman. He and his family moved around farms in the Dundee area from the 1880s onwards and I had the pleasure of visiting Auchterhouse, one of the villages where they lived, during a visit to Scotland earlier this year.

Quite what Charles Stewart Christie would have made of my puny efforts in the garden, I will never know. But I like to think there is something in the genes.

A potty day

I'm still unsure whether my tomatoes are going to work out this year. I've three varieties on the go, Lightfruit, Harbinger and Yellow Pear-Shaped, all from seed packets acquired as a gift or because the price was knocked down in a sale. The few plants outside had to be dug up and destroyed about a week ago because of blight while the indoor plants have yet to ripen.

They are showing nice bunches of fruit and have grown and spread out noticeably in the sun of recent days, so much so that I returned home this lunchtime from a morning out to discover that one of the pots had toppled over and taken two or three of the others with it. A quick rearrangement and a few new stakes have stabilised them, but the basic problem is that this year I eschewed growbags in favour of pots and I chose too small. I think also that nine pots is a step too many for the space I have in our conservatory.

I'm not quite sure at this distance why I decided against going with growbags this time. They worked perfectly satisfactorily last year and gave me a bumper crop. Think on for next year.

I took a photograph of the Lightfruit tomatoes, a name I sniggered over at the time I was given the seeds. They are in fact quite heavy and promise to be productive.

Back in business

The blog is resuming today after a short break when I didn't feel like doing it. I felt at the time that the writing was not very good, that I was spending more time than I really wished on the blog and that it wasn't adding anything to the good of the world.

I'm in a better frame of mind now, have decided to come out of anonymity with it, have added a photo of the real me and will be writing a proper personal profile. What the hell, it's only a diary that I don't mind other people reading.

Gardening has continued, albeit it in a lazy and half-hearted way in comparison to other people. I've recently come across two websites which have inspired me to get back on track with blogging - one called UK Veg Gardeners and the other My Tiny Plot . Both are run by a woman called Gillian Carson, the latter site being her personal blog and the former a social site for veg gardeners in general.

All I've got to do now is grow some bloody veg (puts on his Michael Caine voice).

Thyme marches on

A day of mostly rain and even a little bit of sleet when we ventured out to do some shopping. Even worse weather tomorrow, they say.

On the plus side, the English thyme seeds I started off in the conservatory just a short while ago are starting to come through. Nothing else showing yet in the trays, but they will come. Of that I am sure

Hang on, we’re not there yet

I did it, I remembered to put the clocks forward by one hour. It has been a nice day here as we race towards April, although The Pulse radio station in Bradford was overdoing it a fair bit by claiming on Facebook that it was the first day of summer.

As a matter of fact, they are wrong. It is not the first day of summer, as others have pointed out on Facebook. In addition - and I don't know if it should be described as irony - we are forecast snow and sleet in our part of the country over the next few days. We've got some way to go before summer.

Making the most of today's good weather, I have turned my attention to our neglected flower borders and made a good start on clearing the dead wood from one of them. It was only just over an hour of work, but I felt I had achieved something. The car boot is full of stuff to take to the tip tomorrow.

I was pleased to notice that my rhubarb has sprung back into life after virtually vanishing over winter. I have two lots, one a crown which Kate gave me and the other which was a seedling I must have bought from somewhere. Both died back over winter almost to the point where you were left wondering if they had ever been there.

When I mentioned my concern over their disappearance, Kate suggested that I cover them with pots in an effort to force them. I'm delighted to say it seems to have done the trick and they are growing. The trouble now is knowing when to uncover them, but I think that I shall leave it for a bit if we are due snow and sleet.

Rhubarb is one of my very favourite things from the garden, its tart taste being much to my liking. The seeds I got from the Royal Horticultural Society included a recipe for rhubarb chutney, something I will definitely try if I get a good crop.

A gift is delivered

I realise that I don't know where the expression gift horse comes from, but I know one when I see one. In this case, it's free seeds from the Royal Horticultural Society which I sent away for recently.

They come courtesy of the RHS grow your own campaign and the pack I have received contains carrots (Nantes Frubund) and tomato (Gardener's Delight). I have no immediate need of the latter, having just set off my tomato seeds, but I shall probably give the carrots a whirl sometime.

The pack also includes a container growing guide & some recipe cards. Quite fancy the carrot cake with lemon cheese frosting. Sadly, I would have to use bought ingredients if I made it now.

I am glad to have had this pack. It's good to get something for nothing.

Getting stuck in

Spring is just around the corner, with the equinox this Saturday (17.32, to be precise) and the clocks going forward the following weekend. I am matching the seasonal change with a burst of activity in the garden.

Susan drove me to Kershaw's Garden Centre in Brighouse this morning to get the bags of manure I spotted the other day when I took a walk there. Five bags of J Arthur Bower's Blended Farm Manure, a snip at £20 the lot. As Susan says, this makes it the most expensive vegetables ever.

Two of the bags were dug in as soon as we returned and the remaining three are awaiting the plots being fully prepared. We later went to Wilkinson's in Brighouse to get two tubs of poultry manure which I shall use in the near future and five bags of potting compost.

I noticed with delight while digging in the manure that the white onions I planted last year are at last beginning to come through. There was no sign of shoots just a couple of days ago, but the sun really seems to have done them good. Hope they maintain their progress.

I started off some tomato and herb seeds in propagating trays - three filled with tomatoes and three with oregano, dill and English thyme. It was with some alarm that I noticed the tomatoes are called lightfruit, harbinger and yellow pear-shaped, hardly names to fill you with confidence. The lightfruit packet was from the Dig for Victory set which Dorothy gave me for Christmas and the other two were Thomas Etty packets I got for the knockdown price of 20p each at Oxfam in Ilkley last year. Looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

Chit chat

Met my mate Kevin in the shop this morning and went round the corner with him to look at the allotment he has with his wife Judith. I was envious of what they had growing, but I suppose it's only a reflection of their hard work and application. Puts my puny efforts to shame.

We got to talking about chitting potatoes, both of us agreeing that the jury is still out on whether it is a useful thing to do or not. Generally, the advice if you do chit is that it should be done in a place which is frost free and has light. Kevin told me he does his in the dark in the cellar, partly because that's the best place for him to put them. But he added that it's simply an extension of the chitting process when you do eventually bury the spuds in the ground, so what's wrong with starting them off in the dark? It sounded logical to me when he said it.

Enthused by what I had seen, I took a short stroll to the garden centre this afternoon to buy some more chicken poo, but there was none to be had. Good job too as I realised on the way there that my back was in a bit of a fragile state, although only in a minor way. Hauling a big tub back on foot wouldn't have done me any good. Talking of chickens, I have a bottle of Old Speckled Hen beer at home and will console myself with that.

Passed a lama in the field on my way to the garden centre. I had known the animal was there, but had never seen it close up. Not what you expect to see around our way.

I am born again

My Lady Balfour potatoes have been delivered from Thompson & Morgan and I have put them in an egg box to start the process of chitting. Experts may say I've started late in the day, but they do say everything has been put back at least four weeks because of the poor weather we have had.

Mentioning to friends about the potatoes, I realised no labelling had come with them (other than general instructions for growing potatoes) and that I could not remember whether they were maincrop or what. Turns out they are early maincrop, named after the Soil Association founder. They are claimed to have impressive blight resistance and to give huge yields, even in poorer soils.

Doing a couple of hours of overdue digging this morning, I was reminded of how poor the soil is in my garden and how very many stones there are. Hardly surprising really as our neighbourhood was once noted for its quarries and stone mines. I was surprised today to find three or four pieces of broken glass turning up as I dug the earth over. Where did they come from?

I was pleased that the Lady Balfour spuds are produced in Perth, not far from where my mother came from. Let's hope they live up to expectations.

The spuds are coming, honest

A stunning blue sky today gives the impression that spring must be here. Snowdrops are bursting to life on the field where the owners sprayed poison and then tried to persuade the council that their housing plan would help to encourage wildlife. Whatever was in that poison was good - the snowdrops are the only ones I have seen so far this year. Is irony the right word here?

Yet frosts persist and the ground is still very hard in many places. Digging and planting will have to wait awhile, but I must start chitting the bloody potatoes. Spurred on by an offer of free postage this weekend from Thompson & Morgan, I have ordered 20 tubers of Lady Balfour potatoes. The claim that they give huge yields, even in poorer soils, clinched it for me. 

We shall see if I can do better than last year with my spuds. 

I'm stalled

We're in the first few days of March now and still no progress in the garden. Come on, be honest, no activity at all.

I'm feeling less guilty after reading that the delightful people at Blagger.co.uk have only just started chitting their potatoes. If they can get so far behind, so can I. But I have made a mental resolution to get down to Wilko's fast and buy some spuds. Probably be a main crop this year.

Kate sent me some onion sets today. Will get them in when the ground is less sodden (another excuse).

Latest weather

A heavy dollop of snow last night has quickly turned to vile slush today, although I fear the bad weather is not over yet. All this follows a report last week that spring has been delayed by four weeks because of the cold weather. Ah well, hot chocolate all round! 

Horny-handed son of the soil

I've been doing a bit of delving into my mother's family background, coming from a position of knowing next to nothing about her past. One of the things I have learned is that her mother, my maternal grandmother, was born in 1892 in Scotland, daughter of a ploughman. 

Can any of this farming expertise have been passed down to my genes? The evidence so far would suggest not, but here's to a good growing year. 

Hang on a minute

My friend Kate told me not to worry too much about the garden for another month or so, advice which seemed sound when I awoke this morning to a smattering of snow on the ground. We're forecast some more later in the week, although I was amused that today they were predicting sunny intervals. That's the intervals taken care of, but they were silent about the other bits of the day. 

The time has come

The special Festival of Britain issue of the Illustrated London News for February 11, 1951 has come into our house and the above advertisement naturally caught my eye because the gloves are named after me (prefer not to think I am named after gloves). I fail to grasp the reference to gloves and baldness, however, but it is probable that I was very bald at the time the magazine was published, having been born just over a week previously. Indeed, the publication has a picture of the King opening the festival at noon on Thursday, May 3, 1951, when little Andrew Baldwin would have been just one hour old. Ah!

The lack of blogging for the past month reflects my lack of activity in the garden. The time has come to put a bit of effort in and over the next few days I shall buy potatoes to chit and persuade Susan to drive somewhere where I can get two or three bags of stuff to dig in to the soil.

I have roughly mapped in my mind what's going where, although the back patch where I had the potatoes last year remains a problem. The soil is poor, very stony and the sun doesn't get there much. My mate Steve suggests beans. Runner, broad or French: or all three. They're tough, and their nitrogen-fixing root nodules will help to enrich the soil, he says. That'll do me.

Now then, do they still make Andy gloves? The hunt is on.

Snow joke

Somewhere underneath that snow is a black dog. Aged 12, but acting like a big kid.

As I write, it has been snowing again a couple of times this morning after last night's fall and the forecast is that it doesn't look too good over the next couple of days. Given that, it's a surprise to be reminded by John Harrison in his allotment email newsletter that now's the time to start thinking about your seed potatoes and start chitting them.

Nothing was further from my mind, but I suppose I ought to start thinking about his advice. I need to decide what to grow and where to grow it. Finding a frost free place with some light for chitting is going to take some doing, I have to say. 

John Harrison relates his father-in-law's story about competitions where you had to grow as many potatoes from one seed potato as you could. The competitors would chit them and then carefully cut out each sprout and grow them on in pots. Then they would strike cuttings from the foliage and grow those on. 

Apparently a hundredweight (112 lbs or 51Kg) was often achieved! 

New Year musings

The snow was almost gone yesterday, but a new flurry this morning has left the ground covered again. Before it fell I was able to do a quick inspection of the ground and see loads of cat crap on the patch where I have planted the onions. Nowhere else has this neighbour's cat pooed. Does it think it's dropping a nice piece of manure to help the onions along or is there some scent from the bulbs that attracts animals? I'll be very interested to see if this piece of produce ever comes to fruition.

The people who run the excellent Blagger site have been out tending to their raspberries. They admit themselves it's a little late, but it prompts me to think I am even later and must get on with the job. It's not much of a task, just a bit of pruning to get the plants in order for the new year. Must do it - when it stops snowing.

Santa visits our house

Christmas Day arrives and Dorothy has bought me the welcome present of three packets of seeds and a herb mix from the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester (all right, all right, Salford).

The seeds are tomatoes, onions and nasturtiums and I can't wait to get them in the ground next year around June time, tomatoes a bit earlier. 

The herb mix is very intriguing, being a mix of parsley, chives and basil in what resembles a tea bag. Indeed, you do have to soak it in a bowl of water for a day before planting.

Whatever will they think of next.

 

Winter wonderland

 

Today I woke up to heavy snow, really huge flakes falling, and I felt glad that I did not have to get up and go to work. It seems as if we will see out 2009 in snow, just as we saw the year in.

Hard to imagine that a green garden existed here not all that long ago. As I surveyed the scene from our bedroom window, I spied a cat having a crap – right on the spot where I planted the onions, the only things that I have planted out at the moment (apart from the dubious existence of rhubarb). Why there?, Why, why?

Rhubarb puzzler grips this part of the world

Does rhubarb hibernate over winter? I ask because there is no trace of my smaller rhubarb and only a stub of the bigger one. Susan did say earlier this year that she wondered if they would come to anything. Now it looks as if they have indeed come to nothing.

The answer lies in the soil

I wandered - lonely as a cloud* - through the composts and manures at Kershaws Garden Centre and came away none the wiser. What do I need to revive the soil in my ailing vegetable patches? There's so much stuff out there that I couldn't decide. Ah, the modern matra of choice, choice and choice. It isn't very helpful to someone who doesn't know what they're doing. But decide I will have to do before winter sets in properly. And get Susan to come with me in the car to shift these huge bags.

* apologies to William Wordsworth

What about me?

Some people may disapprove of the Daily Mail, but there's an article on its website about new research which says the secret of a long life is not just to eat your greens. You have to grow them as well.

Actually, I don't trawl the Daily Mail - I was led to the article through a link left on Twitter by a gardener in Yorkshire. It's interesting stuff, although my friend Steve has read the Guardian's version of the story and says the Mail left out a reference by one man who also credited his long life to the NHS. Saying that would be a step too far for the Daily Mail.

Where does this leave the likes of me? Someone who tries, but can't seem to get a good crop. Do I get a few more years on my life on the basis of good intentions?

Apostrophes, onions and Christmas

Reviewing my previous post, I see that I referred to my growing abilities. A chap called John McIntyre whose website I look in on from time to time, would be horrified. He's an American journalist about my age and a stickler for language and meaning, especially in journalism. For his benefit and to avoid any doubt, I stress that I was writing about my abilities at growing vegetables in the garden. I did not mean that my abilities were on the up and up. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

I was brought to this after a discussion with my friend Kate about the misuse of apostrophes and the like in written language. She's a teacher of English as a foreign language and tends to the view that these variations are all right as long as the recipient of the language gets the meaning. I remain doubtful of the argument and was reminded of it when I glanced at the packet of white onions she kindly bought for me the other day. The label proudly boasts Wilkos Cream of the Crop. While the meaning is blindingly obvious, I would much prefer to see Wilko's.

Still, I was very grateful for the present and it was a pleasant interlude when I planted the 50 onions in the ground where my runner beans had produced such a bountiful crop this summer. Let's hope the onions similarly thrive. Or should it be onion's?

On the kitchen front, I have finally baked our Christmas ale cake, used the spare fruit for a Yorkshire tea loaf and got onions salting overnight for pickling. Susan says I have to finish the onions when she is out of the house as she does not care for the smell.

The ale cake is from a recipe supplied by Stephen Jackson, owner of the Weavers Shed at Golcar, near Huddersfield, and is one I used last year. I do not take against him because of the lack of apostrophe in the word Weavers. My ingredients are not so posh as his, being chiefly from Aldi, but I did manage the bottle of Theakston's Old Peculier he recommends. Decent amount left for a drink. Hic!

And the beet doesn't go on

I've previously told how my friend Kate quite rightly persuaded me to move the spinach beet outside and how it rapidly died after a couple of weeks.

Surveying the wreckage today, I spied a turd.

A comment on my growing abilities?

And another thing

A person's needs, tastes and wants change over the years and it's the same with us, one example being that we seem to have an uncomfortable night if we eat much after 8pm. 

Susan is trying hard to be gluten-free, staying off bread, cakes and biscuits, as it doesn't seem to be much good for her. Just lately chili also seems to give her a bad time. Now she has announced, and she is quite right in telling me, that she is laying off the garlic.

Garlic happens to have been one of the few things I have grown successfully in the garden and I have a small stock of bulbs in the larder. Bugger.

Another day, another excuse

In my last post I promised I would get out in the garden after many weeks of neglect. I'm sorry to say that I have broken that promise.

As I write this, a terrific storm restricts me to staring out of the window in wonder at the deluge. You won't catch me out and about in this today.

It's a valid reason, but I fully realise that I am faltering with my ambitions to grow veg for our kitchen. A kick up the backside is needed.

Fighting talk

Spring forward, fall back. It's the phrase everyone quotes to remember whether to put the clocks on one hour or back. Tonight's the night when we put the clocks back, the nights get dark earlier and we inevitably start to have thoughts of Christmas.

It's been a washout of a day today with the weather, but I intend to give the garden a good going over next week after a period of letting it go. Sadly, the spinach beet which Kate  persuaded me to plant out in the space vacated by the French beans is dying back rapidly.

Susan says (again) that I just don't seem to have the growing touch. I intend to prove her wrong.

I've read that some critics say by changing the clocks we adversely affect our body's natural rhythms. It ain't going to happen to me. Up and at 'em.

The things I have to put up with

Something has done a bit of determined digging in the ground. Was it a cat, a squirrel, a deer, badger or the Beast of Brighouse? Tempting though the latter theory is, I'm inclined to rule it out. The culprit, whatever it was, had a pretty good go at making a hole but appears to have left nothing in it. So why go to all that bother?

Never write off the Russians

There are times in life when things creep up on you unexpectedly and take you totally by surprise. Take my Red Russian tomatoes, for instance - they're growing again.

This is a real shock to me as my Bonny Best has long since died, the Outdoor Girl hasn't produced any for a while and I had the last of my store of Gartenperle in a sandwich today. Blow me down when I saw some green Red Russians growing and, lurking at the back, one that is reddish in colour. 

Recent weeks have had a decided autumn air about them and we've had a frost on a couple of mornings, so it is a real shock to see the tomatoes bursting into life again in a conservatory with no heating. I hadn't even been watering them.

How far will they get?

It's peas in our time

Here's the first of my crop of peas - and I suspect it will be the last.

My mate Steve kindly gave me some heritage seeds last year and I planted some of the peas near the runner beans, but they have been a dismal failure. I expected about five or six plants to grow, but got only one.

Other people seem to have had difficulty with peas this year, so I am not alone. But it is damned frustrating.

There. Got it off my chest. And no dreadful pun about peas please me.

Giving it a go

My friend Kate is a fan of spinach beet and persuaded me to plant it when I was looking for something to go in the ground where the potatoes had been. I duly bought some seeds and popped them in pots some time ago.

Kate visited yesterday and spotted them growing in their pots in the conservatory, where they have lingered as a victim of the twin evils of inertia and slight despair at not being able to grow anything from seed outside (beans excepted).

She suggested I ought to try them outside and got to work on the plot where the Cherokees had been, digging over the soil again and spreading some chicken manure pellets. Eight or nine holes, a bit of puddling in with the watering can and they were in.

The soil was very dry, she remarked. Today, however, I have woken up to rain which seems settled in for the day. A good start for the spinach beet.

As I’ve said on so many occasions, time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Kate,spinach beet

Something I hadn’t considered

Took advantage of some nice autumn sunshine today to have a good (though not long) session in the garden.

My back came through the test as I dug up the Cherokee Trail of Tears and gave a quick digging over on another two patches.

One thing I hadn’t thought about was how tenacious the beans would be as I worked to untangle them from the poles of their wigwam. Gone now, though. What a good haul the seeds have produced.

I’ve flung some green manure over the plot and used the last of the packet on what space I could elsewhere. Must get some more.

Also picked some tomatoes, but I fear they are coming to an end now. Gartenperle has been the best, followed by Outdoor Girl and then Bonny Best and the Red Russian. The last was a complete failure, although I did get them to a decent size and got three jars of green chutney out of them. Not bad.

Technorati Tags: Cherokee Trail of Tears,beans,green manure,tomatoes,Gartenperle,Outdoor Girl,Bonny Best,Red Russian

Gardening by the moon

I see I could, if I wish, buy a 2010 Gardening by the Moon calendar to hang on the wall.

A search on the internet brings me to this explanation on an American website devoted to the subject:

Gardening by the phases of the moon is a technique that can speed the germination of your seeds by working with the forces of nature. Plants respond to the same gravitational pull of tides that affect the oceans, which alternately stimulates root and leaf growth. Seeds sprout more quickly, plants grow vigorously and at an optimum rate, harvests are larger and they don't go to seed as fast. This method has been practiced by many for hundreds of years, and is a perfect compliment to organic gardening because it is more effective in non-chemically treated soil.

Can there really be anything in this? As an opponent of all things hocus pocus – spiritualism and homeopathy being chief among them - I am naturally sceptical.

I doubt that I shall be giving it a try.

(The use of the word compliment instead of complement is theirs, by the way)

Technorati Tags: moon

Some words of wisdom

Getting out of the car the other day, Susan said to me: “You’re garden’s looking a wreck, Andy.”

She’s not wrong.

And then, examining the rhubarb, she added: “I don’t know if it’s going to come to anything next year.”

To which I could only ask: “Why’s that?”

Her reply? “You don’t seem to have the magic growing fingers.”

She’s not wrong.

I looked around the garden centre this afternoon for these magic growing fingers, but they didn’t seem to have any. Some people are blessed with a natural ability to grow things, I know, but it seems to me that the only way I can develop any sort of powers in this direction will be to work harder, prepare more and think harder about the planting.

Lesson learned, I hope.

As I come out of hibernation after the back problem, I see there is a lot of tidying up to do. The Cherokee Trail of Tears will have to come out, the patches where I have tried and failed to grow spinach beet and carrots will have to be dug over.

We live and learn. On the plus side, Susan says my chutney has worked out well.

Result.

Technorati Tags: Susan,Cherokee Trail of Tears,chutney

Thinking ahead

The Organic Gardening Catalogue arrives in the post from Chase Organics and provides me with a pleasant half hour of reading. Apparently, they are part of the Ian Allan Group, better known to my eyes as publishers of transport books. Strange diversification.

Plenty of delights to think about in the catalogue, although I might not buy from them. The spuds look enticing, particularly some of the names. Is there still a real-life Lady Balfour and does she mind being described as having ‘moderate scab resistance’?

I’m going over in my mind what I’ll be planting next year and where. I’m unsure at the moment where the spuds will go or indeed whether I will have first earlies, second earlies or maincrop. Decisions, decisions.

Always look on the bright side

Many everyday activities are impossible for me as I continue to shuffle around with my bad back and the garden is horribly neglected.

I am reading Philip Ziegler’s The Black Death to cheer myself up and came across this passage today about the helplessness of 14th century medical scientists:

“Ibn Khatimah approved of fresh fruit and vegetables but no one else  agreed. Gentile of Foligno recommended lettuce, the Faculty of Medicine at Paris forbade it. Ibn Khatimah had faith in egg plant, another expert deplored its use.”

In the 21st century, there seems universal agreement that vegetables can only be good for you. The debates that take place centre on GM v non-GM, organic v non-organic. When did our attitude towards veg change, I wonder?

Talking compost

News arrives that my local council has 200 tons of compost to give away to people who live in the area.

They’re doing it in a town just a 10-minute drive from where we live and I am sorely tempted. But Susan disagrees.

Her three points:

1. She isn’t driving the car with a load of shit in the back
2. She ain’t humiliating herself by joining a queue for shit
3. In slightly different words: Is it a sound trade-off for the environment to drive that distance in the car to get the stuff?

To which I must add that you have to take your own bag. Knowing us, we’d probably take the one with a hole.

What turned out to be an attractive offer is now dead in the water as far as we are concerned. But all this does underline the fact that I need to attach more importance to soil preparation. I’m guilty of overlooking it during my first year of vegetable growing and I think the crop has suffered.

Looking around for compost bins to buy, I notice the cheapest of the ‘subsidised’ ones on offer from the council is now £22 + £5 delivery. Susan reckons that’s extortionate and I seem to remember it’s not so long ago since they were £17 with free delivery.

Farewell, my friend

My Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are finally on the wane as autumn gathers pace. The leaves are turning yellow and some have dropped to the ground, I noticed today as I hobbled around the garden, still suffering from back pain.

I was intrigued from the start by the name and their history and they have turned out to be a good crop. It has been a real pleasure watching their progress from a dodgy start, when I thought they would never grow. Thanks to my mate Steve for sending me the seeds.

Not with my back

Not long returned from three days in Northumberland, I come late to a piece by the Observer newspaper headlined 'Vegetables are the new sex'.

It's an interesting idea and there's no doubting that vegetables and the art of growing them is going through a renaissance at the moment. But the new sex? Too far, I think, but how else are you going to fill those chunky Sunday newspapers?

In any case, I have done my back in scrabbling under the computer to sort out some wires. The pain is shocking and it has ruled out most activity for me at the moment. In fact, I can barely move and will probably pay when I try to rise from the chair after typing this.

There are many things to be doing in the garden - weeding, green manuring, picking beans - but I am incapable for the time being. Susan will pick and water the tomatoes for me, still going strong and producing a good crop.

For me, it's any tablet I can get my hands on and also any drink. Painkillers and whisky - just what the doctor would order if asked.

Is it a jar of chutney or a jar of pickle?

There's been an autumn nip in the air today after a few days of sunshine and it seemed appropriate weather to be indoors making pickle with my Red Russian tomatoes.

This variety of tomato is a real whopper and I think the weight has contributed to the fruit splitting on the vine before reddening. A better and more experienced grower than me would undoubtedly have a technique to deal with this, but I decided the best thing would be to harvest them now and turn them into pickle (or is it chutney? What is the difference?)

I've grown quite fond lately of browsing old recipe books produced by churches, Women's Institutes and the like and the latest to come into our house is a booklet published by the Hick Lane circuit of Methodist churches in Batley circa 1955.

It's thanks to those church stalwarts of half a century ago that I spent a happy couple of hours today in the kitchen cutting up and boiling tomatoes, onions, garlic, apples, sultanas and spices. Mind you, the very strong smell of vinegar in the air brought a few complaints from Susan and Dorothy.

I think they knew what they were doing all those years ago. I only hope I have done the cooks and their recipe justice today.

Trail of destruction hits veg

It's been pretty windy here for the last few days and on my tour of inspection in the garden this morning I discovered that a tangle of Cherokee Trail of Tears was hanging loose from one of the wigwam poles. Winding it back up the pole was out of the question so all I could do was tie it tightly at the top. Hope it holds.

The crop, by the way, continues to be impressive and the product excellent to eat - far better tasting than the runner beans. Mind you, the French beans with lemon sauce I cooked the other night failed to find favour with Susan. She thought I'd put too much lemon juice on it, she's not a big fan.

I have decided I hate slugs. What's to like about them? Nothing. They have butchered another of the Red Russian tomatoes that was just coming ripe. In fact, one of the buggers was still on it when I got up in the morning. I might cut my losses with the other Red Russians and make green pickle out of them. I'm glad to say, though, that the other tomatoes seem to be going on well.

Oh! Mr Putin, what shall I do?

I spoke too soon. My humongous Red Russian tomato has come under attack from slugs and has had to be pulled off before fully reddening. Luckily, there was still a fair bit left after I cut out the damaged parts. But it's only fit for cooking now.

I actually caught one of the blighters at it the other evening and am now mounting a nightly guard on the others tomatoes, although it's true to say you have to go to bed sometime. I hope the next-door neighbours don't think I'm shining a torch at their bedroom.

My mate Steve says the Gloria Greenfingers instructional strip I came across in a 1950s Empire News contains advice that is all wrong. I have discovered that the newspaper went out of business in 1960 - serves them right.

Pause for reflection

As a journalist, my stock in trade was anniversaries. A year, five years, 10 years, 50 years, a century, it was all grist to the mill. Whatever the time span, it was a chance to bash out couple of hundred words of retrospective magic in the continuing battle to fill acres of space in the newspaper.

So I am pleased to note today that it is is 13 months and five days since my first blog about starting a vegetable garden. It just shows how far I have strayed from the journalistic frame of mind that the actual one-year anniversary went by without me realising.

Lessons I've learned since I began this enterprise are to get my soil in much, much better condition for next year, pack plants a lot more closely together in the ground and plan ahead on replacements once one sort of veg is exhausted.

What I have gained from it all, in addition to food for the table, is pleasure, a nice sense of calmness when I'm fettling outside and an interest I never really had before in gardens we visit.

Bring on the next 13 months and five days.

Our healthy diet

The crops are coming in and we are living on a diet of tomatoes and beans (green, not baked).

The Cherokee Trail of Tears beans which have so intrigued me, pictured above, are now cropping handsomely and tasting very good. To my mind they are better than the runner beans. And to think that I once had grave doubts about them.

I've also dug up the garlic at long last and put it to dry. Some bulbs grew, some didn't. Who knows why?

I'm also getting a healthy amount of tomatoes - the Outdoor Girl first off the mark, followed by the Gartenperle and now one or two of the Bonny Best. Sadly, I have found that something has nibbled at three of the tomatoes I have picked over the last few days or so.

Nothing of the Red Russian tomatoes yet, although the biggest of them all is getting redder by the day. Now that would be a real shame if something got to that before me.

Doubts are cast upon me

I've recently been wrestling with the problem of gender and gardening after coming across the above cartoon strip in an issue of the Empire News of the 1950s.

Leafing through a book about Austria (Monk Gibbon, Batsford, 1962)at about the same time, I was surprised to come across the following passage:

A lad must not interfere with the vegetable-garden. He may do the digging but not the planting and picking. If he does, he runs the risk of being called Madl-Bua (of which lassy-lad is the nearest translation).

I suppose I could take the slur personally, but I've had a little reflection about it and it seems to me that we in Britain have had a long tradition of either sex happily tending to vegetable plots. Do they still think the same in Austria as they did 40 or 50 years ago, I wonder.

My tomatoes go down a treat

It was a genuinely thrilling moment when I picked and ate my first two tomatoes. I must have had a face like a little boy who had just been given a train set.

It's tempting to say they were the best tomatoes I have ever tasted, but I'll restrict myself to the comment that they seemed pretty good to me. I had pondered how to have them, wanting to savour the little beauties at their best. Karen Meyers, who runs an interesting gardening website from her home in the USA has had a recent posting suggesting three easy ways to serve tomatoes, but it seems to me they refer to the whoppers they favour on the other side of the Atlantic rather than the much smaller types such as Outdoor Girl. In the end I had one on its own and the other in a salad sandwich with lettuce from the garden and a hard-boiled egg. Lovely. I notice that some of my Gartenperle tomatoes are starting to redden. Will be interesting to compare the taste with the others.

I've been out and about foraging down our lane this afternoon, picking such blackberries as are ready. Not a great lot yet, but I gathered a decent amount to do something with.

It turned out to be a more profitable little outing than I thought, as a neighbour passed by and offered me some of his daughter's apples to go with them. Should make a nice pie or crumble.

Code alert red

The Observer Organic Allotment Blog asked a few days ago how everyone's tomatoes were doing and I had to answer then that mine were still green, although getting bigger and bigger. A momentous occasion has arrived since then - one of my Outdoor Girl tomatoes has turned red (and, since I took the photo, another is turning). Wonder what they are going to taste like and how should I serve them? We live in exciting times. No sign of any redness yet on the three other varieties of tomato I have.

I have also cropped a second courgette. Funny how I saw no sign of it the night before, yet there it was all grown next day. Can't appear that fast, can it?

I'm still waiting

The latest posting on the Observer Organic Allotment Blog wonders how visitors are doing with their tomatoes. Are they reddening and ripening, the writer asks.

The answer in my case is that they are getting bigger, but are still very green. One of the Red Russian variety is getting on to the size of Russia itself, as you can see in the photo. It should keep us going for a good few meals when it's ready to pick. Note the use of the word when, not if.

Caution, trip hazard

If only there had been a warning sign - or I was a bit more aware of the space around me. My big toe is battered and bruised after a garden accident.

Taking the garden waste to the car for a trip to the tip, I swerved to avoid a towel on the washing line and walked straight into a pile of paving slabs and tiles. Ouch! To compound it, I was wearing sandals at the time. The scene could have earned £250 on You've Been Framed.

Susan has charitably said in the past that my accidents might be the result of being left-handed. I have to view it honestly and admit I am just a clumsy person.

Ow, ow, ow!

Silence is golden

I've picked my first harvest of runner beans - all seven of them. Another three have been picked since the photo was taken. According to the literature, they will grow in abundance from now on and the problem will be that I will have too many. We'll see.

Whatever the number, I'm pleased with what I've grown and look forward to the long-awaited Cherokee Trail of Tears doing something. There are flowers there, so I'm hopeful.

Where we live we are usually surrounded by noise of some kind, whether emergency vehicles, the factory over the main road, the stone yard across the field or the neighbour who has his motor mower out for hours each afternoon. But as I worked in the garden this morning it was unusually still and noiseless, just one bird flapping about in one of the garden bushes.

It was a rare moment of perfect peace.

Something troubles me

Intermittent rain for most of the day today reminds me of a troubling problem - slugs and snails. My lettuce has been severely mauled and the spinach slightly less so.

I have previously mused about what to do to repel these pests, rejecting the idea of nematodes (equivalent of introducing the rabbit to England, it seems to me) and Susan is firmly of the view I should not use slug pellets. They poison birds, she says, and I have since read that they do for hedgehogs too.

Other solutions such as digging trenches of beer seem a bit drastic, not to say expensive. What is a man to do?

We take a trip out

To Calke Abbey, a National Trust property in south Derbyshire. The policy here has been to retain the house as it was when handed over to the National Trust in 1986, as an example of the decline of the great country house. The result is a mixture of rooms in their finery, those that had seen better days and whole areas that had been simply abandoned. The mixture holds more fascination than the succession of highly restored and stylish interiors the visitor usually gets to see in great houses.

The walled gardens are some distance from the house as the family didn't like to see servants around. A huge kitchen garden big enough to have fed half of Derbyshire lies abandoned, but in the rest of the gardens the National Trust has gone to great efforts to produce a living, colourful and vibrant few acres of land. There are all sorts of vegetables and fruit trees here and we had a few plums which had fallen to the ground. Perfection. Exquisite taste.

Hard to say if I learned anything, but the beds full of vegetables definitely got me thinking I should plan ahead with my planting. I have areas where the current crops have finished (or are coming to the end)and nothing to put in them. If I'd had any sense I would have sown seeds in pots some time ago, ready to plant out when space became vacant. Next year I'll know.

We saw my favourite kind of sign on the plant stalls outside the shop, 'Buy one, get one free', and came away with a pot of fennel and one of purple sage. Susan says we ought to start a small herb garden in the area next to our thriving parsley. I of course have subsequently read up on ornamental, formal herb gardens laid out in elaborate patterns.

One step at a time, I remind myself, as I come back to earth.