A visitor calls

My mate Alex 'Pip' Paton (he's a bit posh but knows about gardening) came bearing gifts.

As well as a pile of magazines including The Oldie (I like it and I'm but a young 'un), he had some vegetable stuff for me. There's was a splendid Reader's Digest Gardening Year, a couple of catalogues and the 50th anniversary edition of Organic Way - good reading material.

With his package of gifts was a bunch of chives ready to plant out. I can do it now, he says, so I will. Apparently, they will die back a bit and then thrive later on.

He's noticed that I've been reading Maye E Bruce's book on compost and suggests I should try Gardening with Compost, by F C King. The author's name sounds suspiciously made up to me.

Lady Muck entertains

As the evenings draw in and a chill fills the air, we are gathering around the fire with two jumpers on (as recommended by gas company after they hiked their prices). It is a time for reading and my favourite at the moment is Common-Sense Compost Making, by Maye E Bruce.

This little book was first published in 1946 by Faber & Faber. My copy came to me via a car boot sale and is the 1967 revised edition by Lady Eve Balfour. The author spent a lifetime trying to perfect the art of compost making and this is her account of the quick return method which she devised after much experimentation.

Ooh, and she weren't half posh! Look at this for a sample:

Before the war I had a staff of three men: a chauffeur-handyman, who also mowed
the lawns, and two men in the garden...the whole place is 150 acres...in 1940
the whole staff joined up and in their place I had one very old
man.

I'm thinking of getting Susan and daughter Dorothy to do all the stirring when I finally get my compost bin.