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.

First courgette of 2009

Well, I've picked my first courgette of the year and I feel like a proud, over-age parent. It looks a very healthy specimen and we're hoping the taste lives up to the promise. Perhaps it will go in a curry tonight with some of the spinach from the garden. Fingers crossed that there will be more courgettes.

There are also one or two runner beans ready to pluck before they get any bigger and nice green tomatoes are emerging in the conservatory. I shall have to do my best to nurture them during this critical stage in their growth.

When I look back to starting this enterprise, almost a year ago now, it is amazing to see something that I have grown actually reaching the table.

Glory be!

Some tomatoes have appeared at long last on the Tomato Gartenperle plants I have grown from seed.

I have had a few for some time on the Bonny Best and Outdoor Girl plants I bought from the nursery (none yet on the Red Russian, though), but these are the first on something I have grown from seed. Let's hope they progress into the full-blown thing and don't stay green.

It's a satisfying feeling to have come this far.

A trip out

A visit to the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Harlow Carr, near Harrogate, brings both inspiration and envy. Harlow Carr is a lovely site and it was beautiful weather when we went, one of the few days when it hasn't rained recently.

I'd not been before, so a two-for-one voucher in the Yorkshire Post provides an opportunity to see the site and well worth it too. The leisure industry seems to have run away with its pricing in recent years and we only seem to visit anywhere these days if it's free or discounted price.

Although the emphasis on Harlow Carr is probably more on flowers, there were some vegetable patches too and I particularly liked the mid-Victorian garden and the kitchen garden. An array of different coloured lettuces was particularly impressive.

One thing I noticed was that their vegetables were more closely planted than recommended in the books I have read. It didn't seem to harm them and I will probably not be so generous about space in future.

I have one vacant patch at the moment, having dug up the last of the potato plants this morning. The spuds have been very tasty, but not as numerous as I had hoped. It is also a mystery to me that the plants never flowered.

My friend Kate urges me to try spinach beet in the vacated space and I did buy some of these seeds while at Harlow Carr. Steve says that whatever I do I should never leave ground empty! Put another crop in, he says, suggesting some extra runners, French beans, salads or a green manure. I'll think on about this.

Spudulike

Here they are - eight of what I hope will become a bumper crop of Arran Pilot potatoes. I boiled them and we ate them with a spinach, red pepper and onion tart I conjured up, the spinach coming from the garden. A salad which included some lettuce from the garden accompanied. Simple but effective.

Actually, I'm still not sure what's going on with the spuds. They have yet to flower and the eight potatoes I harvested for tea were from three plants I lifted to see what their state was. A grand total of eight spuds didn't seem a big haul to me so will leave the remaining plants for a bit until something happens or curiosity gets the better of me.

It's been another day of showers, which I suppose saves me the trouble of watering the garden but also prevents me getting outside much. Even so, I managed an hour this morning before the rain came on really heavily. Weeding and pottering about was very satisfying, I found.

While thinking of a headline for this posting, I thought of the Spudulike chain and had to go and look up the spelling. I'm now the proud possessor the fact that the firm was once owned by the British School of Motoring. Business and the decisions it arrives at baffles me.

All things considered, not so bad

We're back from a week's holiday on the island of Anglesey, where it has been uncommonly hot. Along with the rest of the country, we fried. It was all a bit too much for our poor old dog Dolly. She really struggled and spent a lot of time asleep.

Thoughts turned, naturally, to the veg patch back home and how it was faring under the wilting heat. Susan warned me not to be too disappointed if some things had gone disastrously wrong because of lack of watering in my absence.

So there was a mounting sense of anticipation tinged with trepidation as we returned home. As it happens, to quote Jimmy Savile, things were not too bad. In fact, surprisingly good.

We'd moved the tomatoes out of the conservatory and into the open to catch whatever they could. They'd thrived so much that it proved difficult getting up the front footpath because of the spreading leaves.

It turned out there had been a day of showers prior to our return, giving the crops a well-needed soaking. The Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, about which I had been so worried, are now halfway up the pole and there are even signs of life in the one I had written off as dead.

Some of the runner beans have gone beyond the height of the pole (what happens then?) and there's a good bit of spinach and lettuce waiting to be harvested. In fact, we're having some of the spinach in a curry tonight. I like to think it will be the finest curry we have ever had, all because of my fresh produce from the garden.

The one thing I am really concerned about right now is the potatoes. They have still not flowered and some are looking distinctly blighted, ie leaves looking not too good. I haven't had time to do a proper fettle of the garden today and will have to have a trial lift of the potatoes tomorrow to see what they are doing.

Not bad overall. The veg don't seem to need me to be around.

Stubborn beans

The Observer Organic Allotment Blog arrives and with it a photograph of their thriving Cherokee Trail of Tears.

Not only is the photograph better than any I take, but also their beans are way ahead of mine. They are racing up the pole, while I have had cause to lament that mine remain stubbornly tiny, perhaps not more than six inches in height. But there is hope as they have put on a bit of a growing spurt since I began to moan out loud a couple of days ago.

Talk about them and they reform their act, it seems. I hope.

Bringing the crops home

I can't believe it. I've picked some of my spinach and had a raspberry from the garden. That's the raspberry.

Dorothy used the spinach in fishcakes she made us for tea, also some of the chives given to me by my friend Alex 'Pip' Paton. Jolly nice meal.

I remain optimistic

Managed an inspection and a quick session with the hoe in the garden between showers today.

Really excited that little red buds have appeared on two of the runner beans. But, as I suspected, Susan has confirmed my fears that one of the others has become a victim of the slugs and died off.

Still no sign of flowers on the potatoes, a fortnight after they appeared on the ones I gave my friend Kate. They do appear to be growing, all the same, so there's hope yet.

Progress & setback

It has rained at last here and I have had a bit of break from dashing backwards and forwards from the kitchen to water the garden. I don't really mind the trips as I find it strangely relaxing and therapeutic once I get in the rhythm.

Something has destroyed one strong of runner beans. Slugs, I guess. The good news is that the others are climbing well. Fascinating to see how they have curled round the poles all by themselves.

My mate Steve contacts me to say he has lifted their garlic. I must admit I have not looked up the literature to see when this should be done, but Steve tells me the time is when rust is covering the leaves and any green foliage is yellowing. Without going outside to look, I think mine must be near that stage. If that's so, it will be nice to have crops at last. My first.

We live in troubled times

More confirmation that growing is a difficult business this year, this time from my former work colleague Hilarie.

She emails that she is having a disastrous gardening year on her allotment about three or four miles from me. Half the seeds they planted haven't germinated and everything that did is looking a bit sickly. Only the strawberries are doing well and if the dampness continues they'll all get eaten by slugs, she says.

I tell her that I've had problems with my peas and she replies she is kind of glad to hear that. "We thought we must have bought some bad seeds," she says.

Looking at the TV news today, I see film of flooded streets and people having a miserable time because of the downpours. Where I am, though, the weather continues to be dry and there is no let up in my trips between the garden and the kitchen tap for "copious" watering.

Serious stuff

Among the websites I like for inspiration is Blagger, a blog which documents a move towards a self-sufficient lifestyle. I find it interesting as a read in itself and as a source of ideas.

I've previously complained about my peas not germinating and ditto the first batch of lettuce and salad leaves. Now comes the latest posting from Blagger complaining about a hard year on their plot and a succession of crop failures. The writer cannot understand it and hopes it is not an indication of wider global problems.

One person who has responded to the blog posting reckons recent weather changes have played havoc with bringing crops on for a lot of people. I reckon that if that is indeed the case, all the more reason for persevering. We're going to need all the food we can get.

Brave new world

Beetroot is a food I have never really rated, right from being a young lad. I think I was put off by the colouring of the pickled variety we used to have and the fact that it ran all over the plate. Recently, however, I have come to change my view and have quite liked it on the few occasions I have given it a try.

With that in mind, I have decided to try out the beetroot seeds supplied by the BBC Dig In programme. This morning I planted one line outside in the patch next to the lettuce and spinach and the remainder in two big pots in the conservatory. Borscht here I come.

While having a general tidy around, I ditched the mushroom growing kit that Dorothy gave me for Christmas. I followed the instructions to the letter, but the crop has been most disappointing. Only about five mushrooms in all, I think. Not sure at the moment if I will get another.

Talking of disappointments, I noticed this morning that one of my potato plants has snapped off overnight. The rest seem all right, however. The spare seed potatoes I gave to my friend Kate have begun flowering, she tells me, so mine must be imminent.

Kate has given us some parsley, half of which has gone in the ground outside and other half in pots inside. They look very nice.

That darn cat

Our cat Mish has followed up her wee on the growbag with a crap. More accurately, the poo was near the growbag. Naughty, naughty. What can I do?

There's been a lot of rain here today and I have been prevented from going in the garden, but a bit of wet is very welcome after the heatwave of the last few days.

Things seem to be going on well, although I am a bit worried about my peas. The seeds I planted seem not to have taken in pots in the conservatory or in the garden outside. Give them a bit longer, I suppose, but I am resigned to fate. My friend Kate says she never has much success with peas either. She seems not to know why and neither do I.

Ain't she sweet?

Anyone want to buy a cat called Mish? She is out of favour after doing a wee on one of my growbags.

There's always a butt

Glorious June continues in scorching fashion and the question of water butts has arisen following my posting about watering the garden.

All I can say is that they seem to have a design fault. Or perhaps I should say the concept appears to be faulty. Fair enough, they fill when it rains. But then you use the water as soon as a drought begins, the dry period continues and the result is that are left with an empty butt because it hasn't rained again.

There's a man called John Harrison who runs an excellent allotment website and sends out a monthly email. He reckons we may be putting too much stock on watering.

This is what he has to say and I think it's worth quoting extensively:

When we get hot and dry weather, the temptation is to give the plot a sprinkle every day but that can be really counter-productive. A light sprinkle will hardly soak into the soil and so the plant roots will be encouraged to stay at the top of the soil instead of searching down. Shallow roots are easily damaged by hoeing and, of course, the nutrients at the top of the soil are quickly exhausted.

Don't try and water the whole plot in one go, take a section at a time and give that a really thorough soaking. That way the water goes down and the roots will follow. Even if it looks bone-dry on the surface, there may well be plenty of water underneath. Stick your finger into the soil and see if it is damp underneath. Honestly, most of the time it won't need watering anyway.

The exception to this is seedlings, they're obviously shallow rooted to start with and will benefit from a daily sprinkle until they establish. Hoeing between the plants will not only keep the weeds down but, because it breaks up the surface, preventing capillary action from sucking water out of the soil in hot weather.

It's best to water in the cool of the evening if you can and one great way to get water into the soil is to use soaker hoses. The water comes out slowly and soaks in rather than puddling.

Nothing is ever simple.

Phew, what a scorcher!

Tomatoes are in the growbags at long last. Three I've grown from seed and three seedlings I bought or Susan bought. They are in a corner of the conservatory with a wigwam contraption over them to deter the cat (hopefully).

As our heatwave continues, I wonder what copious watering means and why we don't have a hosepipe. The answer to the latter is that we have never managed to get a tap fixture that actually fitted. Perhaps we always aimed for cheap and got what we paid for.

Susan says you have to play it by ear when it comes to watering and I suppose it's exercise for me to keep going backwards and forwards to the kitchen to fill the watering can and bucket.

Something for nothing

Well, earthing up the spuds has been done and I hope properly. As I worked the soil it, I became bathed in perspiration really quickly and realised how unfit I am. Really need to do something about this.

The postwoman came while I was in the garden and brought the BBC Dig In seeds I sent for some time ago. This has been massively oversubscribed and it's not hard to see why. Who could turn down the offer of lettuce, beetroot, carrot, squash and tomato - all for free. The little booklet that came with the packets is clear as clear can be and I will certainly be planting some of the seeds. Squash particularly intrigues me. Do we grow it much in this country?

I see from the Dig In website that DJ Sara Cox has a blog detailing her efforts as she grows her own grub for the first time and I make a mental note to read it occasionally.

A sluggish day

Sheltering indoors from the rain this morning, I muse over that old saying ne'er cast a clout...etc. We shouldn't really be surprised about English weather, but would do well to remember these adages. Wisdom in a sentence.

I also fell to thinking about slugs and nematodes. My mate Steve has filled me in on them and says they tried them once, some years ago. The result? "The slugs and snails were unaffected and we were poorer."

He goes on to give me the information that nematodes include the threadworms that infest cats and dogs and I tell him that I definitely won't be using them because of our pets. Ah, not so simple, says Steve.

The phylum Nematoda is vast. The intestinal parasites found in vertebrates are passed on via eggs in the host's faeces, and then ingested by another host. Some of the nematode species are very host specific, but others will infest a wide range of hosts. The slug killer only zaps the slimy bastards, with no effect on vertebrates. Some nematodes are plain weird: one species lives only in the felt beermats that were used in German bierkellars.

His technique is to clout slugs with a hammer. His wife Marianne says that's too brutal: she stands on them. End result is the same.

My plans for tomorrow include earthing up of the spuds now they have reached the suggested height of about 8in. The internet is a great invention and includes an incredibly handy video on the Videojug website.

I marvel at how I'm quite happy to look at it, yet would shun any TV programme called How To Earth Up Potatoes. Some 17,000 people have viewed it. Mind you, there have been 779,360 hits for their video on how to get out of the car without showing your knickers.

I suppose I ought to say that I resisted the temptation.

Danger lurks

Susan has again warned me of the possibility of slugs attacking the crops. Now comes news from the Guardian's allotment blog of their plot coming under attack from these pesky creatures. Even their rampant Cherokee Trail of Tears are being held in check, says the blog. Oh no, what if it happened to my precious Cherokee Trail of Tears?

The Guardian man's solution has been to use nematodes, something I have never heard of and will have to look up. I notice that someone has posted a comment on the blog describing nematodes as a microscopic species-specific parasite and that another poses the question of whether they are actually safe.

Still another person says they have used 'organic' slug pellets. Seems a contradiction in terms to me.

Lettuce pray

Just as the pattern yesterday, the heavy rain of the morning stopped and I was able to go out into the garden again. Unlike yesterday, though, I had to come in after 90 minutes when a shower developed.

I achieved my goal for the afternoon. Which was to dig out the old lettuce and salad leaf patch and get the new lettuce and spinach in. The spinach, by the way, is a Cogarde (Oak Leaf), chosen from many varieties by me at Dove Cottage Nursery because of the slight association with where we live - Broad Oak Place. Let's hope it takes.

Did a bit more lawn edging (all the big jobs) and managed to mow the grass, something I had not done for about 10 days. Hadn't grown much though.


I have also started some of the sprouting seeds which daughter Dorothy gave me for my birthday. One is a rather exciting Melange Gourmet, made by A Vogel, pioneers in natural health since 1923, and is made up of quinoa, white radish and lentils. Should be ready in 3-5 days, as will the alfalfa seeds I have also started. Got a book too from Dorothy on recipes for sprouting seeds and am looking forward to using it. But I do confess I'm unsure about sprouting seed milk shake.

A perfect day (and not in a Lou Reed way)

Heavy rain kept me out of the garden again yesterday, but it brightened up around 2.0 and became exceptionally nice outside.

I was able to get out on the vegetable patches for a satisfying couple of hours of weeding, planting and generally mooching around. But not before we took a small trip to the very splendid Dove Cottage Nursery just a short hop from our house, where I bought some spinach and lettuce seedlings. I also took a punt on heritage tomatoes - a Red Russian and a Bonny Best (nice title).

Back at home I finally transplanted the runner beans which Susan gave me for my birthday and they are now nestling against one of the two wigwams built previously. Cherokee Trail of Tears will be ready to go out in next couple of days. Susan says reassuringly that the next thing is I will discover they have been eaten by slugs. Will I be upset, she asks. Who knows?

The tomatoes I was growing in the conservatory have turned into five seedlings, and have now been put into individual pots, although it looks as though one has died. Intend sorting out growbags for them soon. Reminded myself that this variety goes by the name of Outdoor Girl.

Had this message the other day from former work colleague Hilarie to tell me her vegetable growing isn't going too well:

Our allotment is completely waterlogged but the strawberries are blooming. Runner beans look moth eaten and the lettuce failed to germinate due to the cold and damp. Trying again with pak choi. Even the courgettes look sickly. If we were medieval peasants this would be very worrying indeed.

In the circumstances, I needn't feel too bad about my lettuces and salad leaves. I intend this afternoon to dig over their bit of ground and put in the spinach and lettuce seedlings I got at Dove Cottage.

Rounded off yesterday afternoon by doing some lawn edging and removing some nettles. Susan told me to take the sensible precaution of rolling my sleeves down. I did - I stung my ear.

All in all a very productive time and a well-earned beer at the end of the day. Seemed apt that it was a Combined Harvest made by Bateman's, a Lincolnshire brewery I was introduced to when my daughter studied at the University of Lincoln. Fine beers come from here.

Present state of affairs

I needn't have been concerned about the garden drying up while we were away on our short road trip - it's been wet for days here in Yorkshire now. Not a lot of gardening has been done in the last three or four days.

Current state is: Potatoes coming on OK, ditto onions, garlic and chives. Lettuce and salad leaves appear to have failed to germinate. Rhubarb which looked as though something had sat on it now perking up somewhat. Runner beans and Cherokee Trail of Tears in the conservatory now ready to go out, I reckon. Must think about transferring tomatoes to growbags.

And - which bloody cat left its poo on the ground where the lettuce and salad leaves are supposed to be?

We're going on a summer holiday. To make our dreams come true. For me and you.

Fun and laughter on a summer holiday.
No more worries for me and you.
For a week or two.

We're heading off north tomorrow towards Hadrian's Wall, somewhere we have never been. Actually, it's only three or four days. But it does raise a concern which I am sure worries all gardeners and allotment holders. How will the crops get on without tender love and care?

They will get a good watering tonight, but after that they're on their own until our return. Hope they cope.

The rhubarb is dead, long live the rhubarb!

Surveying a small patch beside the wall, I decided that the rhubarb I planted last year is never going to show its head above ground. Something must have had it or something must have gone seriously wrong below surface, but I feel it should have grown a bit by now.

Luckily, and very gratefully received it is, my friend Kate has given me a rhubarb crown she does not have room for in her new garden and I have now planted this in. Hopefully, this will thrive. While digging the hole I could find no sign of the previously planted rhubarb. Strange.

It also looks as though the lettuce and salad leaves I planted out recently have had it. Nothing has shown through and I reckon it should have done by now. This is the patch of ground where I have seen birds pecking away. Will have to rethink this part of the garden and decide what to do with it.

Am I dispirited? No. Winning some and losing some is all part and parcel of gardening.

One thing I am delighted about is that the mushrooms I have been cultivating have grown well and are coming through. We shall be having some tonight in a stew. Good stuff!

Sunday meditation

Time marches on and I am 58 today, a world away from the callow youth of 18 who left home in the south to go to university in Yorkshire. Since the start of this year I have been reading a poem a day, in an effort to understand and appreciate that most curious of literary forms. It still doesn't come easily or naturally to me, but I was particularly struck by a work called Leisure, written by W H Davies, who lived from 1871 to 1940 and is now best remembered as the author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. If he is remembered at all, that is.

The opening lines of his poem go:

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

Davies's words have a particular resonance for me in my changed circumstances and present frame of mind and I remember them on this special day.

Presents galore

I went to a car boot sale today determined to come back with a spade to replace the one I broke with my own brute strength the other day.

Mission accomplished. Or rather it was Susan who was successful in buying one as a present for my birthday tomorrow. Not gift wrapped, because it was suspected I would guess, but presented to me on the spot. And a very fine Brades Skelton spade it is. The man who sold it to her said it was a good one - he could hardly say anything else, but I can certainly appreciate its qualities. Let's hope it survives the masculine strength that is me.

There was more from Susan at the car boot sale in the shape of rhubarb, tomato, pepper and runner bean seedlings. I was especially pleased to get the rhubarb as I think I have given up on the rhubarb I planted last year. Still hasn't appeared above the soil. Let's hope the new one does better when I eventually transplant it.

My friend Jan, who also visited the boot sale, presented me with a herb cutter. I had been very jealous of the one she had in her kitchen last time I visited. I notice now the one she has given me is called a mincing knife. I'm grateful, all the same.

A squatter arrives

We have discovered an interloper in our shed - a bird's nest in the far top corner. Neither of us can tell whether it is currently in use, but our feeling is that it is old. Quite how long it has been there, we don't know, but neither of us had noticed it before this week. We haven't gone that close to it because of stuff in the way, but have decided to leave it well alone and let the birds get on with it.

Looking out of the window this morning, I saw one of our collared doves strolling over the ground where the lettuce and salad leaves are supposed to be, having the occasional peck on the ground. Should I have been mad? I don't know, but somehow I can't bring myself to do anything but shrug my shoulders. That's nature, I guess.


Surveying the land on the first day of May, I am pleased to see the plants bursting into life after days of sunshine and rain. The onions and chives are coming on apace, chives beginning to flower, and the potatoes are showing through nicely. Not so sure about the lettuce and salad leaves, though. Perhaps that pesky bird has done for them.

Yesterday I finally got round to planting out the raspberry canes and building a wigwam in preparation for the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans. Seemed an apt arrangement for them.

I have started off some basil seeds in the conservatory.