Garden Gate Flowers

This time of year is when gardening is just so much fun.  Seeds have been planted and now the seedlings have come through and I can do what Claire calls my “Marjory” bit – sitting in the greenhouse potting up or just generally pottering.  There is still plenty of weeding, digging and hoe-ing to do, but the seedlings need tending to in the greenhouse and one can lose many a contemplative hour in there.

The weather has been good so the weeds have kept down in the garden.  I have managed to plant out the broad beans and the mangetout (thanks to Duncan for pointing out to me that the plants I labelled as runners in a previous post were – actually – broad beans.  Knows his beans, does farmer Palmer).  Well, whatever name I give ’em they still seem to do OK.

The potatoes came up fast and have flourished before I could even think of earthing them up again.  I had a conversation with Jim yesterday who, like me, compulsively earths up his spuds as soon as they poke through, whether or not frost is likely.  But, as we both noted, they don’t do anything like that when planted commercially, although commercial planting does seem to be a week or two later than we do in the garden.  The field down the road has been planted with potatoes and what a fabulous sight that is.  When I was young and wanted to build my own toy farm I dreamt of getting hold of enough corrugated cardboard to make nicely ploughed fields.  There are a hell of a lot of corrugations in the potato field down the road.

So the planting and potting up stage is in fully swing – probably nearing its end.  And so the transition to the planting out.  Two years ago I would be checking the internet to know exactly how far apart plants and rows needed to be and precisely how much fertilizer of compost need to be in the soil.  I did all that for the spuds this year.reminding myself how far apart earlies and mains needed to be.

Then probably go it wrong.

But for the rest I just do a best guess.  With regard to the purple sprouting and the red kale I’m glad I did not bother too much with measuring, as every plant has been eaten.  By what, I don’t know.  I put netting over them, but to no avail.  Mice? Slugs?  At least I kept the left overs in the greenhouse so I went back to my potting up…

And so to the next phase:  getting the plants to maturity.  Or the War on Pests, which, like the War on Drugs, we’re never likely to win.  It’s all a matter of accommodating everyone to an extent.

So what shall we talk about this week?  Well, let’s not start with the weather.  That is frankly dull.  Yes, there has been more rain, but just occasionally there has been some sunshine.  Unfortunately this has mostly tended to coincide with our travels (travails?) to family gatherings across the southern UK, but there have still been enough dry interludes to allow me to actually do STUFF in the garden.

Having said that, the fallout from the Atlantic frontal attack has managed to keep me amused on our regular dog walking route, with the presence of the man-made duck pond along the lane.  At the planning and drawn out construction stage, this was touted as a lake, but in post-production it has been rather overshadowed by the flooding in the next field which is a far more impressive stretch of water.  The former is a mere puddle next to the latter on which one could be tempted to conduct an attempt on the world speed record.

This duck pond took an age to build – and involved the use of a long list of building materials to construct the embankments: including dead trees and whole drums from broken concrete mixers to any amount of builders’ waste and broken drainage pipes.  I never realised you needed such an array of building materials to make the perfect swan lake.  But it turns out you don’t need all that – unless, of course, you are just looking for a place to dump a load of waste.  No, all you really need is a slight depression in your field, and the wettest winter on record, and your lake is as good as done.

Mind you, our dog walk still traverses an awful lot of detritus on the fringes of the field, so perhaps there is another pond in the pipe line, as it were.  There is an increasing amount of horse manure.  It reminds me of the joke (apparently one of Ronald Reagan’s favourites) about the eternally optimistic son who is so pleased about being given barrow loads of horse shit, he excitedly digs into it saying “there must be a pony in here somewhere”.  Even when you are in a pile of the proverbial, there could still be a positive outcome.

And even on a dank walk one can look at the bright side.

So, with a slight lifting of the winter rains I have actually been in the garden.  I finally managed to move the snake bark maple from next to the oil tank to the part of the Boomerang Bed vacated by the heather.  It seemed a simple task, but it’ll probably cost me another wedge of osteopath’s fees as I put my back out again digging the darned thing out.  But I’m pleased with the result.  And Ella hasn’t dug it up.

Yet.

And talking of pulling things up, I have to report that Claire has been removing some of the unwanted veggies in the garden and feeding them to the voracious hens.  So the old Calabrese have gone and a few cauliflowers which never produced.  And some of the white sprouting – which had also not produced, although in their case that is simply because Claire has not given them time.  I managed to save the last four plants from a death by a thousand pecks – and am pleased to report we will actually have some white sprouting soon.  Shame about the rest.  I hope the hens appreciated them…

Elsewhere we went to Potato Day at the Consti Club and picked up our little chitters.  Belle De Fontenay, Cherie, King Edwards, and Sarpo Mira to repeat last year’s.  Plus Arran Pilot (as a nod to Nick’s residence there).  So all looking set, and I finally got around to ordering some garlic, which I have decided (due to my slothfulness) to plant in the spring.  Theoretically I could plant it now, I think, but the ground is still too wet.  Which makes me think if I had planted it in the autumn it would probably have just rotted away by now – thus justifying the decision to plant in the spring.

With the ground still sodden, I have transported twenty barrow loads of manure from the field.  Looking at the garden now, I really do feel there must be a metaphorical pony.

Things are looking up.

A day of comings and goings on Wednesday started with the OM expecting me to share the experience of going to order ten tons of manure from Dimmer.  I told him I was waiting in for the heating engineers to come and replace our Alpha Cooker, which had him nonplussed and he had to revise his plans.  After a long pause he concluded that he would be able to deliver the cheque himself to the manure-mongers.  An hour later we were the proud recipients of a large pile of well-rotted compost.

Next up was a lunch date at the Stag’s Head where we were joining Claire’s Dad’s 90th birthday celebrations.  With no sign of heating engineers, or our new stove, we  left a note for them to call us when they arrived.  Arriving at the pub to find no mobile reception, I was despatched home to change the note for the engineers to call the pub.

As I pulled out, the oil man arrived to fill our tank – which always pisses off car drivers who are looking to take a short cut along a our lane – it becomes a very long cut as they wait fro the tanker to finish.  We love it.  So, manure and oil in – just the cooker to come.

But still no Alpha  men.

Just after I had finished my attempt on some lasagne at the Stag’s Head (nicely defrosted and warmed through, though with such a lot of cheese on the top I thought they had left part of the packaging on), the Laurel and Hardy of the plumbing and heating world called.  I returned to make sure they had not been dismembered by our rampant guard dogs.  They were fine – and admitted that they had thought of calling us to say they were running late, but it slipped their minds.  With that piece of customer service to boost my confidence in their skills, it was back to the Stag’s to wade through my creme brulee – served in a chipped pot and, in proper mock gastro-pub style, completely ruined by chucking some raspberries in the bottom.

I picked the pips out of my teeth as Richard gave a thoughtful speech reflecting on his father’s principled approach to life (based on the cub scouts handbook), while the 90-year-old birthday boy addressed the throng in typically teasing fashion, thanking his whole family before – belatedly – acknowledging the support, selflessness and kindness of his wife (to ironic laughter).  I rushed back to find Stan and Olly trying to manhandle the ½ ton cast iron replacement cooker into the kitchen.  It was not easy.  Indeed, as Stan said to me “there’s been a bit of collateral damage” as he looked around a room that could have been a scene from the Syrian Government bombardment of Homs.

Not surprisingly they did not complete the job on Wednesday, and had to come back yesterday.  Of course they did not arrive till midday, as they had to get another job done first (Why, one might ask, is our job, the one you were supposed to finish yesterday, not your priority?).  Give them their due, when they finally finished the job, they kindly put back one of the kitchen units alongside the stove.  Shame they managed to rip three legs off it in doing so, which I had to extract, replace and put back in myself.  Farcical.

Anyway, it’s all better now.  Apart from the wall which had a round hole punched in it where they managed to push the door handle through it.  This was extended by Ella the lab who decided she would try to get as much insulation out of it.  But we do have a new (used) cooker, a full tank of oil and ten tons of high-grade compost waiting to be spread over the garden.

Although the prevailing conditions have  reduced our options when out with the dogs, walking the same lanes and fields does put one in touch with the natural rhythms of life in the neighbourhood and can cheer one up, whatever the weather.  There is always something to raise the spirits as even in the depths of a wet and blustery winter’s day, there are still glimpses of the bird life that is clinging on through the fallow months to bring a smile to your face.  Or maybe just a pair of idiot dogs will have you grinning.

On my walk the other day I could hear the plaintive mewing of a buzzard, as it flapped lazily overhead.  Later in the walk I was pleased to see the more urgent flight of a kestrel, as it emerged from a hedge on its sharp chiselled wings heading off across the field.  When I was growing up in this part of the world in the seventies, kestrels were the common bird of prey.  We seemed to have a resident kestrel that hunted along the lane, hovering on the prevailing westerlies, static above the verge.  Any motorway journey in those days would see kestrels at regular intervals along the embankments, but their numbers have declined over the intervening decades, unlike buzzards who are now the predominant Somerset raptors.

I remember it was a special journey to be driven five miles to see a buzzard that was nesting in some woods.  It was worth the trip just to see such a large bird of prey.  Now, we will often see up to half a dozen just standing in the field opposite.

Survival for the smaller birds is often dependent of them clubbing together.  So Ella was a little startled when she flushed a small flock of goldfinches.  They twittered away from her, working along the hedgerow.  Always good to see a few hedgerows – it is the decrease in these and other habitats that no doubt contributed to the reduction in the numbers of songbirds and our friend the Kestrel.

One bird that does not seem to have reduced greatly is the Starling.  On my walk in the morning I saw several small flocks flying purposefully eastwards over me.  And when I was walking in the late afternoon, I saw the same sight, in reverse, as they flew to their roosting spots over on the levels.  Last year we took a trip over to Ham Wall reserve to see the murmuration.  It was a beautiful winter’s evening, and although the starlings on this occasion decided to roost some way off, the constant, determined influx of small groups, or long straggling trails of them, was a sight to behold.  Roger Deakin (in “Notes from Walnut Tree Farm”) said that if you wanted a bird builder, he would choose the starling as it was so busy and hungry for life.

I know what he means as I see them flying here and there, or cackling in the blue cedar before they descend on the chicken food.  I can look at them and tell them “I know where you live”.  It doesn’t make much sense to them, but it makes me happy.

I like the fact that we can walk the lanes and see starlings going over and know where they come from or where they are going.  To have a feel for the present and the past of a place  satisfies an innate sense of belonging that we all desire to some degree and this corner of Somerset does it for me: the people, the places and the wildlife.

We were woken again last night by the sound of rain clattering against our windows.  It has been a recurring theme this holiday: on New Year’s Eve we had proper hail – the size of a proverbial golf ball.  Actually, no: more the size of a marble, but exaggeration is all part of weather reportage, with floods being the worst on record, storms being the fiercest in living memory and rainfall that has seen animals queuing up two by two in the hope that someone would build a boat big enough to get them to safety.

We haven’t yet had forty days and forty nights of this weather, but it feels like it.  So no point in even contemplating anything in the garden (apart from collecting the dog poo).  The sum total of our outside adventures has been to take the dogs for a walk each day.  A trip up to Alfred’s Tower the other morning was not exactly a runaway success, as the dogs got lost in the woods.  Fudge, despite appearances to the contrary,  has a decent sense of direction, but Ella is still a little naive on that front. So fifteen minutes’ walking, followed by ten minutes desperate calling saw the reappearance of a slightly bewildered lab/retriever cross.  We decided to call it a day and led dogs back to the car.

Our regular local walk has become an assault course to test dogs and owners.  Starting with a slide across sodden fields, one has to get past massive piles of horse manure, before wading through floods then avoiding the small field of pet sheep to get back to the lane.  There one dices with the constant flow of traffic from the equine fraternity who trundle along to attend to their liveried ponies and horses.  This would be fine, but Fudge has a vehement hatred of anything resembling a land rover or which might be a 4×4, so she needs to be closely monitored.

The horse shit is the first struggle, as both dogs see it as a free wayside snack, but not one that we are keen for them to feast on.  The flood is more of a challenge for all.  As a short-haired terrier who appears to have an allergy to water, Fudge is surprisingly chilled at plodding down the middle of the inundated lane, lifting her feet higher and higher as if running on tiptoe.  Ella, meanwhile, for a dog whose breeding heritage involves retrieving from water, shows a surprising aversion to the wet stuff.  She snakes her way through the hedge in order to avoid getting her feet damp.  And her distrust of water was only increased the other day when she decided to wade through the deluge, blissfully unaware that there was a three-foot ditch running alongside the lane.  Finding herself suddenly swimming, with only thick hedge in front of her, she did manage to execute an underwater turn – almost a tumble turn –  and get herself to the other, shallower, side of the lane.

But she has not been back in the water since.

Back at home, Ella is keen to demonstrate her retrieving instincts. So long as is doesn’t involve water.   She is constantly collecting slippers and shoes from around the house and proudly presenting them to us.  This is mostly harmless fun, but not when she has enough time to start picking over the said item.  On New Year’s day she reduced my slipper to its constituent parts over the course of a relaxing half hour when we were entertaining my brothers.

But it is not all cosy domestic retrieval games.  Ella can produce the goods out in the wilds too (well, the garden).  One evening she and Fudge had been in garden, doing whatever they were supposed to do, when I opened the back door to see Ella chewing on the decapitated body of a rabbit.  I say decapitated advisedly, as the head of the rabbit was lying a few feet away from its corpse.  Ella seemed quite pleased with herself.  I bet Fudge wasn’t.  Whether or not the dogs had actually caught and killed the rabbit or just happened across its lifeless remains, I cannot say.  But I imagined a conversation between the two dogs going thus:

Fudge:  “Great, we can keep this out in the garden and snack on it whenever we are let out”

Ella: “Yeah, maybe.  But I really think we should take it back to our owners.  They will be so pleased with us”

Fudge: “but what about our morning and evening snacks?”

Ella: “I’m sure it’ll be fine.  I’m just gonna take this back to the house….”

I can’t repeat whatever Fudge thought of that idea.  But Ella got her way and the rabbit was duly disposed off (by me, over the fence).  But we’ll never know whose idea it was to chew the head off.