squash – Garden Gate Flowers

Sowing the Seeds

When I started this post a week ago the immediate concerns surrounded the aftermath of another weekend bringing another storm – Jorge. It seemed that our post-Brexit freedoms did not extend to naming our own storms with those Europeans coming over here, bringing their continental storms, messing with our rivers and flooding our golf courses.

Now we have the non-specifically named Covid-19 coming over here threatening to mess with everything and everyone we hold dear. I wonder if we can comprehend the enormity of what we might have to face and the steps we can take to mitigate the the effects of the impending epidemic. Back in 1976 when my father decided to buy a property with 6 1/2 acres of land it was, in no small part, because he wanted to be able to sustain a degree of self-sufficiency in case of a break down in the supply chain through either economic uncertainty of nuclear disaster. I am not sure if he saw Opec or Russia as a bigger threat, but he was determined to be ready.

It seems many think we might be facing such a scenario now – which would explain the bizarre headline shortages in toilet rolls and hand sanitizer. Really? In his day, my father was concerned about shortages in proper essentials like, um, food. So he grew vegetables on an industrial scale. I cannot compete with him in the scale of my veg growing operation, but I have managed to maintain an element of self-sufficiency and am hoping that Mrs B and I will have a decent crop of vegetables for the summer.

This week we cooked the last of the stored squashes: the recipe required “one large squash, 1 Kg”. Half of my last Crown Prince squash weighed a whopping 2kg so perhaps it pays to grow your own. We have almost finished the kale but the purple sprouting is doing as described (sprouting, in purple). There are still leeks in the garden and the rocket has got its act together in the greenhouse, so we have green leaves. And our hen – plucky Agatha – continues to lay eggs at regular intervals. For the new season there are the green shoots of new garlic and shallots. It might not be enough to ward off the prospect of self-isolation, but it is, if nothing else, pleasing to know that we can provide at least some of our diet for ourselves.

Most of the recent horticultural work has revolved around sowing seeds. I have ordered all my veg seeds, which I will start sowing in trays this weekend, but in some ways the more emotionally rewarding work has been in planning the flower garden for the summer. There will be a new border to be planted in Josh’s memory and I plan for the rest of the garden to be vibrant with colour and flowers for cutting. Ultimately the new beds will be planted with perennials, but as these will take a year or two to mature, I am sowing more annuals than I have ever done to ensure the borders are more packed than the Greco-Turkish equivalent. For flower seeds my go-to source is always Higgledy Garden and he includes old favourites such as cosmos, nicotiana and sweet peas, as well as newbies like Cleome Spinosa, amongst others, and a free packet of Godetia.

My father used to say that if you could not eat it, he did not want to grow it, but as I see the seedlings poking through and I look forward to sunny summer days and blooming borders in the garden it is a good time of year to remember Jesus being tempted in the desert and remind ourselves that we cannot live on bread alone.

Or toilet rolls for that matter.

Dafs surviving despite their broken home

Tree Peony?

Spring is coming

Frogs been busy

Plants getting ready for planting

Sweet Peas

Cosmos emerging

Droopy Cornflower

Stocks – rising

Echinops – the Great Blue Hope

Aaah – spring bulbs & Christmas Roses

Mid-Term Reports

img_20180808_084533092 Deadline for reports was about three days ago but as I no longer have someone to swear at me if I am perceived to be late or include too many ‘gramatical errors’ (sic), I have stuck to my usual report writing schedule, by submitting mine in my own time.

No More Bull Shit – herewith the mid-term garden reports.

Beans, Broad

A good start to the term, and working hard in the early weeks, they seemed to get lazy and did not capitalise on the good work early on. The results were, frankly, disappointing with grade E across the board (or is it 1 now?)

Beans, Runner and Green

Runners and Greens have had a good term. It is clear that MFL and PE are their strong subjects, and they have easily adapted to the European-style heat and the need to compete in hot weather. They need to keep on, though as there have been signs of letting up in recent weeks and some of their work has started to look a little shoddy.

Courgettes

A truly memorable term for the Courgies, with early efforts, leading to excellent results to the point of being embarrassingly good. I have rarely seen such excellent results with undoubtedly so much more to come. Well done – a super effort.

Peas

Another one who looked to have settled into the new year, but seemed to become distracted and unruly, never really progressing. It appears that there was some disruption with bullying by sparrows which might have been an issue. The second intake of peas seemed to have settled this problems with Special Needs fleece being used to provide protection, but unfortunately the late start for these and lack of nursery education has meant lower than expected grades.

Potatoes: Swift, Duke of York, King Edward, Sarpo Mira

Spuds have had a variable term. Swift did do well to begin with, but could have done better with a more conducive setting as a lack of resources seemed to hamper development. The Duke of Yorks have struggled too, with their results showing a wide fluctuation from 9 to 1 in grading. It is too early to report on King Edward or Sarpo Mira.

Salad

In general salad has a had good term, although the dry weather has affected their ability to concentrate for too long. Too often they have complained that slugs and other bugs are distracting them and hampering their progress, but when they have established a good working routine the work produced has been of a fair quality. There is no doubt that they could do better if they tried, particularly the chard and rocket which have had a particularly disappointing term.

Tomatoes

What an excellent set of results. Tomatoes have been a revelation this term. They have been excellent individually and have also shown the ability to excel in small group work as sweet millions have produced some very impressive early results with the Jersey Devils promising to submit course work of very high standard. Mrs B, the head of tomato assessment and monitoring has been particularly impressed with this years tomato cohort and they will undoubtedly be contenders for the the “most improved” prize on speech day.

Basil

Well done to basil on yet another excellent year. Italian has been a strength of this year’s intake – “molto bene!”

Squash: Crown Prince and Blue Kuri Kabocha

Squash have been very active this term, bordering on the unruly, although they have seemed to settle into the new premises. The work produced has been extensive, though it remains to be seen how focussed and concentrated this has been and how this is actually going to translate into favourable results: i.e. good sized ripe squashes.

Kohl Rabi

Kohl Rabi were late starters this term with a lack of nursery time leaving them behind other veg in the early years group. Only time will tell if they are able to make this up but they are trying their best, with an A1 for effort, despite the distractions of cabbage white butterflies.

Kavolo Nero

Early work was hampered by the bullying sparrows while their later efforts have seen no homework handed in for weeks due to the destructive influence of cabbage white butterflies. Between times there have been some excellent pieces of work and when the butterflies have gone there might perhaps be more good work to come.

Mixed Ability Class: Carrots, beetroot and chard

This has been the best ever intake of carrots. They have been well-mannered and orderly and have delivered excellent results showing the way to beetroot and chard which have sadly failed all their exams so far. Beetroot tried re-sits later in the summer but once again succumbed to exterior distractions. Chard appears to be doing better in working towards some re-takes in the autumn for which we hold out high hopes. While this, along with the success of carrots shows that the standard of gardening is at times excellent, overall there is a feeling that it “Requires Improvement”.

Next report deadline: some time in late summer / autumn-ish.

“Lack of early years education stunts intellectual growth”

Second attempt for peas

Heads of School material

Potatoes – needing to try harder

Kohl Rabi – late developers

Top of class

Kav Nero – showing signs of getting back on track

Mixed ability salads

Excellence in French and Running

First peas – failed to graduate

“Oh The Summertime is Coming..”

What a difference a month makes. In the space of what feels like a few brief days we have gone from a cold spring to the heat of midsummer. The Beast from the East has departed, with last month’s snowy downfall trailing in its wake, leaving us basking in warm sun this past weekend. The grass is greening up and the trees are gently blooming, with Amelanchier blossom been and gone. Mind you, the speed with which the flowers went was mostly down to the impressive thunder-storm we had on Saturday evening which decimated the delicate blooms in one evening downpour. But the thunder was timely as it meant I did not have to water in the veg patch that I had put together that afternoon.

Of course we know it will not last so I took the opportunity to take a significant step forward in the development of the new garden as I tried to get a lot of “done”. On Friday the rotavator was delivered back to our place. In a neat trick to avoid requesting favours of friends with trailers I asked the good mower man to collect the machine from one address, service it, then return it to another.

The Howard 350 Rotavator was one of the first things the parents bought when the Old Garden was being cultivated. It is a legendary piece of equipment and still gets the job done over forty years later. As a teenager I struggled to keep control of the beast and I was never too happy using it as TOM or my siblings were always likely to cast a critical eye over my efforts. Maturity should lend some confidence to how I go about things now, but I was still a little self-conscious about trying to control the machine as I drove it onto the front garden. Saying I drove it suggests I was in charge. It still feels to me as if it has a mind of its own, moving along like an old prop forward mindlessly trundling forward with little awareness of me trying to steer it. It certainly draws attention to itself, sounding like a large tractor, and the clutch has a tendency to whine and slip. And I had also forgotten how the prongs make the machine lurch alarmingly forward if they hit hard ground – and there was plenty of that underneath the lawn I was digging up. I eventually crisscrossed the proposed potato bed six times trying to break up the clay soil, ending up with a collection of hashed lawn, earth and clay marbles.

Afterwards I drove it towards the entrance to the back garden, knocking through the latch as the clutch slipped and the beast nearly took the gate off its hinges. But the job was done.

The next morning Richard arrived with a trailer load of compost. A ton of compost does not go far, but it is a start. And I was finally able to spend my Saturday afternoon planting onions, shallots and potatoes.

Just in time to be watered in by the cacophanous downpour.

Potatoes in

The Beast resting after its work

Sweet Peas

Squashes

First Courgettes

“Salad Days are coming…”

Cav Nero already potted with Toms, Basil et al, behind

Magpies – the ruination of many small birds’ nests

April Unfurls

It’s Easter and bunnies are very much of the moment around here as Ella once again caught her very own Easter Bunny when VB took her for a walk. In Ella’s defence (and the rabbit’s for getting caught by a lugubrious black lab in open grassland twenty hops from the safety of the burrow) there is a lot of myxomatosis around at the moment. So perhaps Ella is doing a merciful task putting rabbits beyond pain before they become too sick. A canine Dignitas for rabbits – though not so dignified for Verity who struggled to get her retriever to drop the still warm, possibly breathing, rabbit.

Who's been digging in my bed? — Who’s been digging in my bed?

Down the garden there was evidence of rabbits in the garden as one part of the chicken wire seemed to have been pushed down before a couple of random holes were dug in the onions. No onions were harmed in the skirmish but I have since got another couple of rolls of chicken wire from Swift Huts and renewed the rabbit proof fencing around both veg patches.

The main item on the list of jobs is PLANTING. The greenhouse is fit to bursting with seed trays full of Broad Beans, Cabbages, Curly Kale, Cavalo Nero, Kohl Rabi, Leeks, Mangetout, Sugar Snap Peas, Peas, Purple Sprouting, Butternut Squash, Uchiki Kuri Squash, Sweet Peppers, Chilli Peppers, Tomatoes, Coriander, Basil and Aubergines.

In addition to a mass of full seed trays, another sure sign of spring is the sound of the rotovator. The old Howard never fails you. It can sit in the Cow Stall all winter, unloved and seemingly forgotten, but comes out in the spring like a Grizzly Bear from hibernation ready to take all before it. It never fails to start and apparently needs no maintenance. It is a marvel. Or so I was saying as the clutch went half way through digging the salad bed….

I had a feeling it would be easy to mend, but neither myself nor Jim could see it so I was forced to ask the OM to tell me how to re-attach the wire. I am increasingly worried by his lack of mobility and unwillingness to walk further than the garage and back, but such was the importance of the issue, he made it down the garden to stand on one side of the chicken wire and instruct me on how to mend the machine. Fortunately it was done in a trice and hopefully the exercise did him good

In the main veg patch I have gone all “No Dig” this year, with the cardboard keeping the weeds down, so I was able to plant the spuds with relative ease. I have a combination of Belle de Fontenay, International Kidney, Cherie, Pink Fir Apple, Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Una. It looks pretty good – apart from the cardboard bits. While digging them I got an ear worm of “No Surprises” by Radiohead…”A heart that’s full up like a landfill…”

But this job is not going to kill me – it’s what makes me feel alive.