I have been doing a lot of apologising to worms lately – and making promises to bees (as well as gently admonishing them for being so persistent on coming into the house and having to be gently ferried back out in a glass – the bees that is, not the worms).
Having held off getting too much going in the garden, never truly believing the weather had fully turned, it is now all-go, once again. As well as the turning over and weeding of the vegetable patches from previous years, we have been cutting in new ones too. The garden allotment grows; in all senses of the word.
Unearthing worms, I am very apologetic to them; how rude to be tumbled out of the warm dark earth to the surface – what must they think! But I am happy to see them, especially in the soil that when first dug was not in great condition, but with a lot of love, compost and a fair bit of sweating and swearing, is now improving considerably. (I do have veggie patch envy though of my mum’s. She has turned what was once the heaviest of good old Suffolk clay, into beautiful, workable soil. I have a few more years of hard graft to go!)
The worms, I fear, also deserve some of my apologies because I know a fair few of them will become a tasty morsel for the birds who hang around in greedy expectation and shout at me to go away so they can swoop in for their fill.
On one occasion, when moving some of the little wrigglers to a different area so they didn’t get repeatedly disturbed, I was struck by a memory from many, many years ago. When I was about three, maybe four-years-old, I had a little red tricycle which had a small white leather satchel on the back. For some reason (and I have long ago given up trying to understand my own mind) I had decided I would gather up as many worms as I could and take them on a little bike ride round the garden. Unbeknownst to me, until my mum pointed it out, there was a hole in one of the corners of the leather pouch and as I rode round and around the grass I was leaving a trail of worms behind me as they commando crawled their way to freedom.
But why the promises to bees? I am not a gardener’s gardener. What I mean is, there is much in my garden that is not neat and I leave plenty of things that a lot of people would be in a hurry to get rid of. Even though I know I will be causing a headache for myself later down the line, I will often allow things to grow or remain if they are something I know birds, bees and all the other wonderful insects, creatures and critters will like. Like comfrey. I have swathes of yellow comfrey which I know spreads like wildfire but, the bees adore it. When it first started coming back I looked at it and said, now, now is the time, if you don’t get on top of it now you know it will be madness. But I left it, full in the knowledge that it would start to take over – which of course, it did. As the flowers are waning, I have begun removing about two-thirds of it and this is why the promises to bees. As they buzzed about me, clearly annoyed, I promised them that I wasn’t taking it all and that I would shortly be putting in much more that they would love. In a similar vein I have not removed my dandelions and I am not going to wage such war on the cow parsley this year.
I sometimes feel quite sad about what we as a species have done to our natural environment but it does seem as if there is beginning to be a bit more urgency of late, in people recognising that things need to change. If everyone who has a garden, of any size, could allow just one area of it to run wild and free, it would be hugely beneficial I am sure; not only to wildlife, but also to us. It’s worth remembering: we NEED all the amazing little insects, bugs and beasties; and all they ask from us in return is a place that they can call home.
Click on the image below for a tiny video of a tiny box with a big message.
