Gardening Archives

Hints of crumble and hope in the wild

And there is hope showing itself again with the return of what was thought lost and done.

Late July and it seems as if the bees and butterflies have finally abandoned a long lie-in and are out and about. Like a lot of people, I have been struck by the drop in numbers this year; it has felt palpable and overtly obvious. But today, sitting in an on-off shade as the sun is drawn in and out from large rolling white clouds, I have seen a small resurgence of bees, butterflies and hoverflies. No, not as many still as previous years, but enough to give me hope.

They are particularly taken with the wild oregano which is flowering with dusky pink frothy heads. It is a bit of a thug of a plant really, spreading itself widely, taking over long grasses and liking surrounding the bases of trees and hedge lines. But I let it do what it wants for the very purpose of knowing the sustenance it gives to insects. It is also a delightful scent that gets released as you brush up against it; warm, slightly spicy and invoking of warmer climes.

Spires of hyssop are also beginning to flower in blue and white and these too pull in the pollinators.

Our garden has gone a little wild and rogue this year as I haven’t been able to do as much as usual. Part of me is desperate to get it back under some kind of control, another part is enjoying sitting back and watching what happens and who arrives amid the chaos.

A month or so ago we had dreadful trouble with a deer who had found a way into our garden. It would come in at night and chomp its way through various plants. Its favourite snacks seemed to be the Japanese anemone, geums, pink sorrel, strawberry plants and the young thin branches of the apple tree I planted last year. Now, as much as I encourage wildlife into the garden, we had to draw the line at this. So it was that we spent a few weeks putting off planting out our vegetable crops while we tried to figure out where the deer was getting in and then putting things in place to try to stop it. This saw me each morning doing a round of the garden in my pyjamas, dressing gown and boots stealthily trying to see where the deer (who was found lurking under the trees on many occasions) would suddenly dash off to and run away via. If anyone saw me, I must have looked quite insane and this view likely compounded by the putting up of fencing at possible entry points adorned with bells, ribbons and shiny strips to try to put the deer off. My covert dashes in bedwear failed, however Darling Husband managed to spot the place of its egress and successfully close off access.

Now, I sit and see that against the odds of munching decimation, everything has grown back fully and flowering. And there is hope showing itself again with the return of what was thought lost and done.

I picked the first plums and blackberries today, the latter though deep, black and soft, were face-pulling-ly tart; too early and without enough consistent warmth to sweeten them. There is a bramble which always grows within the branches of the neighbour’s apple tree which hangs over our fence. The spiny stems adorned with wild fruit lying next to swelling apples, always makes me think they are producing some kind of hybrid ready-filling for an apple and blackberry crumble.

I know most people wish days away in the later months to hurry spring and summer forward, but I have a kind of aching love and comfort in autumn. I do not long for the days to pass quickly to get there, every day is to be savoured, but I am not one to fear or dread the changing of the seasons to the one where I feel most at home.

And I’m not even sure that we have seasons any longer. We often appear to have each one every month for just a few days at a time. Change is happening, it is undeniable and it is hard at times not to see only the negative shifts. But nature continues to show us there is hope and we must build on that, and perhaps a starting place might be to make sure we also notice the good and the hopeful. Never lose sight. Never lose heart.

Death of a Garden

I feel the pain of sap drying in stems as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass.

I am sure that I am not the only one who is currently feeling a sort of grief every time they look out at their garden. I have felt immeasurably lucky over the last few years to be blessed with a large garden. It has been my sanctuary, my nemesis, my workout, my joy and my healing, many times over. But at this time of heat and drought, I feel the pain of sap drying in stems, petals curling and falling before full colour has blushed, and the tightening and constricting of green just as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass under my bare feet.

Things I have planted, pruned, tamed and nurtured, I now mutter apologies to as I pass them: “I just can’t water you all,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

We prioritise the food; peas, courgettes, onions, potatoes – anything we are going to eat gets watered – but still, it is not enough. Beans that normally flourish all through August stopped producing before the month began. The flower borders near the house and the pots on the patio get an irregular dousing from grey water we collect from the sink. Again, it is just not enough.

It is not about aesthetics. Of course, it is far more pleasant to look out on colour and vibrancy, but it is as ever, the breaking of the chain. No plants producing pollen and nectar – no insects. No insects – less food for birds. Fruit dropping off early and unripe – again leading to famine for wildlife. We move up the chain; no insects – no pollination – no food – for us.

I feel that since an early age I have been scared and worried for the world. At the age of about nine and without fully understanding what it was all about really, but with a sense that it was important, I did a sponsored walk for wildlife. I bought ‘save the whales’ notepads and when peers were wearing band t-shirts, I had ones about global warming. But this is the first time I have ever felt that perhaps we have gone too far to turn back. I always had a slight militant feeling that the world could be saved; but now I’m not so sure and my heart breaks for my niece and nephews because I don’t know what world they will have to grow into.

But, it is a funny thing that despite this fear and grief I find myself collecting seeds. To collect seeds is still to hold hope. It is a way to try and preserve what can be saved from this year to try again. It may be that we have irrevocably lost some of our plants and that we might have to rethink what is going to be possible to grow in the years to come. For now, I can do nothing about that. But I can hope and so I will keep collecting seeds and as an invocation to carry on and to encourage you to do so too; I will leave you with the beautiful spell of their names:

Clary, aquilegia, salvia, snapdragon, nigella, sweet peas, silver moon

Deploying tactics 1 and 2

I am under the heavy warmth of a beautiful quilt I bought for myself as a gesture of love to me…it feels an empowering hug of a quilt for that.

I find myself, once again, lying in bed exhausted and in pain and feeling like I am missing out on the world. I have been at work, but am now in the spare bedroom downstairs, the back door is open and I can feel a breeze and see a slice of the garden.

A chaffinch is calling its funny eighties keyring sound-effect call and a greenfinch screeches a nasally whine on occasion. Mr and Mrs blackbird are as busy as ever collecting insects and stopping now and then to drink from one of the bowls on the lawn. They flick through old leaves and cut grass not caught up after mowing. Cowslips stand tall and bright with spring-time yellow under the weeping crab apple tree; the long thin stems of which are laden with pink blossom and sway in an easterly wind.

I long to be outside; walking, biking or working in the garden, but I have absolutely nothing physically left to give, today. I started slipping towards more than frustration and feeling quite down, so deployed tactic number one – message MOTH to say I needed a, ‘buck the f*ck up’ and to at the very least slowly walk down the garden and back, once. We went out together; he brought in the washing and we both checked on the seedlings in the greenhouse. I returned to bed, utterly exhausted.

So, tactic number two – “What would Josie do?” Josie George is the author of, ‘A Still Life,’ and a fantastic woman I follow on twitter. (I don’t know about you, but I still feel misgivings towards, ‘follow’ as it feels either cult-ish or stalker-y.) Josie has, throughout her life, had enormous physical difficulties to deal with, compounded further by at first these being of the ‘invisible illness’ variety. As someone who was diagnosed with ME at age thirteen and has since had cancer twice and all the fallout from the treatment of, I feel I completely understand the pain, grief, frustration and anger of living with an ‘invisible’ illness.

But, although Josie does address these things in both her memoir and social media, she is somehow the most positive and inspirational person. Since reading her book, I have often deployed the, “what would Josie do?” tactic, when I find I am starting to feel a bit sorry for myself. She has shown me that there is always something, no matter what you are going through. Sometimes for her it is fully paying attention to her pain as when it is all-encompassing, she may as well explore it with curiosity.

So here I am, doing something. I am telling you about a brilliant book and an excellent person. I will also give you a little slice more of my imperfect, perfect world…

I am under the heavy warmth of a beautiful quilt I bought for myself as a gesture of love to me when I was living on my own for the first time. It feels an empowering hug of a quilt for that! There is spring warmth in the air but an enticing whip of wind that blows coolness on my face. A regular black bird has found a song he loves and sings it many times each day; it is a waltz and he is clearly smitten with it. I can see cones of lilac, not fully open yet, but can recall the strong, sweet honey scent clearly and it will fill the garden again soon as, all things cycle round; the seasons, the days, the good and the bad – a comforting thought as I know the pain will pass as my own seasons cycle. Until then, I will try to not feel I am missing out, but will instead focus harder on what I have, right here, right now. And it is good.

Furiously forty and more settled than ever

I don’t want to work my way up the ladder. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I don’t want to be famous or stay looking twenty forever.

When I wrote this, I was sitting in bed at ten to five in the evening. The light was fading to dirty rust colours outside and I had a cat snoring next to me. It was a Friday, I was considering a glass of wine and whether it would embolden me to hit go on the payment for a large amount of pounds worth of books that were in my online basket. MOTH was playing guitar in the room next door. I had a hot water bottle. Apart from the intense pain in my legs (a by-product of cancer treatment) it was quite a lovely moment. I had been given some money as a Christmas present, I could by the books…

After having lost it for some time (it happens occasionally), I have recently regained my reading mojo. I have found that deleting any social media apps on the phone adds greatly to the recovery. It helps that I have also hit upon a seam of fantastic authors and titles and am feeling like a kid in a sweet shop. All these new discoveries seem to have come into my life at a time I feel I am finally settling into ‘me’ and they speak to me about things I find myself attuning to. I turned forty recently and I wonder if that has something to do with it.

With average life-spans in general getting longer, forty really shouldn’t be quite the epic milestone it was once viewed to be. Having reached it, I certainly don’t see it as anything but, quite young still, really. But whether it’s psychological, societal or actually physiological, I do feel a change – and it’s a good one.

I give both less and also more of a damn about things. These sentiments may have been propelled by going through cancer twice by this age. Priorities become much more obvious when you have to have a chat with Mr Death especially when he turns up uninvited more than once! I have at one and the same time become someone who can throw off the trivial more easily and yet break harder and further at the things that really matter. I have a much more focused view of what is important: my loved ones, health, the natural world; and a rather refreshing laissez fair attitude towards a lot of other things: been walking around with mascara smudged under my eyes – oh well, I am but human.

I have much more peace about who I am. Instead of agonising over my flaws, physical, mental or emotional, I am kinder and try to understand and comfort myself. But I also have much more anger – righteous anger at that. When I see what we are doing to the planet and the way we are fracturing as a species and the cruelty we impose on each other and the world, I can barely contain the pain of it.

I have always envied people who have known ‘what they want to do with their lives.’ It is a horrible imperative we have thrust on us at an early age to pin down and work towards. I have never known and I’m pretty sure I still couldn’t articulate exactly. But, I am closer to feeling what I am about and it is my intention to follow such inklings and enjoy the things that feel like me and see where they lead.

I don’t want to work my way up the ladder. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I don’t want to be famous or stay looking twenty forever. I want the joys of what’s really important; small life, family, love, nature, laughter, quiet. If you see me with mud on my face and bits of garden in my hair, scribbling in a notebook with a pocket full of wonders like conkers, interesting stones and a sundried stag-beetle, then know that I am happy. And if there’s a glass of wine in it too, there may well be a fair few new books as well.

If you’re interested in books on life and nature, this is my basket of temptations. (There are more, but even I had to stop somewhere.) You may enjoy them too:

‘Earthed’ Rebecca Schiller

‘Light Rains Sometimes Fall’ Lev Parikian

‘Wintering’ Katherine May

‘The Woodcock’ Richard Smyth

‘The Eternal Season’ Stephen Rutt

‘Rhapsody in Green; A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden’ Charlotte Mendelson

‘On Gallows Down’ Nicola Chester

P.S. I had a glass of wine.

P.P.S. There may be books on the way…

Swallows on the Wire

I invite you to join me in slowing down and taking some time to immerse yourself in the small wild of the nature that is all around us.

I have been quiet lately and that quiet has allowed me to make some changes.

Firstly, the reason why I’ve not really been communicative: well, to start with I got a bit down when I was told by oncology that they wanted to extend this latest lot of chemo from three to six months. Having originally thought that all treatment would be done by late spring for it then to be extended to late summer; to then have to go, ok, now it will be early December, felt a bit much.

The second reason was that the world seemed to have become very loud and very angry. It is as if we can no longer entertain nuance and everything became polarised and you were either one way or the other, for or against, a good or a bad person.

Being in a pandemic is hard and straight off the back of years of infighting regarding our status in the EU made the already prickled even pricklier. Add into that being diagnosed with cancer and having to do all the treatments by yourself and not even being allowed to hug your own mum – well, quite frankly, I wasn’t coping well and knew I had to make some changes. And I did.

I have been off social media now for six weeks and you know what – it’s been wonderful. There are elements I miss but if I’m honest, those elements were getting lost in the angry noise. I shall use it again, but to a much lesser extent.

An unexpected by-product of being off all social media is that my long-form reading has returned and I am back to devouring books, but more excitingly for me, my creativity has been creeping back in.

As part of my self-care (to use a perhaps vastly overused phrase these days) I had to make my world small for a while, to cope. I am sorry to have not been in contact with many of you who are wonderful in checking in with me. It is not that I don’t care, just that for a while, there was only so much I could manage. I have also slowed my way of life. Yes, partly because after more than nine months of cancer treatment I don’t have an awful lot of energy, but I have been focusing down on the things that I feel are essential to me at my core.

And that brings us to nature. I have noticed that at any crisis point in my life the only thing I can contemplate doing is to be outside; walking, gardening, just sitting; I need to be in the natural world. Normally I busy myself working in the garden but in my state of slowing and bringing the world in close, I have spent more time just observing. Really looking, feeling, seeing, hearing and tasting. From out of this I began a diary of my observations, and from that something new came: my podcast – Swallows on the Wire. In this podcast I invite you to join me in slowing down and taking some time to immerse yourself in the small wild of the nature that is all around us. I believe the smallest of interactions with the natural world can be beneficial – even just taking full notice of the dandelions that grow in the cracks of an industrial estate. We don’t have to jet off around the world to experience true wonders, we can find them everywhere – if we look and listen.

The title of the podcast came from a morning walk I took in early August where I stood under telephone wires on which perched swallows, dotted like notes on a stave. I scribbled the image on a bit of paper and added two more stave lines; the swallows I changed to dots. Out of this was born the title music, written by the swallows, interpreted and performed by my best friend Ilona, for which I give huge thanks.

Episodes one, two and three are available to listen to now on anchor fm and spotify. These are short nature diary entries and bring us up to the present date. They will then be weekly, with perhaps the odd bonus episode in between. To listen, click here

If you need a moment of calm or some time to reconnect with the natural world, just listen to the Swallows on the Wire…

Hips, Haws and Fairy Wings

Red and green should never be seen, says…well, it seems perhaps no-one. It is one of those phrases that many of us have heard and yet the origins seem to be somewhat muddy. It might be purely about fashion; that it was considered the two colours just didn’t complement each other. But, it seems as many people know the phrase as blue and green, so down that road we can insert any colour as the one not to be seen with green. There is also a view that it refers to the lights on a ship, green on the starboard side and red on the port meaning that, if you can see these colours when out in your own boat, you may well be headed on a collision course.

But, as it always does, nature defies the rules (whatever they may be) and red and green are often seen – and very pleasingly so. I took a five-minute sit outside after work today. The weather wasn’t particularly pleasant but I find I desperately need at least a few minutes outside a day to feel (vaguely) human. Armed with a warm drink* I sat out by our small pond and noticed that the seasons were showing their turning. Tangled waterfalls of red berries and green leaves are draping from the hawthorn trees. Towering
over my head and reaching almost down to the floor, they are like a vertical carpet of nature having a go at pointillism.

Behind me, a rose has gone to hip. I play the game, each year, of trying to balance the dead-heading of flowers to prolong the blooms coming out, but also leaving enough to turn to hips, because the birds love them so. I have made rosehip tea in the past, collecting, cutting, scraping out the insides and drying the hips and it was tasty – but, a lot of not very pleasant work. The inside of a rosehip is filled with prickly, sticky hairs and they all have to be removed or will be an irritant when drinking. It takes a long time to prepare so many fiddly little hips and I know from experience that I don’t really have the patience.

The honeysuckle flowers are all pretty much all gone now but the tiny, shiny red berries punctuate the long meandering tendrils. It doesn’t seem to matter how much or when I cut this particular honeysuckle back, it soon
swamps everything around it. The weeping crab apple tree is also in fruit now -and occasionally cat. (Big cat is a climber and it is not unusual to look out of the window and see his head peeping out from the top of the tree.)

And there is more to come, the pyracantha (the spiny, spikey, flesh-ripping beast that it is) will keep the blackbirds in snacks all winter and of course, the holly will be ready to decorate the house at Christmas time.

But we also have a scattering of fairy wings in what I (optimistically) call our woodland area (the shady bit under mystery tree**). White and pink cyclamen gather in groups, standing small but proud from their round tubers. Cyclamen have their seed heads on tight coils which when ripe project the seed head and seeds onto the ground – the sticky seeds are then sometimes moved about by ants. Just imagine if you could capture the pinging and flinging of seeds by the release of tensed coils on film – I can’t help but visualise it in some sort of Acme cartoon cannon style with some dramatic full-orchestra music going on behind the whizzing and whirring.

But this week hasn’t been just about flowers; pond life has had its show too. Poking about my mum’s garden, having a catch up on what has and hasn’t survived the ridiculous heat followed by winds and torrents of rain, we spotted a frog making use of the plant pot tray on her patio. It seemed quite happy and we think perhaps waiting for some of the dropped insect-based bird food from the feeders nearby. And we have a new resident, Gary. Gary is a snail who was doing the sterling job of keeping my niece’s fish tank clean. Alas, the fish are no more, which is timely actually, as niece is just about to head off to university. Needless to say, my sister was not about to keep a tank going in her daughter’s absence for just one snail, and so Gary was ferried over to our pond via a small tub with holes in and a fruit basket in the footwell of my car.

*If you’re interested; a mix of cacao powder, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon and star anise with hot water and unsweetened almond milk. Yes, yes I am ‘that’ person.

**We know it is a cotoneaster, but it was unidentified for so long, it will never be called anything but mystery tree in our house. *Whispers* it also has its own theme tune.

The admiral, the teasel and the goldfinch

Recently, an admiral sat on my knee. I was in my back garden, sitting in the sunshine of early (ish) morning and felt a tickle on my skin. I think I had been mistaken for part of the large buddleia I was sitting near and instead of joining all its butterfly friends on the purple blooms, the red admiral stopped off on my knee.

It seems to have been a bumper year for butterflies. I certainly feel I have seen more and I have heard lots of other people say the same. Like so many other nature spotted phenomena in this strange year, it does seem as if the natural world has been a bit more prevalent while we have had to become less so. I wonder, is this the case? Actually, MOTH and I pondered this on a short wheezy walk, edging our way round golden fields that were being harvested. (This is the time of ridiculously bad hayfever for me and I will now spend the next few months breathing as if I had just run a marathon while playing the tuba). What is it that we normally do which we have not been doing that has allowed a boost in such nature as butterflies? Or, is it that we are just noticing them more because of our changed circumstances? I offer these questions with no answers, by the way, I am merely musing. If it is the former then it makes me feel quite sad because that would show the direct negative impact we humans have on the natural world – I can’t help but have the sneaky suspicion that this is probably true.

It has also been a great year for teasels. We have left several to grow, dotted around the garden and one has shot up to the heady heights of taller than me – yes, that is an enormous five-foot three and more! Particularly attracted to these spikey monsters have been bees, hoverflies, pollen beetles, spiders, and butterflies. I am looking forward to when it is the turn of the goldfinch, as they love the later stage of dried teasel where they can pluck out the seeds. I spent the first few years here wondering why we never had goldfinches on our bird feeder (despite the niger seed bought especially) until I realised we have hordes of them, but they prefer to bubble and chatter in the greengage trees at the bottom of our garden. And yes, looking forward to this moment does mean I am looking forward to more autumnal times, which by the already turning of the blackberries in the hedgerows is beginning to wave a distant hello.

Back to the teasels, did you know that it is thought that they might be carnivorous? The teasels’ leaves form a sort of cup in which rainwater collects – and also insects which drown in the pools… If I’m being perfectly honest with you, this is mostly hypothetical, there is some small evidence that the plant gains some benefit from the extra protein of dead bugs, but it is certainly not a proven fact that this is what they are doing – creating their own traps and feeding bowls. But, it’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?

We’ve had grass snakes in the garden this year – I have been most excited about this, although less so because our small, shouty and sweary cat with a gimpy leg did catch one and leave it on our kitchen floor. We have a thrush with only one foot. It seems to be doing well despite this set back, it sings most beautifully-madly, as they do, but I worry for it still. I am enjoying the lavender that is coming into itself now. I have picked some for drying (last year I made lots of lavender bags for Christmas presents, something that I will always remember doing with my grandma, and have lately been enjoying popping a stalk of flower heads into a pot with camomile tea. I’m not sure MOTH has seen yet, but this morning I tied a posy of lavender to hang under the shower head. Giving the buds a gentle squeeze as the water is running makes it smell a little like you are in a spa – go on – try it (in your own shower though, not mine, of course).

It has been a strange, awful privilege to have been forced to stay at home for the last few months. I miss hugging people an awful lot (not random people, my family and close friends, of course) but as a natural introvert, for me, I can’t honestly say it was all bad. Recently, I have stepped back into my physical work, leaving behind the digital content creating I have been doing in lieu. I have been both excited and apprehensive about this. What I love about my job as a librarian is (yes, yes, it’s the books) but also helping people, quietly building real relationships with regulars and knowing you have truly given and made a difference to someone. Things will not be as they were for a while but we adapt. Change can be hard, it can be wonderful, it can be a learning experience, but one thing is for sure, nothing ever truly stays the same.

Pre-baked Potatoes

I have become mildly obsessed with TED Talks and have to ration myself to only starting one when I know I have time to listen and watch many. Like others might binge a Netflix series, I can do the same for these presentations. And it’s not just about the interesting subjects, it also has to do with a strange fascination I have with confident speakers. As much as what they say, I am drawn to the gesticulations, expression, rhythm of speaking and the movement that goes unplanned with their words. It is something we all do, to a greater or lesser extent and I find it an interesting thing that when (in theory) words should be enough to convey what we are saying, our bodies give these impromptu extras.

Recently, when watching a news presenter giving a report while wearing a face covering, MOTH made a passing comment about the gesticulations looking odd without seeing the mouth moving too. My brain being what it is, I now can’t stop thinking about why and how our brains deliver these non-verbal expressions without our conscious instruction to do them. Have we always done it? Does everyone gesticulate? Do all cultures? What is the impact of not doing so? And so on. Perhaps there is a TED Talk about it. (I’ve just looked. There isn’t. Could someone do one please?) A moment to say, please, please wear a mask. No, none of us like it but we do things every day that are annoying, uncomfortable or we don’t like, so let’s all just crack on with this too, shall we.

Speaking of coverings (yes, exceedingly tenuous linking of thoughts – my mum will appreciate that) it is too blinking hot and I am longing to live in the lightest billowing cotton kaftan that will magically never actually touch my skin- does anyone have one I can borrow? I know I am most likely to be in the minority here, but I really don’t like this extreme heat. As someone who is cold ninety-nine percent of the time, you’d think I’d be happy when the sun was blazing. But it’s as if, when I finally get warm, my body doesn’t know how to cope with it. I literally swell up and ache and get very, very grumpy. (MOTH will attest to this with ‘help, get me out of here’ subtle eye movements.) I am longing for days of rain and snuggling up in a jumper. I am writing this in my study with the curtains half-drawn and a fan on while I am sure most of you are probably sunbathing and maybe even at the beach. The fan, by the way, is precariously close to the hanging tendrils of a flowering spider plant and I am aware that there may be a shower of little white petals blown my way at some point. Still, I usually have bits of garden in my hair or down the back of my t-shirt so it won’t make too much difference.

Speaking of the garden – it is wilting and crisping and we are hoping our main crop potatoes aren’t going to be pulled up pre-baked. We lifted our onions recently and are still feeling abundantly smug about the haul. Quite possibly over one-hundred; and ten garlic bulbs as well. As ever we are running out of ways to eat excessive amounts of courgette, it is currently being added to pretty much every meal – and still they come.

Every year I say I am never going to make jam again. This usually happens when I have been cleaning and sterilising jars, prepping huge amounts of fruit and standing over a boiling pan of bubbling fruit and sugar – all in the hottest months (merely adding to the heat I already can’t deal with – yes, I’m still grumping). Well, I have been making jam. And there will probably be more to come. The first large batch has been greenage – it seems we have a bumper crop for the first time. Most years we barely get any as, just at the point of nearly ripe, every single one gets utterly devoured by wasps. So this year, I took my cue from the stripy sugar-loving beasts and at the first signs of them boring into the fruit, I picked a basket load and finished ripening them in a paper bag. Then realised I would have to do something with them all, now that they were picked. Next up; the plums. And damsons. And apples. And blackberries. Oh dear.

It is amazing how much time it takes dealing with a mass of homegrown produce to make sure it is kept well enough to last into winter and beyond. My grandparents had the most amazing cellar which was full of jars upon jars of bottled fruit (as well as Grandad’s home-made wine – of varying successes) and I can only imagine how much time Grandma must have spent getting everything picked, prepped and stored because I don’t remember there ever being a time when there weren’t fruits to choose from, whatever the season. The exciting feeling and glorious scents of going down into the cellar I don’t think will ever leave me. It was the place where the surplus cake tins were kept, the extra cups, jars, large sieves and all manner of not-quite every day items – including (we found when sorting their estate) a teacup, with a special lip to guard the drinker’s moustache from getting wet. (Here is a
terrible picture.)

Back to the courgettes, because, as any vegetable gardener will attest – they are too numerous to ignore. One approach to use a good amount while being able to hide the quantity from those who are not so keen, is to make courgette potato cakes. Make your mashed potato as usual and let cool. Grate as many courgettes as you think you can get away with and wring them out in a tea towel to get rid of as much moisture as possible. Add the courgette to the potato and season: salt, pepper and chives works well, then squish down into a pastry cutter to create the ‘cake.’ Alternatively, make the mixture into balls and roll in flour. Both of these freeze brilliantly and cook from frozen and you can totally deceive doubters by not telling them they contain large quantities of courgette – especially if they are served with a runny-yolk poached egg on top.

All about the birds and a little undead rhubarb

Once again we have reached the point where the areas of our garden we leave wild at the start of the year need taming. I always leave a large patch of comfrey at the bottom of the garden as it is such a good source of early nectar for bees and pollinators, but this pretty, although prickly irritant of a plant, romps away and before you know it, everything has been swamped. Now that the bulk of flowering is over I have begun to reduce the area by at least half – and found a lovely surprise under it all – a patch of wild garlic which I had no idea was there. Next to the fenced grass pile (which has been phenomenal at giving us mulch at this time when garden centres have been closed) there peered up at me some rather light-deprived wild garlic; rather sorry leaves but lovely delicate white flowers. I am hoping it will recover now that it is not weighed down by comfrey and I might try transplanting some to a place a little easier to get to and keep clear.

At the same time, I had to re-find the access to the grass pile as the hedge next to it had bulked out somewhat. A lot of people will think I am mad, but I always cut my hedging back by hand with secateurs (although MOTH does do the hedge at the front but only after I’m convinced nesting season is over). Cutting by hand may take longer but to me it feels so much kinder and less intrusive and I am more convinced of that now as, once more, I was given a wonderful surprise. As I edged along gently taking pieces of hedging away, I came across a well-hidden nest with four beautiful small bright blue eggs – a dunnock’s nest. Naturally, I immediately backed off and I am happy to report that I have seen an adult on the nest since, so I am no longer worried about having disturbed it.

The line between gardening for us and for nature is weighted heavily in favour of nature at the front of our house too (much to the neighbours’ horror I’m sure; those that allow nothing for wildlife save an extremely mowed lawn).
We always get a bit of a meadow of dandelions and do you know what – I leave them. The bright yellow is simply gorgeous to see and they are great for pollinators. When their heads turn to clocks, I still can’t get rid of them because when I look out I can see many goldfinches perched on the stems pecking away at the seeds that are attached to the iconic, delicate parachutes. I was watching a line of goldfinches on the telephone wire connected to our house the other day and they were themselves acting like parachutists. All in a row, one by one they dropped off, straight down to the awaiting dandelions below.

As an aside, did you know that the name dandelion comes from the French, ‘dent- de lion’ – lion’s tooth, although, apparently this is not what the French call it, their name for dandelion is pissenlit. The attached name ‘clock’ which appears when the head dries and turns to delicate seeds, has its root in an old bit of folklore when to divine how long you had left to live, you would blow upon the clock and count how many seeds still remained attached.

The song thrush is in full evidence – but this time, not only in its absolutely bonkers song; the garden is littered with smashed empty snail shells, the remains of the mollusc homes left in pieces on paving stones and large rocks. And it is no surprise there are so many takeaway shells about, because we now have two thrushes, the juvenile of which is often hopping about the pots on the patio looking exceedingly pretty and plump.

More elusive birds this week have been the stunning kite that occasionally does a fly-by over the house but which never hangs around long enough to be captured on camera other than as a tiny speck in the blue and also the unseen cuckoo whose call I heard this week for the first time of the year.

The enormous and increasing number of wood pigeons however, I shall not be waxing so lyrical about, although one did entertain me the other day be seeming to get stuck on the second part of its infamous call: whoo whoooo hoooo hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo…

The house martins are about more, flashing their white stomachs as they zip about aerial feeding, I saw a swallow sat on a telephone wire over a field, the great tits with their Pulp Fiction ties are feeding heavily again, the male blackbirds are scrapping at every opportunity and we have two plump juvenile blackbirds always bobbing about the garden together, rotund and with thin little legs, they remind me of Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum; the garden is busy!

But I promised you rhubarb, and if only I could actually give it to you. There was a rhubarb patch here when we moved in. Not being the biggest fans of the vegetable, I have tried to remove it several times; believing last year that I had finally succeeded – but no; it lives again, rising from the earth with triumphant red arms, defiantly waving enormous leaves at me. And so, as I write this, I have a huge amount of rhubarb chutney simmering away as well as three crumbles ready for the freezer. It is the spider plant of the garden – un-killable!

In comes I, in search of a surprise angry panther

This week has included St George’s day, a day for which I have no particular affiliation, but I do have fond memories. Anyone who has read past blogs will know that I grew up in the folk world with all its wonderful, and yes, quite frankly odd, traditions and practices. One of which is the performing of mummurs plays: folk plays by amateur ‘actors’ (see, more often beer happy folkies) that usually contain within them, a sword dual, a dragon slaying and a quack doctor who would bring the slain hero back to life. (Although there are many, many regional variations.) As ever, they were often an allegory for the fight between good and evil as well as for the seasons and crops returning to life after winter.

When a character enters the scene in a mummers play, he (and traditionally it was always men) would announce themselves beginning with, “In comes I,…” and the discourse would often be held, in a strutting and goading manner and usually in rhyming couplets:

“In comes I, Saint George! An heroic man,

With steely sword, my shield in hand.

I fought the fiery dragon

And sent him to the slaughter,

And for this deed I won the hand

Of the King’s beautiful daughter.”

The reason I have fond memories, is not just of watching many of these plays at street fayres between bouts of morris and clog dancing, but of being in one during a solar eclipse – many years ago. We were in Devon, or Cornwall, or thereabouts (I think) so many folk camps blur into one homogenous folk life. On this day most of the campers made their way to the top of a hill to witness the mystical event and as the time drew nearer, a group of us set about a mummers play.

As strong as my memory of the beauty and awe of the eclipse and how everything fell silent as the shadow descended, and as much as I remember the strangeness of the feeling of such a magical moment; I just as much remember that the huge men’s trousers I had borrowed for the play, that were held up only with string, kept threatening to fall down as I proudly introduced myself: “In comes I…” and then very nearly, out went dignity.

In the current situation, I have structured my time so that I work at my desk every morning, garden usually in the afternoon and if I have any energy left after cooking tea, set about my personal work later. As such, the garden is getting more attention than usual. This week, I have been on the hunt for a surprise angry panther. Let me explain. Last year, a flower emerged from amongst an area of, well, chaos, in one of my borders, that I couldn’t quite place. Popping it on twitter and asking for identification help, a gardener friend of mine replied that it was an agapanthus, but an unusual looking one. The best thing though, was that they told me that they called them angry panthers, and to this day, that is what I call them too. I know roughly where it is located but the ground covering mat of ajuga, pulmonaria and creeping cinquefoil, has hindered any precise pinpointing – hence the search. So far, the angry panther remains elusive, but I live in hope.

Talking of elusive nature, the orange tip butterflies are a cheeky bunch fluttering about but never landing long enough to take a picture. And, I am pretty convinced I found badger poo in the garden. When I told MOTH to come and see something interesting, he was not at all convinced when I said it was poo, until he saw it and reluctantly had to agree that it was, actually, interesting. I have seen a badger in the garden before, so it is quite possible.

Other garden activities have been checking each morning whether any new veg have begun to poke above ground – potatoes, onions, climbing beans, courgettes and garlic are romping ahead leaving the peas and spinach wheezing and panting at the back of the pack. The weather is proving glorious for us humans, but as a gardener I am feeling the pain of nature trying to compete with increasingly parched earth. We have four water sources available in a variety of locations for wildlife, but it is the plants I feel for, trying to push through baked clay – and we are only in April! Perhaps I should write and perform a one-woman mummers play to the rain gods to see if we can entice them to show our land some mercy. Six weeks into isolation – this doesn’t sound quite so mad an idea.