The season of jumpers on and jumpers off
Monday 4 October
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I clear more kitchen garden beds and dib out yet more leeks. They germinated better than expected and I have hundreds.
In amongst the vegetables are the seeds heads of the flowers that that spent the summer as companion plants. There are marigolds (which I scatter) and nasturtiums (which I collect). There suddenly seems to be borage everywhere.
Tuesday 5 October
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A walk up to Netherclay. The path is scattered with conkers. The girls dodge in and out of the standing maize, conker-coloured blurs in a muted gold landscape.
Wednesday 6 October
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An early drive to the other end of Somerset. The greener end. In a valley above Bath, through a village of warm, honeyed stone is Damson Farm, home of Alison Jenkins. It is beautiful and full of lightness and texture. Sue Mabberley of Nant-y-Bedd teaches us the dark art of compost making. We make a windrow, and admire compost heaps, and talk about watering and activators. At least one of us is distracted by the greenhouse and the wooden supports in the kitchen garden. There is cake and then lunch and then cake again. The sun is high in the sky and bathes us with warmth. It is all utterly glorious. I am inspired.
If you are a member of Gather, there is a full write up of the day here.
Thursday 7 October
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The field is unrecognisable since Naomi started helping me on Wednesdays. The paths are open and clear, the beds are abundant and wonderful. There are the odd ones that are not yet planted up. Some are being saved for tulips. Some are for the perennial planting which is going in next week. However, there are one or two that I haven't quite worked out what they are for yet. One is home to a mat of wild strawberries, the inevitable sprinkling of bronze fennel and the odd thistle. I spend the entire afternoon trying to decide whether to hoe it or not. I have nothing to put in it immediately and I know that soil needs living roots in it, but I don't want to be digging out head-high thistles in the future. To hoe or not to hoe.
I don't.
Friday 8 October
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A cool misty morning and a warm day. Jumper on, jumper off sort of day. The books have sold out and a reprint has been ordered. I celebrate by watching Nant-y-Bedd on Gardeners' World and a replay of a compost workshop by the Land Gardeners. I fear this is becoming an obsession.
Saturday 9 October
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The star of the flowers right now are my asters. My mother was always trying to persuade me to go to Colwall when she lived in Malvern, a short hop over the tallest hill between her cottage and the National Collection of Michaelmas daisies at Picton Court. I was never mad keen, not my colours, not really my shape. And yet the clusters of Symphyotrichum lateriflorum 'Lady in Black' (it was an aster when I planted them, they have all inexplicably changed their name) bring me so much joy. Not just me, they are absolutely buzzing with bees. Which is slightly problematic because they have flopped all over the path and getting past feels like taking my life in my hands somewhat. But in the unseasonably warm, golden October sunshine, it is gloriously soothing.
Sunday 10 October
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A whole day with my compost heap, putting into practice the knowledge gathered on Wednesday. Everything is chopped very carefully, or shredded, or torn. Layers are layered and then watered. I delight in finding that even my compost heaps built in ignorance before the course have heated to some degree. Maybe not dramatically, but at least a bubbling of activity, of microbes, of life.
Creation. Fertility. Magic.
