Have I ever mentioned...?
Monday 19 April
The biodynamic calendar says now is a powerful time. April is a month of strong growth, of surging energy, and there is a full moon coming. Today is the last flower day before the Pink Supermoon (27 April) and I full intend to make the most. More prosaically, my Charles Dowding module trays have also been delivered and so I sow like there is no time left in the world. Indigo. Violas. Every sort of cosmos. White because I adore it. Orange, for the dye pot. Pink because I feel like I should and because am I even a flower grower if I don’t?
Tuesday 20 April
Asparagus. One of the first things I planted on putting the field into production and, as a result, it is completely in the wrong place. However, it is now in its eight year and is more generous than anything else I grow. In return, I have somewhat neglected it and there are some strong strands of bindweed intermingled with the crowns. A very good friend once advised me that resolutions are so often pitched too high. Hers was (and this ages it) to put her CDs back in the right box when she’d finished with them. That was it. In amongst my busy days and weeks and hopes and dreams, my one single determined commitment is to dig out any shoots of bindweed that emerge in the asparagus bed every single day. Because food that good isn’t going digital any time soon.
Wednesday 21 April
The very very last words of my book. Just odd bits really, an extra caption for page 152, and an adjustment to the picture of Hugo in the introduction. And the bit that I have been putting off, which is the acknowledgements. Mostly because I read this article too recently, and it has tied me up in knots. Can I thank Nigel Slater for just existing, and for caring about fonts and the texture of paper? I thank Charles Dowding, but I have at least met him. Of course, this leads us into the whole dreadful quandary of book buying. I do keep being told how pre-orders really matter and how Amazon will make or break the success of Grow and Gather but I cannot, I just cannot, ask you to use Amazon. However, if you are interested in pre-ordering, then Waterstone’s are also doing the honours here.
Thursday 22 April
More coffee, but with Ginny. Delightful discussions about Land Rovers, the future of events, how other people run their businesses, horses, homes, websites, horses again. How I am completely baffled by Canva. Beware having coffee with people who supply incredible furniture to the most amazing events and parties; I came away having bought five long trestle benches to go with the over-sized oak table in the orchard.
Friday 23 April
Bluebells. Suddenly, they are everywhere. Nothing much grows in my front garden, sited as it is under the canopies of a row of huge lime trees. It is not so much that they cast shade, but that they suck the nutrition and moisture out of the soil and it remains hard and compacted whatever I do (and yes, I have tried no-dig, I think it just fed the trees). Two things thrive: a winter clematis that is scrambling over the front wall, and bluebells. They are making their way over from the wall to the front door, a foot or so every year. They add a magical touch to the view from the leaded windows at the front.
Saturday 24 April
Finally, planting out. I have made another hazel tunnel along the spine of the flower field and I top it with a thick layer of home-made compost. I do not have enough to spread far (it is better to do one area well than many areas thinly) so this is only for the best. Piggy Sue obviously, and a row of Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco beans from the Gather Christmas parcel.
If you are a Gather member and you sowed your beans and they were caught out by this bizarre frost we’ve been having, I have a few packets left. Email me and I will pop you a replacement in the post. It really isn’t too late for climbing beans. I am doing the vast majority of mine in the middle of May. In fact, it is written in my diary in big letters for 19 May because it is a biodynamic fruit day, in the week before a full moon, and I don’t work on Wednesdays. Auspicious indeed.
Sunday 25 April
South Wood Farm. So utterly utterly wonderful. I just adore it. It delivered particularly today. I took my mother. My mother is not easily impressed and, although she is herself a gardener, she is somewhat nonplussed by the whole GAF thing. I have read every word written by Arne Maynard I could find. I have been on courses at Allt y Bela about hazel rose domes. I have zoomed in on articles by Kristy Ramage on plant supports. And so when my mother raised that not all roses would work with being trained, I shared my knowledge that these were likely to be David Austin roses of the old variety, probably William Lobb. Not a minute later, we walked past the head gardener and overheard someone ask him about the roses. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘William Lobb.’ Dear reader, there was no other word for it. She was impressed.
