Mad dogs & Englishmen
Monday 7 June
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I am not the first person to say this and I probably won’t be the last, but this season is very strange indeed. There are fully grown plants that are baking (and wilting) in the greenhouse and there are empty beds in the Kitchen Garden. I don’t quite know whether we are coming or going. And so, this week has all been about trying to get things in the ground if they weren’t, watered if they were, and cutting as much hair as we can off the spaniel because those eyebrows were causing him to overheat.
Oh, and the roses have started and they are absolutely glorious.
Tuesday 8 June
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A difficult morning at work. So much so that I need to go to a garden centre to recover. Some very welcome vouchers from my mother-in-law are exchanged for three exquisite Campanula punctata ‘Silver Bells’. I cannot bear the normal, dumpy campanulas; for me, only the most delicate of harebells, reminiscent of childhood holidays around Llyn Tegid, or the long forms of the punctata and the takesimana varieties. I never said I wasn’t a snob. I cannot grow the native harebell here (wrong soil) and so I have taken to acquiring the other sorts wherever I can.
Wednesday 9 June
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The plan is that I garden on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and work the other days. The biodynamic calendar appears to have developed a habit of declaring the middle of the week ‘unfavourable’ for working in the garden. (It also took against both May Bank Holidays which I took as a sign that we might not entirely be on the same team.)
And so today, I record a podcast with Kate Codrington and do a talk for the wonderful Middle Years Monday. I often feel like I should have more answers when people approach me with such important, big questions but everyone professes such relief that I don’t. There is something very human about us all navigating stormy seas in the best way we can.
I promise this isn’t a shameless plug, but when I was having quite a lot of wobbles of the vaguely existential kind earlier this year, I went back and read my own book, The New Normal. I am slightly embarrassed about how much it helped. I find that is the way with life lessons; we learn, and then we forget and then we remember and then we forget. Alain de Botton says that is why all organised religions make you attend some place of moral instruction on a repetitively frequent basis, because human beings simply don’t hold onto the important stuff for long. How many times do I have to realise, too late, that a well-timed pint of water, bringing some sweet peas into the house, and a nap would have saved a day?
Thursday 10 June
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Conditions still unfavourable according to the lunar calendar but I cannot wait. The scaffolding board shelving is (carefully) moved out of the greenhouse and replaced by rows and rows of pots. The tomato plants were starting to look yellow because they had long since run out of nutrients in the compost that I pricked them out into. I think this was in April. What on earth happened to May? I surround them with basil seed and the odd marigold. Companion planting nettles amongst my roses has entirely failed to keep the aphids off the blooms, but I am not giving up yet.
Friday 11 June
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Toda was the day. The sweet peas have started in earnest. The deep, deep glossy beauty of the Windsors. Mollie Rilestone is spankingly pink this year and I accidentally planted it next to a Bristol and an Albutt Blue so they look distressingly pastel when viewed through the kitchen window. Luckily, the top tip I have for sweet peas is to cut them every single day. This not only keeps the flowers coming forever, but also means I can put the different varieties in different parts of the house and no one thinks I have come over all soft.
Saturday 12 June
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Dahlias. In the heat of the middle of the day, I managed to get my dahlias in. Staking in place, labels and everything. Dahlias originate from Mexico and they don’t mind how hot it is. I do. I have forgotten that oft-learned lesson that when you are gardening, it is not your face that you need to apply sunscreen to (I never forget to do that) it is the back of your shoulders. I am burnt.
Sunday 13 June
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The outdoor tomatoes. Crimson Crush. I dig them into neat rows. They are deceptively tidy at this stage, so compact and so upright. Like pumpkins, they will grow into huge bushes before the season’s end. I adore tomatoes and I have high hopes.
Also, tying in the beans. The vines that have caught the supports and twined early are feet taller than those that haven’t. As with sweet peas, a bit of string at the right moment goes a very long way.
I hope you have had enjoyed this delicious weather in the shade and with a long cool drink.