The season of early joy
Monday 21 March
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This glorious, glorious weather. The sky is blue from edge to edge, and the blossom is covered in bees. The tulips are unseasonably early. If yours are too and they seem short, a good water and a bit of shade will do the trick. I grow mine in crates just for this purpose. If they are looking anything other than willowy and elegant, I put the crate under the staging in the greenhouse. Keep an eye though, this is such a good trick, mine have gone from stumpy to having their necks cricked in the course of a single day and night.
Tuesday 22 March
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More hoeing and top dressing. As I hoe, I can feel which beds have been fed enough and which haven’t. The richest beds are crumbly and soft, the hoe running through easily, tumbling hairy bittercress and cleavers up out of the ground. Those that I forgot or skimped on, are hard, dusty and cracked. Hoeing is an effort. I hoe briefly, and then tip barrowloads of compost on top. I can take a hint, and I am too lazy to enjoy hard hoeing.
Wednesday 23 March
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More tulips. More pink, sadly, but the first of the deep reds. An old kitchen sink, somewhat forgotten, sends up Fritillaria uva-vulpis as well as, rather astonishingly, the first flowers and fruits of the alpine strawberries. The tip of the very first asparagus is seen, but then I cover the bed in compost (harvests have been slightly thin in recent years and it has been long overdue a feed) and it disappears again. In this weather, another fortnight and I will be cutting it daily.
This photo below is not F. uva-vulpis, but I cannot remember if it is F. Elwesii or F. Acmopetala. Probably the latter. Lovely, whatever the name.
Thursday 24 March
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Hugo’s birthday. He is nine. Traditionally, each of the dogs gets a pork pie with a birthday candle in it but two years ago, Hugo got really sick after some treats and we had to navigate attending the vets in the hardest of lockdowns and I can’t quite bring myself to risk it again this year. We can’t even sing happy birthday to him because this sends the entire pack crazy with pastry lust. Even with only three birthdays a year, they know that that song is the theme tune to pork pie pleasure.
Friday 25 March
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Last year I bought lots of currant bushes. Whites and pinks, as well as the best of the blacks, Ben Lomand. For some reason, I never planted them, and they languished around the place in their too-small pots. Today, I finally dig them in. Close enough together to be able to throw a net over them when the crop is ripe, and in the flower beds because I predict I am going to use them more in vases than I am in sorbets.
Saturday 26 March
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Lunch in the orchard. There are stone fruits and pip fruits, even an autumn flowering cherry which is still very much holding its own. The trees were chosen for their harvested fruit, but the staggered blossom is as much of a pleasure. The plum is first to bloom and possibly the most perfect. The Victoria plum tree is not substantial, but it is absolutely smothered. The sloe is taking over now in its characteristically hazy, cloud-like way. The pear has burst into bloom in the last day or two. There is a hint on the apple espaliers. The cherries are covered in buds. The quince has silvery, soft, downy leaves in little swirls. I worry about the forecast frost.
Sunday 27 March
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I don’t know about you, but I rather missed that lost hour in bed this morning, but it somehow feels like a slower start. Buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. Gill Meller’s recipe always, but I make the same mistake every time. It says that it makes four pancakes so I always double the recipe and end up with pints and pints of pancake batter.
Pancakes stuffed with giant chard from the kitchen garden, mixed with cream, nutmeg and stilton for lunch.
I hope that you are safe, as well as can be expected, and holding on to some form of peace and nurturance.