Gardening at last

 

After a manic last weekend (preparation for market down to nine hours and profits up 20 quid on last month – who says I can’t make a living out of this?!) this week I’ve spent some blissful afternoons at the field hoeing and dead-heading and generally tidying up. There’s still a bit of the rabbit fencing to finish off but it can wait till the weekend: the fact that the newly blooming gladioli were starting to tilt over at alarming angles made me realise that a bit of what I think of as ‘real gardening’ couldn’t.

Getting the infrastructure of the project sorted has meant that I’ve done precious little of what I imagined I’d spend the bulk of my time doing, but this week, with the sun beating down, the flowers in bloom and the butterflies flitting about I suddenly felt that I’d reached a turning point. I’m no longer chasing my tail and can enjoy it. This weekend the deckchair will be coming to the field with me!

 

 

Things Are A-Growing!

It’s weird – I’ve been so hung up on my fight with the pests and the feeling that the entire cast of British fauna has been sitting over the brow of the hlll, sniggering smugly as they wait for the gate to bang behind me, that I’ve forgotten to appreciate the fact that those plants they’ve deigned to leave growing are actually doing rather well.

Normally. of course, I would take it for granted that things were growing well. I’m a gardener – have been for years. I know what I’m doing. But, what with the no-dig thing being a bit of an experiment, I am childishly surprised! It’s a lovely feeling - reminiscent of the first time I snapped open a pea pod I’d grown and crammed it in my mouth, thrilled by its sweetness. Or the first time I said “Of course” to an idle enquiry as to whether I’d grown the sweet peas on the kitchen table myself.

There are only nine of them left, but the sunflower plants are romping away on stonking-great stems thicker than the stakes supposed to be supporting them. The love-in-a-mist is upright and abundant, the hispanica form of the plant more robust than the more common type, perfect for cutting. The scabious were a mixed seed mix – always a risk for those of us who hate “peach”  – but are heavy with buds of crimson and pink and blue. And the snapdragons throw up bud after bud after bud, no matter how battered they are by the incredible gales this globally-warmed July challenges us growers* with. 

The verbascum, a new plant to me (as is, in fact, the idea of growing perennials from seed at all), is chucking up flowers of pink and white, and the nicotiana lime green, although still quite short, is flowering – like it’s too excited to wait until it’s tall enough.

So, all in all, I’d say the no-dig thing works. It’s still a pain in the arse if you want to put anything in the ground ( I am in the process of replacing all the bamboo cane supports with wooden stakes. The former fall over if you so much as hang a T-shirt on them because the ground was too hard to sink them in more than a couple of inches, whereas wooden stakes can be banged in at least six inches with a hammer) and the latest turf-removing, anti-rabbit project is a nightmare that could have been avoided had the ground been ploughed, But, on the plus side, there are relatively few weeds (a blessing I become acutely appreciative of every time I visit my couch-grass infested allotment), the slugs, touch wood, don’t seem interested and, most importantly, things are a-growing!

First few months’ results? I’d say six out of ten. But this time next year, it’ll be 11!

 

 French Marigolds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The love-in-a-mist – Nigella hispanica ‘Midnight Blue’.

* I AM a grower! I have an account with Mole Valley Farmers, don’tcha know.