Guests in the Garden

Wednesday rolls around again, which means another glorious day in the garden for me.  First up though, we took Our Youngest over to (potentially) her new school.  We are immensely proud as she, rather than throwing a wobbly, is genuinely excited about her assessment day.  We head home to a bit of light weeding and watering.

Now that the garden is broadly settled it has started to attract all sorts of guests from the insect kingdom.

A welcome guest in the shape of a Ladybird

A butterfly on the Den windowsill

Ants on the face of a Sunflower

A Hover Fly takes off from the Broad Beans

Meanwhile the rest of the garden is making the best of the mixture of sunshine and showers we have had.



A corn kernel emerges

 

The cucumbers are coming along nicely

Sunshine

It's extraordinary what two days of sunshine can do to the garden.  Even the courgettes, which have not exactly been happy for some time, look happier this evening.  Yesterday, for the first time since we started cutting up the bottom half of the garden, we were able to actually just sit in the garden, just enjoying it for its own sake.  The Broad Beans are starting to be generous in size, the Salad Queen's leaves are blooming in productivity and the tomatoes are positively running wild.

Since I last posted, it has mainly been work that has taken up my time, and I was very disappointed on my day off last Wednesday to have spent much of my time eliminating a virus from the Salad Queen's PC.  This weekend, however, allowed me to catch up and more.  First thing Saturday I was in the Southern bed eradicating yet more bamboo, and it is while I was welly deep in roots and ivy that The Wife tottered out on her high heeled, Jimmy Choo special diamond encrusted Wellingtons to ask if I fancied a trip to Middle Farm http://www.middlefarm.com/ to have a look at Chooks?

Now, forgive your narrator's scepticism, but he knows the difference between a genuine enquiry and a de facto order, so I set aside the spade and fork and off we went.   Middle Farm is a great place to look at Chickens, and they sell Point of Lay, so it was not an entirely academic visit.  The Salad Queen took a fancy to Blue Haze and we also got a good look at some coops.

Back in the garden on Sunday, we enjoyed the fantastic weather.

I don't know what this tree is, prior to cutting back the bamboo it was hidden in a dank, dark corner of the garden.  Since we have cleared that corner out, it has come into its own, we lovely dark glossy leaves and little yellow buds.





It is good to just appreciate being outside sometimes.  We made ourselves comfortable in the shade at the end of the garden:

Anyway, all this frantic cutting back of bamboo and general clearing up of the area is because this is the area that we have been planning to place the coop in.  It was in the afternoon of Saturday that The Wife went on-line and now she has done it - the chicken coop and run are ordered and will be, all being well, with us this week.  After that, it will be the chickens - Blue Haze or Speckeldey?  We don't know yet, but we are all very excited.

Goodness knows what Ruby will make of it all.

And so it rained some more

Contrary to expectations the arrival of the water butts has precipitated (get it?) torrential rain showers.  Of course it is also Wimbledon so that may have something to do with it.  I honestly think that the first water butt that husband connected yesterday is full already.  This was no mere rain shower or even all day drizzle;  this was bounce back off the ground and soak you to the skin stuff.  It knocked out the internet connection (thats my story and I am sticking to it) and drowned out the tv that the sickly Salad Queen was watching.

It rained...

And it rained..

And it rained...

But it left everything all washed and new.

Rain

Ten days ago, we ordered via our local council at this site http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1109661 two rain butts and another compost bin.  I would like to give the council a big thumbs up for this initiative that provided us with a composter for £5 as opposed to the £30 odd quid you would spend in a garden centre.  A thoroughly deserved well done:

Naturally, since we ordered the water butts, it has been raining like a maniac until 3pm today, when they actually arrived.  We can now expect drought conditions across the southeast. I was hoping to get a lot done today, as Wednesday is my non working day, but shortly after taking Our Youngest into school the heavens opened.  The Wife, as previously mentioned, is now on Operation Chicken and I had planned to clear out the bed she has ear marked as the future chicken run.

However, the pouring rain did enable me to go upstairs and sort out the Salad Queen's computer, which yet again had a virus.  I had to do much of this by editing registry files, and it was not until 3pmm that I had finally cleaned everything up.  As it turned out, this was serendipitous, as I came downstairs the rain butts arrived and the skies cleared.

I quickly installed one rain butt:

We shall decide where the second will go this weekend.  I was then able to turn my attention to the lower south border, which has more than its fair share of bamboo.  I have made a reasonable start, and it has the very beneficial side effect of providing us with plenty of canes:

This is the cleared area, with bamboo still lining the southen fence, but much reduced.





This is the pile of canes we have stacked to one side of the shed and which, no doubt will come in handy in the future.



We are going to attend the South of England Smallholder's Show on 2nd/3rd July and will see whether we can pick up some hints and tips of Chicken care.  The Wife, even as I type, has her nose buried in The Urban Hen by Paul Peacock.  This one, clearly, is going to run and run.

Finally, to prove that the garden is not just about food (or, more recently, grubbing up roots) The Wife has been growing lovely Cornflowers:

And, it is still not raining.



The Face of Destruction

Look at that face.  Ignoring the fact that Ruby cat appears to be licking her own nose clean (ok is licking her own nose clean) you would not immediately think that you were staring into the face of destruction.  But contrary to appearances this is the face of single handed carrot destruction.  Every carrot sown has been carefully entombed in a mountain of soil so that the poor seedlings have no hope of finding the sunlight.  I can almost imagine her doing it and carefully wiping her paws to maintain their pristine snowiness.

That aside the garden is thriving but very little is ready to eat.  A friend joked that she heard we had gone self sufficient.  This would be true if we were living off salad.  Eldest daughter's plot is dedicated to salad items with a pansy border for show.  Beautiful and edible.  The salad leaves are going great guns and are so far the only crop which is really producing.  Eldest (or the Salad Queen as she will henceforth be known) is very keen to make a sandwich from her stuff (which includes some cucumbers in the conservatory).  We are a bit concerned about the cucumbers as according the packet if they become stressed they will produce male flowers.  We have been working very hard at keeping them relaxed and have particularly prevented them watching the T.V. pictures of wholesale cucumber destruction in Spain following the German e-coli outbreak.

Retrenchment

A relatively quiet day today, and certainly no activity worthy of a picture.  The Youngest bounded in this morning to give me my Father's Day card (note from The Wife: it was addressed to "bad" - mainly the problem with words is dispiriting but very occasionally you do have to laugh) and present and not much later Big Al came down with a bottle of beer.  Not a bad start to the day.  After taking the dogs out for a walk, I reversed the car into the drive and we dragged out an accumulation of garden rubbish to take to the recycling centre.

As I have previously mentioned, The Wife has got her heart set on getting some chickens, and we have been debating about where to site the hen house and the run.  We finally decided today on the far south border, which is currently overrun with bamboo.  The early evening was spent cutting back some of the more extravagant growth, but there is a great deal more work to do (further note from the Wife - the beer accompanied him to the garden).

We retired to the house to enjoy a lovely dinner, including freshly picked French Beans, the Broad beans we picked last night and salad from the beds.  I know it is a cliche, but it is extraordinary how good the fresh food tastes by comparison to its supermarket compatriots.

Pootering about between showers

This morning had a slightly unpleasant early start as I needed to get over to Canterbury to collect the eldest before 10am.  He has just completed his first year at Uni and today was throwing out of halls day.  Fortunately, it is about a one and an half hour trip each way, so we were back just before lunch.

The family had decamped to Our Youngest's school fair, so I pottered about the garden taking stock and putting off jobs I really should be getting on with.  There are quite a few of these, and when I noticed that The Wife had dutifully trimmed back the wisteria which was overrunning the den, I thought I better set to on one of them.

Our northen border currently has a raspberry and a gooseberry bush ensconced.  The plan is to add some fruit trees, probably two apple trees.  Before this can be progressed the rest of the northern border needs clearing out.  Unfortunately, that includes removing a palm tree.  I had already had removed a substantial portion of this tree a few weeks ago.  I take no pleasure in cutting a tree down, but this one was definitely on the way out, and to be honest I think I put it out of its misery.  However, it still need to be rooted out, and based on my previous experience of digging big stuff up I have been happily ignoring this job.

As any parent knows, the answer to the question "Are we there yet?" will depend on how many times you have been asked in the last five minutes and just how far you have actually travelled.  You know it is going to be a long journey when the refrain starts just as you pull out of the drive.  In like vein "Am I there yet" applies to rooting out a tree.  As I headed towards China I began to have serious doubts over my ability to get the end of this particular journey.  Here it is after about an hours digging and general grubbing about:

I could have done with a couple of yoked bullocks at this point to hoik the fucker out, but no such luck.  Anyway, suffice to say I perservered, mainly because I am a stubborn git.  Eventually I was able to get sufficiently underneath the roots to get the chainsaw on the stump, and things moved along relatively swiftly after that.  A patch of earth may be boring to look at, but this looks good to me, if only because of the singular absence of a tree stump:

Last week, a drought was announced for some parts of the East of England.  Naturally since then it has poured down.  Last night it rained so hard that rain was bouncing upwards from the decking to reach my knees.   However, the garden seems to be lapping it up, and the broad beans in particular are maturing nicely:

While I was waging war with the stump, Big Al came out to see what all the swearing was about.  As I have mentioned previously, he is very proud of his peas and he set about weeding with a gusto around them.  They are still small, but I think (given the love and attention they are getting) we can expect great things.  Here is one of Big Al's peas:

The Wife and family rolled home from their fair extravaganza, replete with cake and fizz, and joined me in the garden.  The Wife immediately set about tidying up the tomatoes, which are starting to get a bit leggy.  Lots of flower buds are starting to emerge and despite the disappointing weather we have had in June, I think we can expect a good crop:

It has been a day of sunshine and showers, but we even though we have been pootering about, we have made progress, it has been a good day.

By the way, I know that it is not obvious how you comment - you click on the bit that says  "comments 0" below the post and that will open a new dialogue box for you to put your comments in.  I would be grateful for any feedback on the blog.

Desert Island Discs

Just latetly, BBC Radio 4 have been inviting listeners to contribute to their Desert Island Discs programme.  In brief, on this programme, you are invited to list your ten favourite records and to say why those songs are significant to you.  I have loved this programme for many years and I have given a great deal of thought to what would be my ten records:

1.  We will Rock you - Queen

You've got mud on your face, you big disgrace, waving your banner all over the place...

This takes me straight back to my childhood when we were living in a council flat and had no more than two brass pins to rub together.  Although times were hard, it was still a good time.  It reminds me of my childhood friends and the incredible summer of 76.

2.  Suzanne - Leonard Cohen

Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river...

Laura was my first big love, and she was a great Leonard Cohen fan.  Although I have not heard this in years, just the thought of it takes me back to being 18 and being naively in love and thinking that the world was always going to be like it was then.

3.  Welcome to the machine - Pink Floyd

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine...

Almost unbelievably, this is the song I sung to my eldest on the night he was born.  I held him in my arms 20 years ago and sang to him as he slept when he was just a few hours old.

4.  Do nothing- the Specials

I walk and talk, do nothing...

And two years later, I danced around the front room with Big Al in my arms as I played this on the record player.

5.  Little Green Bag - George Baker

Turn to the left, turn to the right...

Dancing to the early hours of the morning at the Catfish Club with my beloved in the sultry heat.

6.  Song 2 - Blur

I got my head shaved...

When The Wife and I moved in together, one of the first things I bought her was a CD player.  She had a collection of Blur albums and the CD player had a disconcerting habit of turning itself on the in the middle of the night and playing cd's - weird, but they were almost always Blur songs.  Such a strong and happy memory.

7.  At last - Etta James

At last my love has come along, my lonely days are over...

Slightly out of sequence, but At Last is one of my all time favourite songs and reminds me of Northern Exposure, a Channel 4 programme in the 90's which I enjoyed immensely, but also love it because it is a song of  love and redemption.  When I met The Wife, this is the song that came to my mind.

8.  Szelerem - Hungarian folk song

Szelerem means love in Hungarian and this traditional folk song is a haunting tale of what love means to one person.  It describes empyting the sea with a spoon so that one can give the pearls on the sea bed to your love.  It reminds me of when I was separated from my beloved, and how much I owe to her and how much I love her.

9.  How I Wish you Were Here - Pink Floyd

How I wish, how I wish you were here, we are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...

I think, strictly speaking, you are not permitted the same group/musician twice, but this track is so true to itself, and is so evocative of how I feel when I am apart from those I love, that I have to include it. 

10.  Sorrow - Bowie

Hah - well, actually,  this is another track that I have always adored, it also (in a positive way) reminds me of my first wife, with her long blonde hair and eyes of blue.  It's not true that I only got sorrow.


What would be your 10 tracks?

Shed Love

Is it unreasonable to fall in love with a shed?  As my beloved has hinted I have formed a deep and abiding attachment to the shed.  It is currently my favourite room in the house thats not in the house if you see what I mean.
Until we moved here last September I had lived a largely garden free existence for 40 odd years (childhood excepted).  I'd done balconies, patios, roof terraces and window sills but not an actual garden.  And until we moved here last September until about Easter this year the garden was in the main an homage to decking.  The people who lived here before were seriously into low maintenance gardening.  So with the chopping up of the decking and the making of the beds came the need for a shed to store garden stuff in.
I could not have foreseen how I would fall.  Oh shed of my dreams! As I love a list (as beloved will confirm) let me list the ways in which I love thee:

1. The children and pets have no interest in the shed so....get this... everything stays put in it.  No tidying up after others!!
2. Its got its own chair by the door for watching the garden grow in the rain and for having a rest with a glass of pink wine when making an evening tour of inspection.
3. It has a picture of Steve McQueen and another of Louise Brooks in it.  Random but true.
4. This one is a bit embarrassing. I love how it smells. Enough said.
5. It has so many possibilities.  Apparently I could get a solar panel to produce shed electricity (shedtricity?) and then...kettle...laptop...fridge for pink wine...tv.  Or what about a wood burner.  Or a day bed.

Anyway enough shed eulogising.  I shall be away to my colour charts to check what colour I will be painting the shed.

What is an Education?

Yesterday, before I nipped into the garden centre for a bit of retail therapy, I spent the morning at a special needs school that was holding an open day.  It is our hope that Our Youngest will be able to go there sometime in the next year or two, although that requires our pursuading the Local Education Authority (LEA) to fund it.  While I was there I spoke to other parents who were just coming to terms with the bureaucratic nightmare that is intricately linked with getting your child the education they deserve.  It is nobodies fault that mainstream education is geared to meeting the needs of mainstream children.  They do, after all, make up the majority.  However, for the minority that do need something more, it is a thoroughly depressing process.

This morning, The Wife and I went to Our Youngest's school for her annual review.  It is just over a year since we were able to obtain a statement of educational need and the purpose of the meeting was to review how that statement is being met.  A LEA representative was also present.  We sat on little chairs meant for far younger posteriors.  When, with the school's full support and with a raft of specialist's reports endorsing our view, we informed the LEA representative that we wished to move Our Youngest to our chosen special needs school we received a polite, but unequivocal no, the LEA do not send children there.  This was then tempered with an admission that they do, but only after a Tribunal.  This was not news, it was only what we expected.  The LEA rep was kindly and had an air of resignation that acknowledged that they knew we would fight this all the way, and so would they, and that ultimately Our Youngest will move.  It may not be to the special needs school of our choice, the LEA may find a better one.  But their default position is that Our Youngest can have her needs met where she is.  This was met with polite disbelief from Our Youngest's own teachers, who know better.  But, that is how the system works.  To get an appropriate education for our child, we have to dig deep and fight hard.

What Our Youngest needs is an education that teaches her practical life skills.  We, obviously, have a major role to play in that.  What she can do, even if her reading and mathematics remain basic, is make and grow things.  This was one of the factors at the back of our minds when we decided to dig up half the garden.  This is the raised bed I made for her:

That is her little watering can on the side.  The Wife helped her to plant her pansies and marigolds and a tomato plant.  After I collected her from school yesterday afternoon we came home and planted the brocolli together.  She dug the hole and then watered the plant in.  She told me how well the roots had developed.

There it is today, enjoying the sunshine.  Our Youngest enjoys her food, and is a big fan of brocolli, and she will take great pleasure in watching it develop.  More importantly, she is learning about how things grow and how to grow them herself.  She is also developing her own sense of what she likes and appreciates.  Last weekend The Wife took her to a nursery and Our Youngest had a free rein on what she wanted to put in her raised bed.  This is what she chose:

As you can see, somewhat unexpectedly, she has an eye for roses.  In two weeks time she and I will be visiting our local special needs school together.  It will be quite a testing day for her.  She is not a fan of change.  Hopefully, though, it is another step towards her getting what she deserves.  After that, we will continue with our negotiations with the LEA.  In the meantime though, her education in the garden will continue.



Clinically depressed Courgettes and Ruby Cat

Hmmm, well, courgettes eh?  First of all, they had a problem with their leaves which suffered from mildew.  This was cleared up with some hard pruning and getting them into a better ventilated position, the next problem has been them topping themselves:

So, what you have their is a courgette flower that has lost the will to live and shuffled off this mortal coil.  Initially this was caused by pollen beetles, which are relatively harmless, but they scoff all the pollen they can get their little mitts on.  However, we managed to get rid of them and now the downturn in the weather seems to have put the bees off visiting, so no pollination is going on.  Sigh.

Meanwhile, I had to nip off to the garden centre today to buy some mesh to put over (my son) Big Al's peas (of which he is inordinately proud).  This was because when I got home from work yesterday evening and wandered out with a beer to take a stroll round the beds, I saw a huge turd nestling in with the peas and earth kicked up all over the place.  Now, the dogs are athletic but there is only one culprit for using a planting bed like a giant litter tray:





Yeah, Ruby Cat.   She also seems to have buried the just peeping through carrots.  We shall have to see if the mesh is effective.  Rubes came to us from a rescue centre and she is quite a character.  She is also, possibly, the most expense rescue cat in history.  To be fair, that was my fault.  When we got her she had a month's insurance left.  As she was being kept inside (as per instructions) I didn't think to extend the insurance.  First day she was let out she stopped eating - one week later she is in emergency vet hospital, sans insurance.  Yeah - ouch, my poor bank account.  She's worth it though, if only to watch her drink water:

Yep, she will only drink running water from the tap.  Anyway, while I was at the garden centre I cheated a bit and picked up some brocolli plants (as we were too late to grow them from seed).  So they have gone in this afternoon and we shall see how we go along.

There is only one animal left to mention, Bix:

Bix is Amber's older brother and has been adapting himself to being the elder statesman in the house.  Doesn't stop her sleeping on top of him though.  Both Bix and Amber are currently piled up on my feet, as it's their dinner time.  Guess I better go feed them.



Anyway..

..Where was I before I went off on that rant? Oh yes, vegetables.  A bit of background may be helpful.  So, when we moved here last September from our flat, we went from having a small roof terrace to a spacious garden.  Roughly divided into an upper and lower half, it was decked in hardwood and the borders contained mainly bamboo and ivy.

The Wife took me to the lower half of the garden, pointed, handed me a saw and wandered back inside.  Well, she would have liked to have done.  In reality, we measured up, and then she wandered back inside.  What we decided to do was to use the decking in the lower half of the garden to create five raised beds.  Three of these would be 12 foot by four and two smaller beds of four by four.

It was at this point that we came face to face with the reality of cutting hardwood.  The chainsaw did its best, but ultimately I had to cut the lengths out by hand.  For the long sides this meant sawing through twelve or thirteen joists for each one.  The pieces for the raised bed were stacked to one side and then I set about cutting off all the odd bits left.  These have been pressed into various uses, including a stepped arrangement to set the herb pots out.  Everyone chipped in and did their bit, including the boys who did a fair bit of cutting and shifting wood about.  Nonetheless it was a demanding task and it took most of the weekends in May to get to a position where we could construct the beds.

Having put them in place, the North to South slope of the garden became very evident, so various props were put in place to level up the beds.  The Wife then got out her stub of a pencil and a bit of paper and did some difficult calculations to work out just how much topsoil we needed to fill the beds.  Later that week, four tons arrived on the front drive.

It did not take long to realise that we are somewhat underestimated the total amount of topsoil needed.  In fact, we needed another five tons.  Shifting the total of nine tons from the front of the house to the rear of the garden was some operation, but I have to say the topsoil was excellent quality.

In expectation of getting the beds sorted in a reasonable time frame, we had already grown some plants from seed inside the house.  As we are East/West facing, the seed trays started the day on the window sill in our bedroom and then were ferried through to the conservatory once the sun had passed the top of the house.  That way they progressed nicely, and it was a good job that we pressed on with getting the beds sorted as the tomatoes and broad beans in particular were in desperate need of re-potting.  As soon as the first bed was complete, The Wife planted them out alongside the sweetcorn.  We also planted year old (but cropped back) raspberry and gooseberry bushes into the border (where we had pulled up some dying ornamental grasses).

Once all the raised beds had been filled with topsoil, we planted out leeks, onions, french beans, pumpkin, peas and carrots.  As the beds were not ready until the end of May, we had missed out on some plants, such as brocolli, but this first year is somewhat of an experiment as this is the first time that we have tried something quite like this.  We did have a share of an allotment some years ago, so we are not total novices, but truth be told, we are not far off.

In pots we have courgette, dill, cucumber (in the conservatory), horseradish, rocket, lettuce, mint, chives, and parsley.  Some of these are doing better than others.  The parsley, in particular, is not thriving.  We are still mulling over what to do about a potato crop and we want to get some garlic planted out.

To keep weeds down, we are in the process of laying down some lining material around the beds, onto which we have so far emptied 40 or 50 bags of gravel.  That is nearly finished, I think we need another 10 bags or so.  Additionally, this week, the shed arrived - Yay!  But I shall let The Wife talk about that, as it is her pride and joy.

Growing your own food is very fulfilling, and The Wife has her eye on Part Two of Operation Garden - the chickens.  We are some way off for being ready for that - but I can see a gleam in her eye. It has been very hard manual work to get this far, and we are not quite finished, but it has been well worth it.  Not sure how the two dogs and the cat are going to react - their reaction to the new garden has mainly been to crap on it or to try and eat it.  More on that another time.

No, Neo, you are a slave.

Yes, I know, a pop lite reference to the Matrix,  but I have not selected it out of ignorance or indolence (well, I might have).   Fact is, the situation that we find ourselves in would have been depressingly familiar with our forebrears 200, 900, or even 1,000 years ago.  Well, at least to mine, who were agricultural labourers and woodsmen, seamstresses and domestic servants.  Yours may well have been land owners and factory owners, you oppressor, but the reality of our lives is that we live in a structured heirarchy, where there are those who hold power, influence and money, and there's the rest of us, with our aspirations (both for ourselves and for our children) our credit cards and our wage slavery.

How has mankind come to this?  How is it that we voluntarily  submit to a system that keeps us trapped and working for fuck all for people that know fuck all and how, most importantly, has this got anything to do with vegetables?

Well, vegetables - growing your own food on your own land, is one small step to setting yourself free.  Life is about being harrassed, being worried and frightened by all the shit happening in the world and being bombarded with images of crap you are being pressurised to buy by multi national conglomerates that have the ability to make or break countries by the manipulation of currency and frankly are not much bothered about your wellbeing, just so long as you keep spending.   It is beyond my ken, but I have an idea - maybe we don't need them, or their crap, or their fear, or their slavery.

But I sense that I have not made my case very well.  I shall take you back to a discussion with my wife, where I said "You are a slave (as am I)" and she said "No, I am not".  Now, from my perspective, where you work for an employer, in order to earn money, in order to buy food, water, heat, light, you are a slave.  Who, in this world, decided that person A should have to work 50 years and that person B should tell them what to do and to grow wealthy off of person A's labour?  More importantly - why do we all so meekly accept this atrocious state of affairs?  Are we not free?  From my wife's perspective, she enjoyed her work, liked the money and did not feel as if she had no other choice.  Sadly, I would argue, that for far too many of us, there is no other choice.  Be a wage slave, or live a marginal life on benefits, that is the choice we have and that is no real choice at all.  We all deserve better.

Better to die on your feet than live on your knee's?  Maybe, how about, better to live on your feet and find a way to be free?  That is the journey that my family and other vegetables is on.

By the way, I am no marxist-leninist revolutionary.  I am not political - I just don't want to be a battery.