Not the best photo ever, but I spotted this little daffodil under the grape vine as we were leaving the allotment this afternoon. We mightn’t have gone up today because the weather was pretty wet and there was a strong but warm wind blowing in from the south under lowering grey skies – but a day indoors is never enough and when our son rang to say he could bring some old bricks over we jumped at the opportunity. We have a supply of heavy stones and slabs that we use to hold down sheets and fleece which have a way of working free from pegs, and so the offer of a few more was too good to miss – especially when he turned up with partner and grandchildren in tow and we were able to see them at last. No hugs and kisses, of course so our pleasure was tinged with an ache that any grandparent will understand, and when the middle child said “I miss you granny” we bit our lips and said we missed them all too. Of course we made plans to meet up properly for a big family picnic some time soon. At last there is the faintest light at the end of this awful year- which, ironically, makes it harder than ever.
But once you’re there you might as well work, and so I wheelbarrowed four loads of wood chip to restore the emergency drain that we’d dug when the apple trees were in danger of becoming waterlogged. The buds are all swelling now, which is good and bad news because we were pleased to see that the trees were still healthy in spite of the wettest winter ever, but on the other hand we’re still waiting for a delivery of five more bare root trees and we’re growing fearful that they’ll be out of dormancy before they can be despatched. I emailed the nursery last week and they rather fobbed me off with an anodyne “trust us” response.
After remedial work on the paths we trimmed back the frosted and dead leaves from the Swiss chard and a bed of brassicas. The purple sprouting broccoli have made an excellent recovery from their sorry state after being hammered by the prolonged east wind at -6C. Then we adjusted the fleece cover on the asparagus bed and hand weeded a couple of squatters. All the while a blackbird was singing up at the top of the site – a little bit rusty, so maybe it was a young male; but the sheer complexity of his song was breathtaking – with some unusual trills. Overhead a buzzard – quite a common visitor – was circling and ignoring the gulls that were halfheartedly mobbing it. There was no one else on the site. I’ve never minded working in the rain, not since I was a groundsman. In fact, laying hedges in filthy weather with a big bonfire was always one of my favourite jobs. With decent (breathable) waterproofs I’d rather be outside in the midst of it than watching the rain run down the windows – however warm it might be inside the flat.
We’re just waiting now for a sequence of dry days to finish tensioning the polytunnel and hang the door so we can mark out the beds inside and start composting them. We discovered that the uneven surface under the ground rails was preventing us from tensioning the polythene cover properly, so there are some adjustments still to be made before we can turn our attention to filling it.
At home the rapid germination of the tomatoes – 100% successful – took us rather by surprise and filled us with foreboding because we’d factored in a much longer wait for them. Only yesterday I went through the diary and marked the six countdown Saturdays before the predicted last frost – which means we’re going to have to protect them until after May 12th. The danger is that we land up with very leggy plants, not to mention having every window occupied by pots for weeks on end. Just in case, we bought more seed yesterday as an insurance against the young plants blowing our crop.
At this time of year the earth feels like a huge slumbering dynamo slowly waking up. We all sense it; the birds and the insects too. Everywhere you look there are old friends poking their leaves above the soil. The weeds need no gardeners to tell them when to grow. Maybe instead of diaries, journals, weather forecasts and spreadsheets, we should follow the plants in the hedgerows and ask them what to do next. We do make use of garden planning software to get some kind of a rough hold on the coming season, but I’ve had to invent imaginary beds alongside the main plan to house the last minute additions and impulse buys. Every day new seed catalogues come through the post, tempting us so it’s not easy.
One supplier of gardening tools did come to my notice this week. I stumbled on Blackberry Lane after a bit of a Google search for a UK supplier of some of the hand tools that crop up regularly in the American books I’ve been reading. Biointensive gardening, permaculture, organic and no-dig gardening all use a specific set of implements that don’t seem to exist in any typical garden centre. Being a born-again tool geek I just love finding tools that I’ve never seen or used. Anything that makes our allotment lives easier is worth at least a look. So I logged on to their website and then followed up with an email to Dave Taylor who, with partner Val runs the business and received a most encouraging and helpful reply within hours. So if you’ve ever wondered what a broadfork is, or what’s so special about Eliot Coleman’s hoes, I thoroughly recommend a look at their website. It’ll probably tempt you to make a purchase or two – who could resist an oscillating hoe? – and I’m not on commission and neither is he my cousin!
And now the wet boots are out in the hall and the Barbour, board stiff, is drying in the hall. The flat is full of the aroma of a cassoulet warming in the oven. Life is good. Spring is coming!
