The call of the land

A light mizzle turning to insistent rain, an hour spent hand-stirring cow manure, building a second hazel teepee: another day in the spring life of our allotment. Never quite sure what to say when someone asks about biodynamics. Leave it to qualified gardening gurus such as Jane Scotter at Fern Verrow farm in Herefordshire or Bernard Jarman at BDA in Stroud. So when Howard’s daughter Nancy asks what is in the murky water we are spinning in a bucket, we tell her it’s magic cow poo – that we are working with the fairies that help us farm the plot. For kids it is often explanation enough: Nancy later enthusiastically joins in.

Biodynamics is instinctive rather than philosophical for us, a non-invasive ultra organics that has always ‘felt’ right. Preparation 500 – the cow manure prep buried in a horn over winter – is one of the building blocks of our growing: food for the soil and nourishing for us. But first, the new teepee. They are handsome, rugged, robust, the hazel poles and after changing our minds about where the ‘want to go’, they are soon standing proud on the plot.

It is a key time when the allotment starts to stand tall instead of hugging the ground. The nursery rows of beans are breaking through (we will move them to the teepee next week). The rills of salad seed are also up, showing broad-leaf mizuna, wild and salad rocket and a Wild Garden spring mix. But the big surprise is a patch of self-seeded mustardy winter leaves (red-frilled and green) that has appeared among the chicory.

Calendula, too, is scattered though and the Basque ‘tear’ peas are four or five inches tall, almost the same as the broad beans which are already flowering at half-height. There is a lot yet to sow and we are already running out of space. I love this time.

But quickly back to the biodynamics. An hour spent stirring (we tend to take 20-minute turns) and we are also energised, Nancy poses as a scarecrow and then helps spray the mix around.

The visits are becoming more urgent now as the days open up. The call of the land is louder. Soon enough we will go home laden with food but first a few precious weeks to remember how lucky we are, to remind us that what we give to the plot is as important as what we take away. It is so good to be back. Happy growing!

13_may_2013

words – Allan Jenkins

photographs – Howard Sooley

Another warm spring day…

Another warm spring day, you wait almost a year for one then several come along all at once, bliss. It was a biodynamic fruit day, to which Allan had left some intriguing packets of seeds/beans and sweet corn before flying off to Denmark.

Nancy and Rose made furrows in the soil and practiced their newly learnt knot tying skills on twine (before rose eventually cut her finger on the blade of the pen knife..). Then buried the seed and watered them in.

They included:

Bean – ‘Gold of Bacau’

Bush snap bean – ‘Calos favorit’

Pole bean – ‘Carre de Caen’

Corn – ‘Madam Parching lavender’

The peas planted last weekend are already showing, it seems miraculous that such a hard dried seed can swell, split, germinate and push leaves up through the hard crust of the soil then reach towards the sun in such a short span of time.

The plot was brimming with the new shoots of hope. Seedlings pushing through everywhere: chard, rocket, calendula, kale and mustard, (at home seed trays are sprouting salads, sweet peas, tomatoes, and more chards).

The bareness of just a couple of weeks ago now seems unimaginable. Though I just returned from a trip to Northumberland and Yorkshire where everything was still looking very Februaryish.

The broad beans are in flower but seem particularly diminutive in stature, I’m still hoping they will go through a growth spurt, though it doesn’t seem likely.

The warm of the sun has drained the dark purples from the ‘Red Treviso’ endives that made it through the winter, now reverting to green and readying themselves to make their masts of blue starry flowers (I will make a risotto with one tonight).

Nancy and Rose explored the ponds, discovering to their excitement, that the frogs spawn had already turned into a squirming mass of of jet black tadpoles.

10_05_2013

Howard Sooley

Spring finally sprung.

Spring, finally. Blossom-lined streets, tulips in the flower beds, green mist twisting through the twigs and branches and a genuine warmth in the air.

The weekend started with a trip to Jane at Fern Verrow at Spa Terminus who had brought us 22 hazel poles from her farm in the foothills of the Black Mountains, along with a bucket of cow manure to make a new cowpat preparation pit.

On Sunday we picnicked at the plot and spent the afternoon making a robust frame for the climbing beans from the hazel poles.

It was glorious to feel the warmth of the sun. A green woodpecker cackled from high up in the trees and painted lady butterflies danced around the path stopping to spread their wings and soak up the sun. The pond, a giant jelly of frogspawn.

The afternoon passed blissfully. We cut twiggy bits of hazel to make pea sticks and planted two lines of Basque peas.  Nancy and Rose moved a few surviving winter salad seedlings and gave each other rides in the wheelbarrow, ’til it ended in tears.

22 march 2013

Howard Sooley

March heirs.

Looking around the plot, it’s evident winter hasn’t left us with much. It’s a difficult time of year, with winter dragging its feet into the spring our hopes are keen to conjure.

Rain is continuing to fall, the soil is sodden and sticky under our feet.  The wet is set to turn to cold this coming weekend. It probably isn’t a good time to sow anything. Jane Scotter’s advice of  ‘patience’ at this time of year seems prudent.

We’d judged our visit to coincide with the weather forecast’s ‘better part of the day’, it turned out to be the wettest. Rain dripping down our necks, we looked over the plot.

Broad beans stopped in their tracks by the cold and wet. The red onion sets are inert, as rootless and shoot-less as the day they were pushed into the late-autumn soil. The chicories hang on, perfect rosettes offering promise that they will soon grow enough to produce a last winter salad.

Elsewhere there is evidence spring is coming, tightly clasped catkins on the hazel wait for a warm day, as I pass the pond, three or four little splashes give away the presence of frogs waiting to spawn.

Patience.

20 march 2013

Howard Sooley

Cut flower

Last week I started off the sweet peas in a propagator at home, luckily didn’t sow them in the ground which despite this morning’s sunshine is still frozen solid. Now I’m staring out of a window at the blue sky when I should be staring at a computer screen.

I’m editing pictures of cut flower growers. A series of portraits commissioned by the Garden museum by Lambeth Bridge in London (where they are currently being exhibited).  Shot in January the photographs are a glimpse of Britain’s cut flower industry. An industry under pressure from the supermarkets and their need for non-seasonal suppliers, sourcing flowers from all over the world.

I visited six different growers in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

Here are some pictures from the show – it is up until April 5th.

Sorry if I seem short of words today.

ester mcmillan

sweet pea cupani

fran hicks st.agnes

daffs lincs

lance whittingham lincs

daffs lincs

lance whittingham lincs

daffs lincs

st.agnes

st.agnes

narcissus

fran hicks, st.agnes

narcissus

st.martins

willow

echinacea seed heads

rachel siegfried

green and gorgeous

dephinium

cornwall

ian smith, cornwall

cornwall

belladonna

cornwall

14 March 2013

Howard Sooley.

Spring cleaning

It is ‘officially’ spring and I am full of its joys. Outside, the sun is rising slowly in the sky from its long winter hibernation, there is a genuine warmth to its rays. I walked back from taking the car for its MOT this morning with my eyes closed and the sun warm on my face.

Yesterday we met at the plot and did a bit of spring cleaning. It felt too cold to sow seeds, most of the water butts had a thin layer of ice and the soil looked and felt lifeless. We tidied old leaves, transplanted chives and oregano, cleared away old hazel poles (we will get new ones this year: they get too brittle to bear the tremendous weight of the beans). We also addressed old business from our old plot. When we first started there we built a ‘cow pat preparation pit’ with the help and expertise of Bernard Jarman from the BDA. When we moved plots, the pit stayed. It wasn’t easy to pick up and take with us, and anyway newts had claimed it as a safe, warm place to spend the winter months. But it felt like we’d left something important behind. So yesterday, we finally got round to digging it up, back-filling the hole and moving the bricks to a new spot. It felt like a necessary and good thing to do.

04_03_2013

Howard Sooley

The Danish chainsaw massacre

I sometimes wonder happens when people get hold of saws, secateurs or sheers. Our story starts with our nice Danish neighbour who pops over to say he is trimming the dividing hedge. We chat about the right height to prune and some of the brutal tree cutting down the road. Then he fires up the chainsaw and all hell breaks loose.

The nice neighbour has become another power-mad man with a power tool, slaughtering the hedge like a demented ork in the Hobbit. At first paralysed, I run through the snow to plead some sensitivity. Surprised, he stops. The hedge will of course grow back just maybe not this year.

Next, my gentle-hearted Danish wife gets the lopper in her hands… It is going so well at first. We are resolved to prune back some of the old, overshadowing bushes. I trim some of the sprawling, witchy, waving shoots. We stop for a delicious sandwich in the snow. Things are going well. The air is crisp, the snow crunchy underfoot, the mix of fire smoke and sea air smells delicious, like kippers.

But then I turn my back for a minute – well, truthfully, nap for an hour (blame the fresh air). The bush is unrecognisable, almost gone, diminished. Hidden behind a giant pile of lopped branches, kind-hearted Henri has turned genocidal. Who was to know the madness was viral. Once some start to cut and prune it’s impossible to stop.

Our snowy walks by the sea are tranquil, the Scandinavian sunsets awe-inspiring, we will be back soon for early spring, a favourite time, but until then I have locked the shed and hidden the key.

15_02_2013

Allan Jenkins