Digging for victory (and cabbages)

Like most people who have flirted with back garden veg growing, Ian and I thought it was pretty easy.  Grow seedlings on a windowsill for a few weeks, plant in a suitable patch of earth, and wait for the rewards.  OK so my one and only potato harvest produced potatoes the size of small marbles and my broccoli plants were eaten by slugs, but even so I felt that I had the principle pretty much nailed.

What we hadn't considered were the problems that arise from scaling up; faffing around with a few plants in the back garden is all very well but on the farm we need to grow sufficient crops to keep 20 families in veg boxes.  This also means that a laissez faire attitude just won't do, as people's tolerance for pea-sized potatoes and holey leaves tends to wane quite quickly when faced with the prospect of actually making a meal from it every week.

On Saturday we were tasked with the job of planting out the cabbage seedlings from the polytunnel. The instructions were deceptively simple.  First, the vegetable beds, (which we had given a first digging over by hand a few weeks' ago), needed to be given a once-over with the rotovator - basically like a lawnmower but with rotating spokes underneath to break the soil into fine pieces (if I have been listening to The Archers closely enough, I think the correct terminology is a 'fine tilth'), followed by a second going over to incorporate a load of fertiliser from the closest compost heap.  After this, the weed barrier needed replacing and slits made for pushing the plants through, and finally, once the plants were all in the ground, the entire bed needed covering with a fine mesh to prevent cabbage white butterflies from laying their eggs all over our tasty young cabbage leaves.

We thought this all sounded very easy,  maybe we could potter around with the vegetables in the morning and then take on a 'proper task' in the afternoon.

However, it quickly became apparent that far from being 'pretty easy' planting out cabbages, particularly in the clay-heavy soil of the farm, was going to be backbreaking work.

The rotovator, much lauded labor-saver, found it almost impossible to break up the clods of earth, which had set like rock (or more likely, clay) after weeks of dry weather.  It was heavy, it was uncontrollable and on several occasions it gave up completely.  It was only at this point that Ben, who owns the farm, let us know that his pet name for it was 'the green gym' due to the total body workout that comes from using it.

The weed barrier was a nightmare to cut, refusing to yield to the penknife unless held taught,

Mr Rotovator

something that was pretty much impossible given its size and the uneven surface beneath.

Even transporting the cabbage plants from the polytunnel to the beds was unexpectedly time consuming.  The polytunnel is situated at one end of the veg beds, the designated cabbage beds at the other.  The small cabbage plants were in 10cm pots with around 8 pots to a seed tray.  A flimsy, wobbly seed tray that meant carrying two of them at once was guaranteed to result in accidentally tipping out several small plants.  We moved over 60 plants over many, many trips.

Ditto water.  Due to the dry weather, the only full water buts were located by the polytunnel.  I reckon each bed received at least 6 watering can's worth.

We were also tripped up by the logistics of getting each plant into the ground through the slit in the weed barrier.  For plants located near the edges of the bed we could cheat, lifting the weed barrier to dig the hole and add a handful of fish and bone meal, before replacing the barrier and dropping the plant into the hole.  But for plants in the centre of the bed, we needed to do all the digging through the slit.  It was difficult to get enough earth out to leave space for the plant and this was made all the more difficult by not really being able to see what we were doing.

Although this all sounds quite negative - it was certainly difficult work - but the sun was out, the day was warm and we had over six hours until we needed to go home.  Finally, towards the very end of those six hours we were able to stand back and look at several magnificent beds of cabbages. 

We also harvested lots of lovely rhubarb for the first veg boxes of the year, which this showed us that our hard work would actually lead to some tasty rewards.

And if I see a cabbage white butterfly fluttering anywhere near my lovely cabbages, I've got a water pistol and I'm not afraid to use it!

Foraging: wild nettle pesto and nettle grain salad

Ian (who is due the credit for all our cooking-related adventures), based the recipe on one which was published in BBC Good Food Magazine but with a couple of modifications to account for the fact that anyone who spends an hour in the kitchen trying to cut leaves of nettle plants while wearing gardening gloves, is not going to throw away some of them because it turns out they've collected 50g more than the recipe calls for. 

Foraging for nettles
There's not too much to say on this really, it's a case of find a patch of nettles pick them!  However, there are a few things to bear in mind.  First, younger leaves are better than old- the older leaves tend to be a lit tougher and fibrous.  Second, try and find a foraging patch that's been exposed to as little pollution as possible, the main things here being cars and passing dogs.  Having said that we did our initial foraging behind an industrial estate by our house and it was fine- you will wash the leaves and boil them before eating.  Finally, wear gloves!

 

Recipe:  Wild Nettle Pesto

150ml oil (we use rapeseed)

Small handful of basil leaves, chopped

Approximately 150g young nettles, chopped (weigh the leaves when they have been removed from the stalks, then wash). As mentioned above, we used exactly the amount we collected, I think around 200g.

50g Pine nuts (of half pine nuts/half sunflower seeds)


Somewhere under all the basil is spirelli pasta with prawns

We were  running low on pine nuts so we used half pine nuts and half sunflower seeds- toasting both together before bashing them in the pestle and mortar.  This worked well. Sunflower seeds aren't quite as soft as pine nuts but when lightly toasted they take on a lovely slightly nutty flavour which works well in this pesto.

50g Parmesan

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1/2 lemon, zest and a juice

(1) gently toast the pine nuts (and sunflower seeds, if using) in a dry pan.
(2) bring a large pan of water to the boil, drop in the nettle leaves and boil for 2 minutes.  Run under cold water to cool quickly and stop the cooking process.  Squeeze out as much liquid as possible (they won't sting!) and roughly chop.
(3)add the nettles, parmesan, garlic (raw), pine nuts/seeds and lemon zest to a food processor aand blitz to rough paste, add almost all of the oil to loosen together with the lemon juice.
(4) add to clean, sterilised jar and top with the remainder of the oil.
will keep in the fridge for 2-3 weeks.




Recipe:  nettle grain salad

In this recipe, we replaced spinach with nettles (washed as above to remove the stings) in a wild rice salad.

Things to do with an old bath...make a wildlife 'pond'

From back: Livia Augusta, Sandi Toksvig and Linda LaHughes

When we lost our three beloved Indian runner ducks to a (presumed) fox attack last year, the situation was made even more upsetting by the old bath in our garden, which had been used as a duck pond, acting as a constant reminder every time we went outside. My suggestion that we got rid of it was met with indignation from Ian who had spent an entire weekend digging the hole for it. It also went against the original ‘recycling’ concept for using it in the first place.

Then we hit on the solution. A wildlife pond. We were pretty sure it was deep enough for water plants to thrive, and would provide a useful drinking spot for the many birds that use our garden.   A fitting testament to three ladies who loved the water.

As with many of our plans there was an initial burst of activity, followed by weeks of negligible progress, and then a final frenetic weekend to finish the project.

We started by discussing how to make the bath look less like a bath. This was mainly driven by me; there was just something about the stark whiteness of the bath with its shiny silver handrails that made it difficult to see it as a wildlife pond. I initially suggested we buy a pond liner and tuck it over the edges of the bath. This suggestion was vetoed on the basis that buying a pond liner made having the bath underneath pretty unnecessary. I then suggested we buy four planks of decking and make a decorative edge- sort of resembling a raised bed. This was vetoed on the basis of unnecessary cost and associated faff of walking back from B&Q with four enormous planks of wood (again).

Finally, Ian had a brain wave- we could use the roll of green material that had been under the bed for years (one of my ebay bargains) and tuck that over the edges of the pond like a pond liner. I expressed concern that it would simply float. Nonsense! Ian would sew pockets into the fabric strips so that we could add stones to weigh it down. I was slightly concerned that this project was spiralling into the realms of insanity, but happy to let Ian get on with it. True to his word, by the end of the weekend, the white plastic-y bath had been transformed into, well, a bath covered in green fabric. 

At this point, because it still looked a lot like a bath covered in strips of green fabric, I suggested we add some of the more attractive logs from the logpile to provide insect shelters and break up the shape.

We stood back and looked at it critically.

There was no disguising it. Here was a bath, inexplicably covered in strips of green fabric, and now surrounded with bits of wood wedged in at all angles.




At this point, the weather intervened. It became unexpectedly cold- too cold to risk adding pond plants which could have been killed off by a frosty night. So we waited and busied ourselves with setting up an extensive series of water butts, boxes and flower pots so that we could fill the pond with rainwater.

By early April things were looking up. Not only had the weather improved but word of our ‘pond’ had spread and led to two offers of pond plants from friends and one offer of frogspawn, which was carefully collected in a large jam jar and carried home in a re-enactment of an Enid Blyton story.

Ian adding the frogspawn to the 'pond'

Happily, the 'pond', eccentric as is certainly is, has been a runaway success wildlife-wise.   The frogspawn is now a mass of wiggling tadpoles which grow larger every day (possibly at the expense of each other), and the water lily and other unknown pond plants have established and are putting out new shoots.  We've also acquired a water snail from somewhere (yes, definitely a water snail, not just a snail who happens to have fallen in the water), presumably he was hiding out in the water plants. 

 I'm slightly concerned at the combination to fresh new shoots and goats, but so far their location in the centre of the bath seems to have been enough to deter nibblers.  We will see!



Around 3 weeks' later: much larger tadpoles wriggling in the morning sun.

I wish I was a lumberjack...

Not many people are lucky enough to own 4ish acres of ancient woodland , us included.  But we are lucky enough to have friends that do!

Our visit to the woodland was a reason to celebrate for two reasons: first, it marked the first proper outing for our first ever car (christened Celestine, after the keen but ultimately hapless sales assistant in the Nissan dealership, who managed to knock increasing amounts off the price, while apologising for his errors), which we promptly broke in by driving through lots of muddy puddles; and, second, it marked the felling of the last laurel tree in the woodland.



The last laurel trees

Although there are over 2000 varieties of laurel (or so I'm told by Wikipedia), there are two varieties of laurel which are commonly grown in the UK.  One is the bay laurel, which provides the bay leaves we use in cooking (who knew?!) and the other is the cherry laurel, which is the one generally used for hedging. 

The problem with cherry laurel is that when left unchecked, it becomes HUGE, blocking out light and out-competing the slower-growing native species. Moreover, laurel has the ability to put down new roots whenever a section of trunk touches the ground.  This means that instead of growing upwards in discrete trunks, when left alone laurel will grow as a dense ticket of intertwining trunks (quite useful as a place to nip to the loo).  It's like the big brother to the spider plant in that respect. 

Destruction-wise this could be most unsatisfying- after 20 minutes of vigorous sawing through a trunk of a branch often resulted result in absolutely nothing because another section of the same trunk was still happily planted in the ground elsewhere. 

We also found that laurel destruction was not without danger- with one of our group experiencing a dramatic fall from a tree, a slow motion slide down a vertical trunk which would have been funny if it hadn't left him with a black eye and bloody nose, and the constant tripping over laurel stumps which were half-hidden in the leaves.  If laurel could snigger...


going....

Timber!



The last trunk falls

We lunched on a celebratory picnic of Wobbly Bottom goats cheese rolled in roasted garlic followed by Wobbly Bottom goats cheese fudge (address according to the wrappers: Wobbly Bottom Farm, Wibbly Wobbly Lane) and various bread rolls with baked-in vegetables, all courtesy of the St Ives Farmers' market (in Cambridgeshire I should add, rather than Cornwall).

Alas, this story has an unexpected postscript.  A week after our triumphant removal of the very last laurel tree, our friends who own the woodland found that the owner of the adjacent piece of woodland had planted a row of new trees along the boundary.  Great!  More people actively taking care of their patch .  However, when they went to nose inside the tree protectors....it was laurel!