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Day 16Carefully manage to get my way half way down the garden and pick up the long handled hoe. I don’t have to go far to find one of my worst foes, Willow Herb, and the long reach of the hoe allows me to cut through their surface roots quite easily, before their seeds are lifted by the breeze and spread everywhere. The chickweed, fat hen and Redshank all receive the same satisfactory treatment and already I can feel my satisfaction levels rising. Its a hot, blue sky day here in Devon and I have strains of Joni Mitchell running through my head ‘ the wind is in from Africa, last night I couldn’t sleep’, ( *1) but fortunately for me I did sleep. The flu that wiped me out a few days ago is beginning to recede and I’m sure the doses of natural vitamin D are getting through. The hoeing is good for my weak frame at the moment. I can’t do too much physically but don’t want to fade away just yet so some light exercise will be what the doctor would order. The last few days of bright warm weather have allowed the flowers and fruit in the garden to really prosper. Many a Devon summer is more green and grey (*2) than bright and blue and most summer flowering plants struggle against the elements. This year there is not much sign of blackspot,the slugs and snails don’t travel far when its hot and dry so without these marauders and the non stop supply of photosynthetic enzymes and chlorophyll they are flowering beautifully. I keep on with the dead heading, which is another job I can do at the moment and more flowers are pushed up and out. Whilst chasing away the willow herb and not being distracted with other more important things on the list some of the little gems that were rescued years ago and given a place somewhere have established themselves and the long term faith is being rewarded. Amaryllis belladona has sat in the perfect place, dry, tight, south facing for several years now and today it looks glorious, its long throated pink blooms flaring out like an exotic dancer in the Notting Hill carnival. This is the same Amaryllis ( but mine is the species, hence more robust ) with fat bulbs that can be forced into flower for Christmas which is always one of my seasonal treats, some people I know prefer christmas pudding.
I can get over to the green house which is now on the side of the garden away from the wind. This is its first season in its new spot and our crop of Sungold tomatoes are romping away. My Agave americana variegata is now planted beside the entrance. It does just about manage to survive outside here through the winter but it can now luxuriate in its new surroundings. Interestingly it was Pete G who helped enormously in the spring to move the greenhouse across the garden. When I sat in one one of Pete’s music sessions at.the New Inn in Fremington I was able to do a version of the Beach Boys song ‘ Take a load off your feet’ whose first lines goes ‘take good care of your feet Pete, better watch out what you eat, Pete, take good care of your life, cos nobody else will.’ all sung to a sound of tinkling glass and gurgles of water. Seems like music never far way from the garden....... From my resting place up on the terrace I can look down on our fair acres and across the the green folded fields. The very steep field across the other side of the valley, where there is a big badger sett in the copse was cut a couple of days ago by the farmer Mr Squire. This is the first time we’ve ever seen the hay harvested in that field. The combine edged its way slowly and diagonally across the steep contours and 2 days later the bailer and fork lift also gingerly picked up the bales and took them down alongside the bottom hedge. I recalled turning hay and making shtooks on the Isle of Harris many years ago and Rob recalled the bottles of cider that would be put in the shade of the hedge bank so you could have a swig when you drove past. The Isle of Harris is dry so no cider there. Closer to the terrace we can watch the wafts of Cabbage white butterflies floating on the thermals, hovering and gliding until they spot a likely brassica or Nasturtium. I often wondered how they worked out that my brassicas would supply their every need whereas my next door colony of Foxgloves were left alone. Apparently, according to the oracle, one of my old textbooks, they have chemo receptors along their spines and when they rub their legs against the plant to release plant juices the chemoreceptors tell the butterfly they are on the right plant. I have made an old fashioned potion of boiled rhubarb leaves which, with the addition of some strong detergent I spray onto my plants. This natural insecticide should deal with any tell tale caterpillars. One more feature of coming down to the garden and catching up with hoeing the weeds is seeing the evidence of certain feeding caterpillars and their hosts. Schooled as I was in a quite old fashioned approach to growing vegetable one of the core tenets was the use of the hoe little and often. This would remove competition for nutrients, and remove the surface compaction that stops any rain getting through to the roots. Its a bit like combining all those tiny positives to create your best advantage. Equally importantly it removes those hosts that the insect pests live on. I hadn’t noticed the few stray Ragworts before but I couldn’t miss the stripey red green and black of the Cinnabar moth Caterpillar. This doesn’t feed on my vegetables, although it will feed on other members of the Compositae family. Indirectly then this insect serves a useful purpose to the gardener as an indicator. Remove the Ragwort, which is poisonous to horses, and is also a host for mildew, but leave it on the Tansy and enjoy the startling bright red of the adult moth. The sun will be setting soon and I’ll go back down once more and carefully dig up a few potatoes, Jersey Royals which don’t like to stay in the ground too long. The obvious song must surely be, ‘I’m diggin’ my potatoes, stomplin’ on my ground’ (*4) I know that the original lyrics by Leadbelly weren’t refering to his attempts at vegetable gardening. When he goes on to say ‘I dont want no cabbage sprouts, bring me a solid head’ you can tell what he might be otherwise talkin’ ‘bout. Its a great song for digging up potatoes though. Day 16 Play list! *1! Carey Joni Mitchell *2! England green and England grey Reg Meuross *3! Take a load off your feet Beach Boys *4! Diggin my potatoes!Leadbelly Look up PeteG ie Pete Geiger on Youtube and Facebook
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