Armchair gardening

Posted by Keith B on August 15, 2010 | 0 comments

In a change to the scheduled feature, today’s piece is written by Keith, Anna’s partner in crime.

I’ve taken over the blog for the day. Why, you might ask – surely there are plenty of jobs about the place which need doing? And you’d be right, but unfortunately I can’t do any of them. For after a brief spell in hospital this week for some routine surgery I’m confined to an armchair for a little while, so sitting with a cup of tea and the laptop while bashing out a few lines is about the most I can manage.

My research into the surgical procedure led me to the false assumption that my op would involve about as much disruption as having a tooth out, or maybe a leg waxing. When the surgeon explained to me in layman’s terms what was about to happen, with what I thought was a bit too much relish than was strictly necessary, I realised I’d underestimated the situation, to the tune of two weeks off work with minimal moving about, no lifting, no driving – not ideal.

And so, here I am, almost a week later, bored stupid. Having grown weary rather quickly of my daughter’s choice in music and television (Jason Derülo and Project Runway – aaarrrggghhh!!) and hemmed in by poor weather and the inability to get about anywhere very quickly, I haven’t been able to venture into the garden at all. Until today. So of course I took the opportunity of directing Anna and the offspring in a bit of tending the vegetable patch on my behalf.

Whilst I can claim no credit for the success of the garden design business (with the possible exception of the website) our vegetable garden is almost all my own work. True, Anna’s a bit more lively when it comes to weeding and watering, but in general ownership terms the vegetable plots are mine, while the flowery half belongs to her.

So as I shuffled around the garden this morning I was able to marshall the family into a bit of lifting here, a spot of watering there, some routing out of caterpillars over there, and so on, in the manner of an old army general pushing his forces about with a long stick on a giant map. Armchair gardening, rather like fantasy football, is something I could start to enjoy!

My bit of the garden in all its glory

This year is our second full season of growing our own – the first year was chronicled in some depth on this blog as well as within the pages of Village Life magazine which, despite what people might say, had little to do with its closure the following winter.

This year we added a forth raised bed and, after a lot of searching, a second hand greenhouse. This we won on Ebay, arranging to dismantle and take away from a couple in Burton. The tale of how we eventually got the greenhouse into small enough pieces to fit in the van is one for another day (maybe tomorrow if I can’t find something else to do!), but I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone. Indeed putting the thing back together is a process we still haven’t completed, and it’s now joining the redecoration of the spare room, carpeting the landing and putting laminate floor in our bedroom on the long list of things we started but haven’t finished.

But back to the veg. This year we’ve been very lucky – almost everything we’ve planted has come good. We had an excellent crop of Nadine second early potatoes, which we’re still getting through, and we’re close to harvesting a large crop of maincrop spuds, whose name I can’t remember. We started the season with overwintered spinach and spring onions, and we’re harvesting white and red onions and shallots right now. We still can’t get carrots right – I planted four rows of Early Nantes and managed to harvest about six carrots. This is still an impressive 600% increase in yield from last year, so I might use those stats to apply for a European farming subsidy!

Green tomato chutney, anyone?

New for us this year have been cauliflower, broccoli and tomatoes. Our brocolli is so popular with the local Cabbage White butterfly population that next year I’m going to use it to keep them off the cabbages. The real success story is our eight tomato plants, which have, in horticultural parlance, gone mental. I’m really hoping we see a return of the sunshine we had in June/July, or we’ll be eating green tomato chutney until next year.

Today's harvest

I’ll leave you with a shot of today’s harvest – that’s 50% of our entire carrot crop there, plus a load of blackberries from next-door’s hedge. All picked or dug up at my say so. Oh, the power!!