Tilth & Tillage

Love

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:09:13 +0000

Have just re-read the last post and it came across a little too serious for a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Apologies. I can offer this to make up for it...

A 3 Men Went 2 Mow Valentine’s Special.

Up

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 10:38:40 +0000

Last year we went here...

This year we went here...

There seems to be a pattern emerging and I’m not sure whether it’s something I should be worried about.

I was planning on telling you all about this recent Landmark Trust experience a while back but the payback for taking just few days off has been a back-log of work, (completely disproportionate I always think to the short time stolen), that has made the trip to Freston Tower (below) seem like eons ago.
For something so prominent this six storey Tudor folly, that sits on the bank of the River Orwell just outside Ipswich, has a surprisingly sketchy history. The popular theory was that it was a lookout tower built by Lord Freston in the mid 1500s but John Timpson, in his book ‘Timpson’s England - A look beyond the obvious’, suggests that it may have been a one-girl training college for his daughter Ellen each floor used to teach a different skill or virtue each day of the week.

Timpson’s comment on follies, particularly in lieu of the fact his book is meant to champion the peculiarities that celebrate eccentricity and local distinctiveness in this country, is a bit weird.

“Freston Tower...is reckoned to be the oldest Folly in the country, thus setting a rather bad example which was followed in succeeding years by other landowners who also had more money than taste.”

Whatever it was meant for, it now makes a novel retreat if a little parky during the winter months. Its 72 stairs kept us warmer than the night storage heaters and our cardio-vascular systems have had a pretty good shakedown in the bargain.

Overlooking the estuary there was wildlife a-plenty - sadly some of it dead like this (very much alive-looking) woodcock, a victim of either the cold or a stray shot from some very active pheasant shooting one morning - and views toward the Orwell Bridge, beautiful in its simplicity.

On the way home we dropped in on Beth Chatto’s garden. It was cold enough to freeze Nelson’s nadgers but we were passing Colchester so it would have been rude not to. Didn’t hang about though, stopping only to say hello to a few aconites, snowdrops and this mog who we assume to be Beth Chatto’s cat before diving into the cafe for hot soup.

Here’s hoping we can find something suitably vertical to stay in next year...

A Brilliant Idea

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:38:31 +0000

The allotment to-do list:

Make new compost bays (almost done)
Grub out self-seeded oak (ditto)
Make new staging for seedlings (ditto)
Double dig and re-plant herb bed (ugh)
Re-locate box obelisks (ditto)
Weed paths (ditto)
Plant new fruit trees (8 in total incl. quince, apricot and persimmon)
Mulch (ok, ok a bit late I know)
Build bread/pizza oven (now we’re talking)
Continue building new shed (ditto).

All routine stuff although the bread/pizza oven should take things to an interesting level...if it works.

I’d hoped to get through most of this over the festive break but snow scuppered any plans to get ahead.

However an enforced spell of organising in the office has unearthed a Brilliant idea.

It’s such a Brilliant idea that I had to do something that paranoid people do...you know, post the idea to yourself so that the postmark is the proof that would be dead handy in court should some dirty rotten scoundrel plagiarise your invention.

Eager to know what it is?

So am I.

Because...

...I can’t remember what the idea was in the first place.

Someone suggested that I should have written reminders to myself but Post-it notes of “Don’t forget about the solar powered lawnmower!!” might have tempted the office cleaner to do a crafty deal with Atco.

Part of me wants to open it. A small part. But now I’ve written this much I’m worried that it’s actually a crap idea and that I’d have to make something up to stop it being the biggest anti-climax of 2010.

The curious thing is that the letter (post-dated 2nd March 2001) actually wants me to see what’s inside.

Just this evening, as I took it out of a folder entitled ‘Top Secret Ideas for Gardens’, the seal had finally given up allowing the document to pop its nose out, tempting me to have a peek. It wasn’t at all difficult to resist and a liberal pasting of Prit-Stick has sealed the Brilliant idea back where it belongs.

The diary of 2001 gives no clue of any Eureka moment so the current plan is to frame it, put it up on the wall and...

...tuck-in to another helping of Skye Gyngell’s baked pears with honey, Marsala and bay.

Because ideas, no matter how good, can’t compete with a top dessert.

Home

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 23:49:50 +0000

The Charity Shop Challenge reared its ugly head on celebrating the arrival of a new decade with friends and family in the West Country. Each player has a £5 cash limit to buy at the most geeky looking outfit possible at Oxfam for one other person in the group. The idea then is to go to a party and pretend that the clothes are really your own...a sort of nerd catwalk by stealth. Annoyingly most of the others looked pretty good in the outfits chosen for them including the person on whom I cheated by spending an extra 50p to ensure their fate.

Unfortunately for me, (as you can see from the picture left), this meant not being able to go out to see the North Wootton village bonfire and fireworks for fear of either freezing to death or getting arrested (the only coat I had made it look as if I didn’t have any pants on at all).

Amazingly, I can’t seem to find any pictures of me actually wearing the items. Shame.

On to Porlock for New Year’s Day and a spot of nostalgia meeting friends including garden designers Annie Guilfoyle and Joe Swift who also have connections with this stunning part of Exmoor. Despite the fact that I was born just a couple of miles from where I live now, Porlock still tugs at the heartstrings.

Views to Porlock Weir and Porlock Village from Hurlestone Point.

The walk back through woodland from Hurlestone Point to Allerford and then Bossington made me realise how lucky we were to grow up surrounded and nurtured by such incredible landscape. I had no real interest in gardening in those teenage years but many hours were spent wandering the hills and coombes of Exmoor. Its potency has haunted me ever since I left in the late ‘70s.
It did read differently though. Back in those days I could barely name a single plant. The plantation of Holm Oak flanking Bossington would certainly have been there 35 years ago but all I was interested in then was the magic of woodland and open moorland. Distinguishing between this, a planted piece of land and the ancient deciduous woodland elsewhere around Porlock would have made no difference to me in those days. Now, while it still retained an element of mystery, I was eager to explore some of the more indigenous parts of the area and see how they ‘felt’ with an more educated eye. Not this time though. With light fading fast we bade our farewells and made a personal note to explore more roots in the near future.

Back at North Wootton and suitably dressed we collected mistletoe berries to have yet another go at growing them on the apple trees at our allotment. I try every year or so, inserting the seed into a cut in the bark but, to date, hadn’t seen any sign of success.

On returning home it was only on trying to find a natural fissure in the Bramley at the back of the plot that I saw THIS...!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I’m no expert when it comes to mistletoe (and I’m happy to stand corrected) but this little piece of North Wootton looks like it might be a couple of years old at least. Just when I figured I should start getting blasé about being able to grow stuff I must admit to giving out a yip of delight when I spotted it. I can’t describe the thrill. It’s like seeing the roots emerging from your first attempt at a Bizzy Lizzy cutting, leaping a personal best in the long jump or ‘seeing’ the face of the Man in the Moon for the first time (incredibly I had to wait until I was 45 for that pleasure).

Sod the sentimentality. Proud as Punch me.

The only drawback, (and there always is one isn’t there?), is that the mistletoe is only three feet from the ground and surrounded by brambles so celebrating by exploiting some of its mystical properties might bring on more than just a yip.

Soft on Gardening

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:31:27 +0000

Spent two hours in the driving rain and sleet at the allotment today. Wonderful. Miserable weather is somehow easier to deal with when you look at it in the eye.

Out of 385 plots I only saw three other people.

Without proper waterproofs I got suitably soaked. Every part of me wet except my hands which were kept amazingly dry and warm by the pair of Ironclad Gloves I got given for Christmas.

More on allotment soon. In the meantime...

Those of you with a conservative sense of humour or who are easily offended should stay well away from: ‘Mick Does Gardening’....and certainly from all the suggested YouTube links.

Happy New Year.

Kings

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:22:16 +0000

It rarely snows on December 16th. I should know, it’s my birthday. It may well have done in the severe winters of the early sixties but my recollection of my first four years is vague now I’ve slipped quietly into my fifty second. Anyway, it was nice to see snow falling today as we left Teddington to have lunch with my pop at the Oxford Arms in Kirtlington and tonight, with a few patches remaining, we’re suddenly feeling festive.

I say ‘suddenly’, but the truth is that I’ve been feeling festive since Monday when we filmed the Three Men Went to Mow Christmas Special.

We were in two minds how to judge the hats. Initially we thought that people could vote online but James, in a rare moment of insecurity decided that we should judge them ourselves “just in case no one votes at all and we end up looking stupid.”

So we judged it ourselves and didn’t look stupid at all.

Insecurities aside I think there might be a star emerging here and his name is...Max.

PS
Joe’s yawn is completely appropriate as I half bored myself to sleep trying to come up with a spontaneous description for the hat. If I’d had more time to compose myself I might have said this:

“It's called the 'Hat of Hungry Horace'. Legend has it that this was the nickname for Melchior who would often secret pies under his hat for long journeys. It's construction uses sacred geometry and a bit of tinsel to conduct light from the guiding star to show them the way to baby Jesus.”

PPS
Obviously the Christmas Special is an excuse for general silliness but it also serves a useful purpose as I hope it will make up for the fact that I am completely rubbish when it comes to sending Christmas cards.

So, to friends or family and anyone else who can be bothered to check out this blog: Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

Stakeout

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:05:26 +0000

We had our first crop of Josephine de Malines pears this year. The espalier on which they were growing has been struggling to survive in the lea of a self-seeded oak so I was surprised and delighted to see 15 or so smallish fruit appear for the first time since I planted it five or six years ago. Being late to ripen I was patient and left them on the tree for as long as possible, long after all the other fruit had been picked on our plot. To our local thief, however, they were irresistible. He nicked them all.

I was going to use the word ‘scrumper’ but this isn’t about children scaling walls to pinch the odd fruit and perpetuating an age-old tradition, it’s about adults stealing from fellow allotment holders. ‘Thief’, therefore, is far more appropriate.

I have a pretty good idea who it is. He’s been seen before, often in broad daylight, but has never been photographed in the act. Compared to other plotholders we’ve been relatively lucky in our ten-year tenancy with just a few things taken from time to time. Some have chickens stolen, sheds ransacked and whole crops dug up which can be very dispiriting after all the effort that goes into keeping a plot productive.

It’s not the sort of stuff that often makes the gardening press as it’s a very difficult subject to write about without sounding petty or like a right-wing extremist. We’ve come to accept it as a sad fact of allotment life and I wouldn’t be writing about it here if it wasn’t for a incident recently which has completely changed the way I perceive other garden designers.

I was skulking at the back of our plot one morning last week when I spotted the chief suspect walking down the path toward me. Hidden by foliage and with nothing to give away my presence I primed the video option on my iPhone and composed myself for what was going to be a moment to savour.

But instead of coming to check out my plot he disappeared behind the shed of the neighbouring community allotment. Not a problem. I would wait...all day if I had to. My pulse racing, I settled into a more comfortable position. I wondered what he was doing on the neighbouring plot but couldn’t move to a better vantage point without giving away my position. So I waited...and waited. Several minutes passed when suddenly, without any warning at all, I got an attack of the giggles. There was nothing particularly funny about the situation but, and I know this is a bit weird, I began wondering whether other garden designers would put themselves in the same position. The more I thought about it, the more I had to think about turnips to keep me from shaking with mirth and blowing my cover. Soon I’d conjured up images of various other garden designers squatting among the foliage, waiting for the swine responsible plundering their gardens.

They fell into two camps.

Those that probably would:
Joe Swift, Andy Sturgeon, James Alexander Sinclair (and he would probably shoot them), Anthony Paul, Ann-Marie Powell (but she wouldn’t be able to keep quiet for more than ten seconds and ruin the moment), Andrew Wilson, Gabriella Pape & Isabelle van Groningen, Jinny Blom, Tom Hoblyn.

Those that almost certainly wouldn’t:
John Brookes, Tom Stuart-Smith, Christopher Bradley-Hole and Arabella Lennox-Boyd, Arne Maynard, Dan Pearson, Luciano Guibelli, Ulf Nordfell.

Just as the hilarity of the moment threatened to dissipate into a more serious reflection about what this meant and whether I and my colleagues who had been unwittingly press-ganged into the first camp weren’t taking the world of garden design seriously enough, two figures were suddenly walking onto my plot.

Fumbling with the iPhone that had gone to sleep mode I emerged quickly, ready to capture the evidence I needed, but was surprised to find that it was a couple of friends kindly offloading some much needed timber for a new shed I’m building. I later learned that they had just suffered a road accident and heroically insisted on completing the delivery despite suffering the effects of whiplash. As the suspect emerged from the shadows looking every bit as shady as I think he is I was caught between feeling incredibly thankful for the free lumber but completely deflated in that the chance to catch the thief had been lost.

As the suspect passed we acknowledged each other, the polite nods and knowing glances confirming that there now exists an unspoken understanding of what we are both up to.

Whether or not I get another chance, who knows? I just hope I have the willpower to resist holing up down there on a more regular basis and imagining every designer I meet from now on sporting fatigues, boots and night-vision goggles.