Now the soil is moist after several days where we sometimes had heavy rain I am called on the deal with the vigorous growth of much of my plants. I needed to stake my sweet peas, so armed with some twiggy stems I cut and weeded my way in and gently entwined their soft  stems on their new supports . It was the weeds that sparked some thoughts, not the sweet peas, although hopefully they will be good enough later to spark some thoughts of praise and pleasure. The moist soil means that the weeds are much easier to remove. The bulbils of pink Oxalis and fragile stems of bindweed are easier to tease out in soft soil. They just resist when the soil is dry. This set me to thinking of the apocryphal stories we were told when I was a student. Marjorie Fish at East Lambrook Manor in Somerset would instruct her newly arrived garden trainees in the identification of weeds. Only the weeds that were in the basket could be taken out. When I was a student at Kew Brian Halliwell, department curator would creep up behind students and ask in his inimitable West Yorkshire style, 'what's the name of that plant ? '. When the answer, especially in my case, was, I don't know,  his response was,  ' Why don't you know ?, next time I come round here I expect you to know to name of that plant .'. God, did he frighten us, and yes he did come round again and ask for the name of the plant.
​
I can remember being given a book called  ' How to enjoy your weeds ', by Audrey Wynne Hatfield. I could and can only assume she never met Brian Halliwell, and I know that for gardeners the naming of plants can be a minefield, it was for me for many years, and that to know a seedling is not some little delight that has crept in unannounced is part of the search we all subscribe to, weeds can still be a bloody nuisance.

When I was head down pulling out these reprobates this morning I found an Echium seedling, which means I've got 3 now. Alongside the Alstromerias is a group of   Nigella Gertrude Jekyll. They recolonise different places and always provide an extra charm to where they arrive. Around the ongoing discussions about the pros and cons of weeds is the complex debate about destroying soil, attracting wildlife, companion planting, broadcast sowing instead of regimental lines. If something was ever designed to get our  knickers in a twist this was it. It's funny sometimes that when we start a journey, get on the bus ( this is a metaphor )  we tend to assume that what we see out the window tells us everything there is to know. An easier holistic methodology where we start, wait, observe, start again, wait, observe might help us keep our own counsel. But there again , who am I to talk.

So back to the weeds. Some are indeed first class scoundrels. Popping up overnight without so much as a by your leave. Willow herb host a flee beetle which in turn spreads, i.e. jumps to other plants. The beetles overwinter on leaf litter and the early growth on Willow herb, one of its favourites will indicate that it's around and active. They  will nibble on potatoes, brassicas, tomatoes and several other plants and fleece is what works best to protect anything susceptible.

The fleece also protects brassicas from the Cabbage White butterfly from which hangs another story -

​So there we have it. A few musings on weeds. We are now 3 months into the lockdown. Things are beginning to ease in the world that humans occupy, but only very slowly and carefully. All the pests and diseases in the plants in our gardens will manifest themselves now the weather is warmer, so along with fleece I have an armoury of defences I can use. Whatever the science, old or new, if it works I will use it. The fringes and borderlInes of science  also offer a vast range of approaches, so whether it's granddads remedies, permaculture,  bio dynamics, companion planting, they all might have something to recommend them. You pays your money and you takes your choice. As someone who steers away from factional politics all I could say is it's your choice, not mine.

Dry weather makes work in the garden much easier. All those times when work had to be done whatever the weather recede into the folk memory of country boys like me. It was Billy Connolly who said there was no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothes. He was right of course, but its such a palava to strip off your wet weather gear knowing that in the morning it will still be wet. After  a few years at Rosemoor we did get a drying cupboard for the gardeners  clothing. No such luxuries though when you're self employed.
Dry weather this spring has provided some well deserved respite from the concerns and pressures of what our societies are enduring. Even at a local level the seed we sow on our window sills or greenhouse germinates and heralds natures growth and energy. Our local Foodbank has increased demand on its services now. Our volunteers working well together. My neighbour John has spare Tomato  seedlings, I have other things. We will share out some potted plants to the volunteers next week, and the simple pleasure of even that little thing can remind us of the grander scheme of things.
The fields in the valley below us are busy with muck spreading, sheep move from one field to the other, cows being fed and milked.  The air is busy with bird song, bees are starting to find the pollen in many of the early flowerers, the newts in my pond slide backwards when I lift out a tray that had a dry plant soaking in it
This is the busiest time of the year for people like me. Normally, even though I am technically retired I would be involved with several garden projects. This year I can only devote my time to our garden here, but the garden is 2/3 rds. of an acre so has plenty to deal with. I did manage to get to a large branch at the top of an oak tree in one corner of the garden. I have an extendable pole chainsaw and was able to devise a way of reaching the base of the one large branch that needed to come down. Because my wife might read this I ought not to describe how I actually did it, suffice to say it took 2 hours to plan, assess and prepare and  2 minutes to do the job. The result is a nice pile of oak logs to season for next winter. 
This week has been unusually dry and sunny for this time of year. After the chill of early mornings by lunchtime I was working in shorts without a shirt or vest. It is so good to feel sun on my body, to feel that therapeutic glow from the first real exposure of skin to the weather outdoors. Soil turns easily in these conditions. The old compost that is now nice and crumbly gets taken over to the raised bed I have just rebuilt. Fortuitously I bought almost sufficient concrete blocks before the lock down and have been able to build the retaining wall for the raised bed that now awaits its first seed sowing.

​Photo of new raised bed

​Veg and flower seed have been sown, both indoors inside the heated propagator, and in pots in the unheated greenhouse. All apart from the parsley seed have germinated, parsley seed always slow on the uptake. The courgettes have now got their first set of true leaves ( the first leaves are the cotyledons ), and I have potted up half a dozen which now sit indoors in the conservatory. Outside I have done a couple of air layers, one on a Peach and the other on a golden leaved Catalpa. Friend  Chloe did a couple and I thought I could have a go. This isn't the kind of propagation I have experience of so it will be interesting to monitor progress

​Today was the first and last session of our new group. Now that the seriousness of the spread of the corona virus is worryingly loud and clear we cannot continue. To physically meet as a group, even outdoors and at a 2 m. social distance would be too risky. So from now on we will continue our work and keep in touch on-line, sharing guidance and information when needed.

The original aim of the group was to take part in a six week course on Creative Landscaping, a course I have run privately on a few occasions. I decided to revive it again this year partly because I still felt there was a need to encourage engagement with the outdoors, and what better way to do this than make a garden.

​That was the original plan. The course was meant to be run in conjunction with the Plough Arts Centre in Torrington but because not enough people signed up it was cancelled. However there were still 4 people interested so I decided to run it from home where we have a large garden with all the resources and working examples needed for a course like this, polytunnel, green house, raised beds, fruit trees, and the kind of fine diverse plantings that someone from Kew should have.

We arranged to meet today, Saturday 21st March. Mid March bright and dry with a cool easterly breeze. The reason why today was the first and last is because of the increasing concerns about the spread of coronavirus. We managed to maintain social distance and had a good session. First off was a bit of dry stone walling. Ruth has an earth bank between one part of her garden and the other. Her pile of stone was ideal to start the job, large ones bedded down first and then layers added with no running joints, laid to a  slight angle back in to the side of the earth bank. We had time to start both sides of the bank, set the line and agree it looked ok. One questionable and unscripted interruption was a rendition of the Drystone Wallers song, hopefully there won't be a repetition of this for quite some time....

​I am a dry stone waller, 
Dry stone walling is my call
And of all appalling callings
Dry stone walling's worst of all......
 
Once we had recovered from this we decided we could leave the stone to Ruth to finish at her leisure. We moved over to parts of her garden where she had covered the ground with carpet. When it was pulled back there  were white stems of Celandine. This was easy to fork up and remove. We could then fork over the soil, level it, firm it down and then plant some first early potatoes, interestingly Duke of York, so will resist the temptation to make easy, facile comments on this variety. The soil is a lovely dark loam so should be good for growing. The local soil outside of town is a brown clay loam which can be tricky to cultivate initially but is productive once the right preparation is carried out. The  spuds were already chitted so could go in straight  away. First early's 1 ft apart and 2 ft between the rows.

We agreed that following this first and last session we would continue on line so when I returned home I checked out a question that Ruth raised about those little slugs you get in your potatoes in summer. They are Keel slugs. I know that if the ground has not been used for a while then you will inevitably open up a repository of resting bugs and grubs that will attack the new grown vegetation you provide. When crops are grown on a rotation system you interrupt the cycle of pest and disease. When plants are growing strongly, well watered, not under stress, not competing with weeds they are better able to defend themselves. This doesn't always work of course so we do sometimes have to resort to man made controls. In the absence of slug pellets what could be used was the question. A quick google search when I got home said slugs don't like wood ash. I've got some of that from the wood burner so will save it and do some trials. Another old method was to pour boiling water onto slugs in a bucket, let it ferment and then pour it around  plants. This deters them apparently. I am not advocating any or all of this but can only say that decades ago when I first got interested in gardening and would read old books from the late Victorian and Edwardian periods many of the techniques used would become incorporated into standard organic or even biodynamic  methods. Much of what I saw when I visited places like Ryton gardens were methods my grandfathers would have used. Similarly the marvellous productivity that they created in the gardens at Findhorn was not new science. If ever you have spoken to the growers that show their Exhibition vegetables at village and county agricultural shows you will hear techniques that are thorough, methodical and as good as they can get.

I know I could talk for hours on this subject, it is endlessly fascinating but it's my fingers that need a rest.

Please feel free to share your experiences on this blog. If we can have a sharing collaborative community, if we can exchange our gardening skills and try to put the Earth First, we can find in the sun and wind and rain that which really matters. That is what will give our hearts hope again.

​The start of the wall

​A corner in my garden

Hand pollinating the outdoor peach. It always flowers early when there are few pollinators about. Most years I forget to hand pollinate, but this year there is more time to attend to this