I watched the Prime Minister with interest last night from my villa in Dubai. While I am more reliant on the judgement of His Royal Highness Sheikh Mohammed and his government for my own personal lockdown journey in "exile", our Boris had the completion of Jane and my garden works in the palms of his gesticulating hands last night. What a first world problem of the highest order. A nation is wondering whether it can work and how it can get to work and I am sat there in my villa trying to interpret whether landscape gardening is now back on as a critical part of the new UK economy. Bless Boris and also "Sam the Land" who wrote immediately after the pronouncement from Downing Street to Jane indicating that materials and deliveries would be arranged on Monday and that the crew from Anemone would be back on site on Tuesday. My belief is that there is about 3 weeks left of work in Phase 1 so we could have a completed and "Hogganised" winding path, potager, terrace and huge beds by the beginning of June. Deep joy and a sigh of relief. I understand that there are concerns at this time for the nation but essentially I am employing a small business that in turn employs a few guys so I am doing my bit for the economy from a distance.
I am quite proud of what I have achieved in my lockdown exile. I have managed to stay off alcohol for close to 6 weeks and consequently have a lost a stone and a half. I have walked seemingly around a whole County but within my compound but I have not yet completed the plan for the raised beds. I got a touch despondent when the flights closed down and it seemed I would not be able to make it back to the UK by the Summer. I also get frozen by indecision with things that I am not new to or not confident of the way forward.
In many the ways the wood should be a model for the power of amateur action over hesitation. From starting with a handsaw in the first week we moved in, we have now cleared an area the size of a couple of tennis courts and joined up the area we call "Indonesia" to the ride and bluebell walk. The is a little "off" as I was reminded of the burning of the in rain forest by my first few bonfires of toxic cherry Laurel. The cleared area is now bathed in light and giving life to new flowers in the form of self seeded and planted bluebells (Hyacinthinoides non-scripta), primroses (Primula vulgaris) and foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea). I progressed to a chainsaw after a a month or two of worry and have not looked back. You grow in confidence as you make each step.
With the wood I have now unleashed two locked down teenagers with an economic incentive of £20 or so for an afternoon's or mornings work. They know they that cannot go wrong if they fell laurel and move the brash to the bonfire and set aside any thicker poles for processing into Winter fuel. I feel very sorry for the pair of them - one of them lost his GCSE year and the other his gap year. Both are split up from girlfriends and the younger won't be going back to school until September. Given that school days are some of the best days it is the loss of something you won't ever get back. Having said that as an expatriate family with children who board there is the time that Jane and them have had together. I am sure thats not full compensation but it must be of some value. There is as much laughter as frustration coming our of Oaklands these days.
The worse thing that can happen to me if I plunge in with the potager is that a few vegetables fail and I try again with a different crop or at a different time or using a different technique. All that might be wasted in a few packets of seed costing less than £100. In other words I learn on the job. "Explore and Exploit" is good a business description of the methodology or "Planning while Maneuvering" in a military context or for laymen - just "have a go" and if it works do it again and scale it up. The crushing fear of getting something slightly wrong has no place when you are tackling a space as large as ours and you are moving at pace. Direction of travel is everything. I also feel that we have earned that gin and tonic in early September on the terrace looking across at a potager brimming with produce. I will break my alcohol duck and toast what has been achieved since the New Year despite the World's woes. I have an aim to get down to my wedding weight and to have done 6 months without a drink. A new liver and a new lifestyle wrought in the Herefordshire hills to come back to.
So in respect of the Potager I know that I have missed the time for planting the Asparagus Crowns this year and that's a whole other post. I will probably also skip starting any other perennial vegetables like some of the kales this year and soft fruit. I have conducted a partial review of my regiments of seed and the plan for the first two beds - "Bed I and Bed II" (first row as you look from the house) I have decided is to grow Squash.
So the first three horses out of the gantry are "Hunter", "Turk's Turban" and "Honey Bear". Each of my beds is 2.4 m x 1.2 m and given the "spread" of two of the mature squash plants (120 cm !) I probably can only fit two in each bed. I am going to live a little though and plant them more densely and see what happens. Perhaps 2 each of Hunter and Turban staggered in a motorcycle formation down the length of one bed and perhaps 4 Honey Bear and one each of the Hunter and Turban in the second bed. Given that I am going to be traveling all year the squash can sit quite happily waiting to be harvested this year. It seems a good roll of the dice for two beds.
When it comes to planting I have been making long distance purchases of seed trays and most excitingly a paper pot press ! I have asked Jane to plant up a good 6-7 of each type of squash and hopefully in roughly 4 weeks I will be home and able and to lay out the first two beds. Some other very "Country Living" purchases I want are the slate vegetable markers. Useful and beautiful is going to be the mantra for my potager - think Hobbiton rather than white plastic makeshift water butt and orange nylon string festooned railway allotment. In that spirit I am also going to plant a few flowers - probably some nasturiums. They were the first thing I ever grew in the first back to back terrace I purchased as a young trainee solicitor in Leeds. That and some Candy Tuft in two Mr Fothergills packets. A couple of nasturtiums couldn't hurt and will break up the hard edges on the raised beds.
So I am expecting 20 or so squash plants when I return all ready to drop into first row of beds. 10 more to go. And I am now blessed with military rows of beautiful biodegradable pots. These are the first vegetable seeds planted at Oaklands if I am not mistaken.
It's all very exciting.
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