Vegetable Shopping

I will leave Jane to post a much longer piece on the progress of the garden works. Needless to say in the two weeks Jane has been in Dubai the project has lept foward. Hard landscaping is appearing with steps, terraces, hardcore, paths and in the corner of one photo what looks to me like a pile of sleepers ready to construct the vegetable beds.

So there are the sleepers that will go to construct the "pottager" or whatever we are now calling it. The Hoggin area for that is to the left of the straight line pushing down to the wood. There will be 8 beds in four rows of two on the left hand side and four more beds flanking the greenhouse which will (eventually) sit on the hardstanding between the two existing outbuildings. I would caution anyone engaging in this type of project to avoid the temptation to aim for "perfection". I found myself crippled by indecision over whether the beds should be 40 or 45 cm high. What difference could that 5 cm make to the aesthetics of a raised bed ? I found myself considering the proportions of letters and photos but in the end decided that 40 cm went nicely into the width (120 cm) and length (240 cm) of the beds. After all when I am a grown up I can always build another set with a perfect golden ratio that would please Sir Christopher Wren.

It is particularly gratifying to see the two dimensional turn into three. It also occurred to me that my limited expeditions in the world of vegetables were not going to fill 12 beds.I have given myself the period between now and about 6/7 April after which I will head home for a week to see the works for myself (Virus willing) to come up with some sort of plan. Vegetable raising has very much been a part time thing for me with two real efforts. Firstly in Manchester for a brief while I managed to get going with some potatoes, leeks and carrots in a few small raised beds. I believe I managed to populate a Sunday lunch on one occasion. Here in Dubai odd periods of motivation (notably last year when I got excited about Oaklands) have produced pots full of kale, rocket, radishes and so on. I garden in fits and spurts and by no means on a daily basis. I don't really yet have a "bug" for it in the same way I do for say clearing laurel or planning and planting bluebells. I expect I need to be there to get drawn in to the seasonal wheel of production.

In the meantime there are many opportunities for long distance shopping ! Seed orders are the stuff of long winter nights and warming fires or in my case beautiful January days in Dubai. I went slightly overboard on the Chiltern Seed website - 42 items which would suggest an average of 3-4 different bits of produce in each bed. I have no clue what I am up to in terms of organising the beds, the year and so on. The virus means that Jane and Sam will stay put in the UK now pretty much. Sam has GCSE's so I cannot see that traveling to Dubai or through major airports is a good idea. The issue is the restrictions and isolation that will be imposed. I will need to come home at some point but for now family life seems segregated by the practicalities of changing world, work and school policies. That is an opportunity though for Jane to really double down on the garden this year and to see a full growing season roll around. In short I have someone to water my vegetable plants ! So here is what I bought - much of which I have never grown before but all of which feels like poetic joy or almost an itinerary of food and travel :-

Salad Onion - "White Lisbon"

Maincrop Onion - "Golden Bear"

Climbing French Bean - "Barlotto Lingua di Fuoco"

Climbing French Bean - "Cosse Violette"

Dwarf French Bean - "Venice"

Broad Bean - "Express"

Beetroot - "Boltardy"

Broccoli - "Early Purple Sprouting"

Brussel Sprouts - "Evesham Special"

Savoy Cabbage - "Tundra"

Red Cabbage - "Drumhead"

Cabbage Spring Greens/Pointed and Sweetheart - "Advantage"

Carrot - "Autumn King"

Cauliflower - "Early Romanesco"

Cauliflower - "All Year Round"

Celeriac - "Prinz"

Celery - "Celebrity"

Chard - "Swiss Rhubarb"

Chicory/Radichio - "Variegata di Castelfranco"

Chicory - "Brussel Witloof"

Courgette - "Costata Romanesco"

Endive - "Encomet de Bordeaux"

Kale/Cavolo Nero - "Black Magic"

We can take a pause there - the Kale is a Dubai favourite. Such a beautiful and useful kitchen garden plant.

Komatsuna - "Comred"

Lamb's Lettuce - "Vit"

Leek - "Musselburgh"

Butterhead Lettuce - "Gustav's Salad"

Oak Leaf Lettuce - "Bughatti"

Oak Leaf Lettuce - "Lollo Rosso"

Lettuce - "Little Gem"

Mizuna

Mustard - "Red Giant"

Pak Choi - "Tai Sai"

Parsnip - "Krai Russian"

Pea - "Hurst Green Shaft"

Radish - "French Breakfast"

Rhubarb - "Champage"

Rocket - "Astra"

Spinach - "Amazon"

Squash - "Turk's Turban"

Squash - "Hunter"

Squash - "Honey Bear"

I have not yet bought any Asparagus crowns for the bed. There are "perrenial" vegetables that need to get established. I have however delved into the world of Globe Artichokes and Cardoons in a plan for what we are calling the "Demi-Lunes". I have a feeling I will have missed the potato season this year but I can take a view. Whatever happens it is as much this year about having a go and we do not need to feed ourselves. I want to try to make the beds look beautiful rather than simply productive. Years ago I would read and re-read Geoffrey Smith's Cottage Garden book with its invitation to mix up flowers and vegetables.

April 6th is a red letter day for me and I hope I can fly home soon after. While I enjoy my time in Dubai at work I always will know for now that time at Oaklands is on a clock - be it for tax, holiday, or career reasons - time for me in the UK is always on a ration. It is all for all folk under retirement age I accept. It means however that I need to be as organised as a German Railway in August 1914. I am not sure that is an apt metaphor but it seems to me that with all the time I have in Dubai I can be "planning" here in my free time and "doing" in my limited time at Oaklands. So I need my vegetable Schleifen Plan to be set and ready with pure Ordnung or coming back home ready to be "unleashed" like Boris' new Britain. Alternatively we could just have a "good go" and "see how we get on".

I will begin this weekend by labelling each bed 1-12 with roman numbering ("XII" is so much better than "12") and assigning it with a task for this year. I will need to learn about crop rotation and we may need to delve into the calendar and make some decisions about planting times. Golden Bears and Turk's Turban need something a little more romantic than a railroad timetable but sadly I think I do need to be a "man with a plan". Without a plan there was no Oaklands and without a plan there was no garden phase 1. Without a plan we drift - I am all for a direction of travel. As long as there is time to pause this year and take in what we have achieved. We are both, Jane and I, hugely excited. Its strange feeling finally grown up when you are 50 but we have never managed to really invest in a home for any length of time and have never owned as much space or opportunity. We need to decide then what to do with Gustav's Salad and what time Brussel Witloof is required. Thank the Lord for a Caulifower that is "All Year Round" - I hope it does what it says on the packet.