A Day Outside

Today is Monday 1st February. Time to step outside, I thought, as I opened the curtains and sun streamed into my bedroom. I had lots of things I should have been doing indoors, of course, but given the rest of the week returns to the ubiquitous rainy, windy, sleety, snowy, grey, dank climate of the High Peak there was a need to ‘seize the day’. So that is exactly what I did. 

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. It’s been so long since I paid any real attention to the garden that I’d rather lost touch with the list of tasks, creative or mundane, that need addressing. Ambling into the potting shed, however, led seamlessly to the first one: potting up some mini bulbs I’d bought at the supermarket, and long since forgotten about. So I found some suitable baskets from my collection, took them to my cold compost heap, trowel in hand, and dug away at the hardened soil putting a dark layer of loveliness into the base of the baskets before arranging the plants on top of that and then filling in around the edges with more home-brewed compost. I then went out onto the lane to my favourite spot for gathering gorgeous fluffy green moss and took it back to tuck around my little plants. 

So far so good. What next? Well, less glam I’m afraid. I was conscious of the dog poo scattered in rather numerous spots around the lawn so I set about filling a bag with it. Joyous. Mercifully it was cold enough to be hard, so a little easier than it might have been in the usual soggy conditions. [That’s enough poo, Ed]

Taking the little bag of grimness round to the black bin led me to pause and look at the new vista since our neighbours had a big old tree cut down last week. I felt rather sad, I have to admit, despite having had some trees cut down ourselves in the autumn. You do feel like a murderer and watch with horror as it is felled, limb after limb being severed, until the sky is open where once it was filled. I can now see straight through to the reservoir, but unfortunately the new housing estate which was built on a previously lovely green meadow is now rather more visible. Trees are rather like children I feel - until they’re gone you don’t realise how much you miss them.

After this moment of contemplation, I went to get my phone to see if I could find any photos of what it was like before the tree was felled. What on earth is the point of that?? No idea. Torture? But it also gave me the excuse to make a cup of coffee. There is always something nice about sipping a hot drink while you mess around in the garden...

I then wandered up to the vegetable patch which is my misery rather more than my joy. And we can safely say it’s not my pride! Despite some efforts a few years ago to optimise the growing conditions, paying a good man to create raised beds behind new drystone walls and lay gravel and paving and other delights, it still seems to be capricious about what it is prepared to produce. I have lovingly fed it, dug it, not dug it, fed it again, spread manure, leaf mould and covered it in plastic bags to keep it warm - all to no avail. Even two years of horticultural college wisdom didn’t notably improve my yield. I get a few runner beans, a handful of peas in a good year, the odd potato, some salad from time to time but frankly not a lot else. Apart from berries. It’s good with berries. Raspberries, red currants, black currants all seem happy enough. Even blueberries. Oh, and gooseberries and rhubarb (which I don’t even like). While it actually faces south, it is all in the wrong position: the land rises towards the south (giving, weirdly, the impression that south is north) and there are too many big old trees in the way too - most of which don’t belong to me so I can do nothing about them. So in essence it is short on light and warmth. The only thing it has going for it is that it’s not in a frost pocket! I have a stream nearby but it runs dry in summer, and it’s a right old flog uphill from the nearest tap which is back down by the house. So when it’s hot, the soil’s too dry and then most of the rest of the time it’s too cold and wet!! Still, I battle on, always believing that one day I will have bounty beyond compare. In the autumn we had the rhododendron hedge cut right back which blocked the low evening sun before the hill takes it away completely and we took a bough off a big old pine to let a bit more light in. Not exactly game-changing I fear, but every little helps. 

So today I gave it a bit of TLC. I cleared up old leaves and put them on the compost heap. I lit the incinerator and revelled in the smell of bonfires watching it puff up smoke like an old steam train. I tidied the greenhouse (badly need a new one as this one is ancient, ugly and full of holes). I removed the netting from the red currants and cut out a couple of branches which had developed coral spot, carefully cleaning the secateurs afterwards. I then spread a bucketful of llama poo [I said that’s enough poo! Ed] across two of the raised beds and then covered them in a thin layer of straw. I’ve no idea whether this will improve anything but it’s a sustainable use of copious amounts of llama poo from our field and was a way of using up a pile of straw which two fat mice had been nesting in in the corner of the greenhouse. The idea, of course, is that the soil will be nourished with my makeshift manure and the straw will initially insulate the soil and then be pulled down by worms etc as it rots, to help improve the soil structure. I’ll let you know if it works! Meanwhile the field is also currently under siege from moles, so I shall also be gathering up beautifully sifted and weed-free soil to top up the borders and beds too. 

I then had a little wander about, noting how the snowdrops are emerging but very few in flower yet, all the while the daffodils are eagerly pushing their way up - a tad early methinks? Quite unusual to have the snowdrops and daffs all coming up at the same time. There are some little pink cyclamen out in the top lawn, under the trees - planted forever ago with a view to naturalisation but they’ve steadfastly remained just the three plants. Sigh. A few little yellow primroses. Some hellebores in pots which must go in the ground. The Portuguese Laurel which mysteriously suddenly has a bough brushing the ground - but when I looked up to see if it had split further up, I saw no damage at all - but sadly it will need to be sawn off. More severed limbs.

I noted the bits of pruning I need to do and thought briefly about planting schemes. I gathered kindling from the high winds and storms and squirrelled it away in the potting shed to dry out. I started tidying up a messy pile of recently cut logs from a conifer we had to fell and found snowdrops, buried and yellow-leaved, below. I filled the bird feeders and took down the wreaths from Christmas now it is no longer January. In the mountains they keep things like that out for months, till the snows have passed, but I felt, reluctantly, the time had come to say goodbye to all references to the festive season which now seems so much more than just a month or so ago.... 

Today is the beginning of a new month, a step closer to Spring, a step closer to the end of Lockdown. Whether it is a step closer to any sort of normality remains to be seen. I felt a little down this morning. A little weary. A little despondent. I had a day in the garden and a walk around the hills and valleys with my girls. I had a day outside. It is the best tonic, truly, when spirits flag.