The Idler

A Country Diary - 31

12 October 2005

I’VE JUST RETURNED from removing about one hundred slugs from the leek and brussel sprout plants. There seem to be three kinds of slug. The most dreadful is the large orangey-brown one, which oozes white entrails when speared. Then there are the long, thin black ones which somehow seem less disgusting. And then, possibly the most deadly, there are the little light brown ones, which appear in great quantity, small, curly and slimy, like a breakfast cereal from the pits of hell. Instead of murdering them all, and in any case I’d forgotten the scissors, I decided to put them in my new nappy bins. The nappies having failed to compost in my compost bins, I moved them out of the compost, one by slimy one, and dumped them in two old dustbins. Alan has suggested I attach a tap at the bottom of the bins to allow super nappy liquid to drain out. His other idea was to dig a deep hole and throw them in it, which would be excellent advice if we had any land here. The real way to do it is to buy a wormery, but they cost eighty pounds and I have an ethical objection to spending a lot of money on growing things which are supposed to save you money. So let’s hope the slugs will destroy the nappies rather than my brassicas.

“A TOUCH OF THE allotment about it,” was my neighbour J.’s comment when I showed her my progress on the vegetable patch. She was implying that my self-built compost bins were a trifle ramshackle, amateurish, higgledy-piggledy. I explained that I was trying to do this whole thing on a budget of nought pounds, hence the charmingly rough and ready appearance of the composting system. I decided to move on to the leeks. Surely there’d be nothing to criticize about those proud specimens. But even though I thought I had followed her advice on leeks to the letter, it appears I’d done it wrong. “There are my leeks. I planted them in little holes, like you said!” I reported in triumph. “Well,” J. replied. “You don’t have nearly enough. And where have the holes gone?” “Well,” I said. “I thought you were supposed to earth them up. That’s what my book said.” “I’ve never seen any book that tells you to earth them up,” she replied. “They’ll get full of dirt.” She was kinder about my parsnips but withering about my carrots. “They’re tiny,” she scoffed, looking at the green shoots in the carrot patch. “Ours are enormous.” We inspected the compost. I had just piled up a layer of dying pea plants at the bottom of the new one, thinking I had created the perfect first layer. “Well, that’s no good,” she said. “They’re far too twiggy. They’ll never rot.” “But I thought pea plants were full of potassium or something?” I said, “That’s the roots. There’s nothing good in the plants. Just a waste. Why don’t you get a shredder? Then you can shred any twiggy stuff so it composts properly.” More cost. Surely if William Cobbett managed without a shredder, then nor should I be seduced by modern machinery. I showed her the denappied compost at the bottom of my first bin. “That’s not compost,” she said. Well, that’s a shame, because I had just used a load of it to create a new bed, using the mulch system recommended by Permaculturist and Idler gardening correspondent Graham Burnett. What you do is this: chop down the weeds and soak with water. Lay overlapping pieces of cardboard over the weeds. Cover with a six inch layer of compost, and then top with a layer of straw. The idea is that you can plant large seeded vegetables straight into the mulch. Surely that would impress Juliet, I thought? I showed my new Permaculture bed. “Why the straw?” she asked. “I’ve no idea,” I admitted. “Weeds?” “Yes, but you’re going to have problems with all those nettles behind the bed there,” she pointed out. “Still, ” she added. “It’s a big improvement on last year. Well done.” I cheered inside.

USING BITS of the broken National Trust gate, I started to build a treehouse in the vegetable patch. My idea is to provide an inducement for the kids to come up there and play, so I can combine the dreaded childcare with some useful and enjoyable work. The plan is to build a flat-topped structure about four foot high alongside the compost bins, to provide a viewing platform combined with a tool-store. We got as far as clearing the brambles and hawthorn and I placed two boards on top of the old wall for the children to sit on. They seemed to enjoy it. I also nailed in a couple of planks to make a walkway from the wall platforms to where the treehouse section will be. If I can build something fun enough, then perhaps we won’t have to drive to blimmin Bumper Back Yard and spend money on horrible food and sit on plastic chairs while they graze their elbows on plastic slides and instead we’ll have our own bumper back yard in our own back yard. I’ve started also to think about tyres, old tyres. They would seem to have so many uses, from flower or vegetable pots to children’s seats to effective holder of things down. Maybe you could put them around broccoli plants? Or take a tractor tyre, put a plastic sheet over it, fill it with water, and hey presto, a pond. On the pond issue, by the way, I put the old butler sink in the wheelbarrow, wheeled it up to the vegetable patch, put it along the side and Arthur filled it with water ferried up form the house in the watering can. Apparently it is a good idea to have a pond in your garden. I think because it attracts frogs which eat slugs but there may be other reasons.

THANKS to everyone who gave me composting advice. Clearly this is a complex subject. Thanks also for the village hall advice. We’re going to go ahead and have a private party in the village hall rather than a ceilidh, so at least we can get the place used a bit.