The Idler

Country Diary 53

Country Diary
24 April 2007

AS EVER, there have been both triumphs and disasters in the garden. Mainly disasters. A little Scottie puppie has been visiting us and savaged the new bunny, Georgina. She lived but had two bloody ears and sat in shock for 24 hours. Georgina was allowed to play in the front garden, but she ate all the primroses. And the daisies and the hellebores and the fennel. We let Muna the pony into the front garden so she could mow the lawn—a very easy way to get your lawn mowed—but she ate all the roses as well. All the roses! Which I had been lovingly manuring all year and which had been carefully pruned. Henry emptied six trays of seedlings upside down into a big pot while I was cleaning the kitchen. There were about 40 lettuces, 24 tomatoes and a tray a wild strawberry. I managed to salvage half the lettuces and tomatoes. The hens have been wrecking the vegetable garden, pecking away at the cabbages and spreading earth everywhere. One morning I came out to find two deep holes dug under the peas, where I had buried fresh kitchen waste. A badger, perhaps? I planted out some of the lettuces under jam jars for protection, but the hens knock them over. Idiotic friends, when I point at the seedlings, say: “But lettuces are supposed to be much bigger than that”. Victoria takes no interest in the vegetable patch whatsoever and I had to practically drag her up there last week. Arthur will not go near it. Henry, bless him, is a faithful companion. Oh, what is the point? Why don’t I just earn more money and buy the bloody vegetables?

On the plus side, the apple tree which Penny Rimbaud and Eve Libertine planted in the front garden last year has 42 blossoms, which I think means we will get 42 apples, which is blimmin marvellous. By contrast, the plum tree which I planted two years ago has a lot of leaves but not one single flower. My semi-wild roots bed is looking good. I scattered radish, carrot, beetroot, turnip and parsnip seed all over it and covered it with a layer of earth. Then I put a mound of spikey twigs on top to keep off the animals. Germiantion looks to have been successful. There is another half to go so I think I’ll go and sow some more. I planted ten asparagus crowns. That was quite a palaver. And we’ll get nothing for two years. I should have done that in the first year. Strangely, you put off the things that take a long time to give returns rather than doing them first, as you should.

The raspberry plants, which I thought were all goners, have come back from the dead, which is nice to see. Overall, though, the look of the thing is pretty poor. My willows fence has failed to sprout and the hens have destroyed the sidebeds. There are nettles everywhere and I read in a new book on Wildlife Gardening, No Nettles Required, that nettles are completely over-rated as a wildlife habitat so we haven’t even got that excuse for not pulling them up.

The children have plugged the digital TV back in and it’s a daily struggle to get them off the computer — Arthur Club Penguin, Delilah Pollyworld — and into the garden. But we have managed it so they won’t be able to look back and say, “I spent my childhood staring at a screen”.