The Idler

Country Diary 86

THE OTHER EVENING, as I went to empty the compost bucket into the scruffy bins that I made out of pallets four years ago, I was surprised to see a badger eating up yesterday’s vegetable scraps. He scrambled away but I got a good look at this fine animal. He was large and a little frightening; slighty clumsy but surprisingly fast. He doesn’t seem to have done any damage to the vegetable patch. I wonder if I should tell someone about him.

THE CATERPILLARS HAVE absolutely shredded the cabbage and kale plants. I thought I had avoided caterpillar problems, since I was careful to net the young plants when the white butterflies were fluttering about, looking for leaves on which to lay their eggs. I also squashed as many eggs as I could find. But these precautions appear to have made no difference whatsoever. So this morning I crouched down and squashed about one hundred of the beasts between my fingers. This process is a bit disgusting, but your squeamishness is soon overcome by your pure hatred of the caterpillars for what they have done to your vegetables. So killing them is satisfying. There are two types: one is stripey and the other is green. The green ones are hard to spot because they are almost exactly the same colour as the leaves. While we are on the subject of brassicas, may I also report that I went down to the nursery and bought ten cauliflower plants and ten purple sprouting plants. Richard tells me that they should be ready for harvesting in spring. I have always failed with cauliflowers before but maybe we will be luckier this time. I netted the lot carefully, but then refletced that perhaps the season for caterpillars to lay eggs is over so I needn’t have bothered. I’d liie to get half the garden or more covered with brassicas. One tragedy is that out of pure laziness I never sowed the parsnip seeds properly, and soon they would have been ready for digging. It’s very difficult to train your foresight.

BEAN-WISE things are going well. I ought to be able to harvest a good load of purple French beans and also runner beans in a few days. I suppose they are a bit late, and I don’t really know why. I have dug up about twenty delicious beetroot. They were some Italian variety. I bought the seeds in an Italian deli in Clerkenwell but I forget the name. Their insides are striped purple and white and are stunningly beautiful. Last night I chopped up the last few, along with the four carrots that managed to grow (I don’t even remember sowing carrot seed) and roasted them in the Rayburn for an hour or so, then ate them with some cold chicken and bits of goats’ cheese, all washed down with Cotleigh Barn Owl. Delicious. Then I read a bit of Columella on gardening. Very enjoyable. I went to bed early and read Love in a Cold Climate and decided I am in love with Nancy Mitford.

ENDS