wednesday 6.45pm

6.45pm

walking down towards priory farm a light breeze teases the oilseed rape pods. it rattles the jet black seeds inside their crisp pods - a chorus of quivering maracas accompanying the twenty-four hour thrum of the combine harvester.

6.53pm

at the edge of the field a hare sits motionless. we pause. both waiting for the other to make the first move. 

7.04pm

two male whitethroats dart out from the corn stalks. they spit rasping warning cries at each other before chasing off in dissension. 

7.23pm

sundown burnishes the landscape. each ear replete. only hours away from the ravage of the combine harvester.

Out with the old, in with the new.

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see".  Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

Is there a more rewarding time of year in the veg garden? I just love hanging around in the evening, musing, hose-pipe in one hand, hoe in the other, bee identification chart in my pocket and the chickens on the far side of the fence telling me about their day. 

There’s a tangible energy in every verdant row. The parsnip leaves are looking particularly exuberant after a rain shower. Below ground their less glamorous roots swell in secret. 

Papery onion skins are splitting to expose creamy corpulent flesh. I want to hurry their leaves to wither... I’ve got cabbages waiting to fill their space.

The broad beans are finished already, I ripped out their holIow stems to give a good home to some orphan cauliflowers. My mother couldn’t bear to throw away her surplus seedlings and I had neglected to sow any, so we’re both happy.

On reflection, I should probably have given away some of my cucumber plants. I was insuring myself against the slug attack that never came. But that’s the lovely thing about abundance, I can always find a friend delighted to receive a giftwrapped cucumber!

Lots of veg means lots of weeds. With the soil baked and trodden hard, I’m afraid shears are the most effective tool for clearing the paths. Topped with a good layer of grass cuttings however it feels as though I am stepping on decadent carpets as I pick the beans.

The ghostly silouette of a lone cabbage white drifts silently by, perforating my reverie... and my Brussels sprouts!

A bit of butter

Well everything is in fifth gear at the moment... the weather, the veg patch and me! 

A few days ago, in a rare 'Martha Stewart Moment' I found I had run a couple of miles, made strawberry jam and whipped up a batch of fresh scones... before breakfast. By the afternoon, inspired by an article in the weekend papers I was even making butter! 

So, so easy, you're simply separating the fat and milk in cream, (why have I never made it before?), absolutely delicious and what's more, I had the perfect accompaniment for my jam and scones!

'It must be admitted that one of the great drawbacks to gardening and weeding is the state into which the hands and fingers get. Unfortunately, one's hands belong not only to oneself, but to the family, who do not scruple to tell the gardening amateur that her appearance is "revolting".'

From "Pot pourri from a Surrey Garden", by Mrs C. W. Earle 1897

....and having lifted my garlic crop at the weekend I fall into the "revolting" category!

Wildflower Weekend

I’m just in the process of illustrating a honey jar label, so when I saw signs popping up on the local verges advertising a ‘Wildflower Meadow and Beehive Open Weekend’, I had the perfect excuse to drop my trowel and abscond from weeding the parsnips. I dragged a friend, willingly, away from her decorating and we set off ‘in the course of duty’.

Nestled in complete seclusion in the Suffolk countryside, I knew we were in for a treat the moment we were greeted by a jolly, rotund man with an precision engineered handlebar moustache. He handed us a beautifully illustrated guide along with a coloured tiddly-wink to exchange for a cup of tea in the barn. Attention to detail... on all counts!

copyright www.wildflowermeadow.org

We followed the snaking path through 4 acres of sheer tranquility.

Each exquisite flower head twinkling in the warm sun

And tucked up in the corner of the field three beehives were the perfect inspiration I needed for my honey label. 

It wasn't just the bees that were hard at work, the BBC were there too, busy as bees themselves, filming a documentary with broadcaster and amateur bee enthusiast Martha Kearney. Look out for her four part series "The Joy of Honey" in 2014.

Having traded in our tiddly-wink.....

.....we were quite spoilt for choice for idyllic spots to sip our tea.

Of course no garden visit is complete without a good sniff around the plant stall. After all, a plant purchased along with a happy memory always gives twice the pleasure! 

So for me it was a delicate white knapweed and a the cutely named 'fox and cubs' which I'll pop into the long grass in our orchard. Now all I need is a beehive!

Great Eggspectations

Delighted to introduce you to four camera shy balls of fluff. Not a great success rate from fourteen eggs I know, but they did prove to be the perfect ‘visitor attraction’ for my little niece and her family who stayed with us last weekend.

Maisy accompanied me umpteen times a day, full of anticipation, to check if any more chicks had hatched. She has a cherished pet Labrador at home and reflected, that.... 

“if you have a dog it makes you happy, and if you have chickens they make you happy”. 

Wise words.... as long as my chicks aren’t all cockerels!

Never a truer word spoken....

"This little space which scented box encloses

Is blue with lupins and is sweet with thyme

My garden all is overblown with roses,

My spirit is all overblown with rhyme,

As like a drunken honeybee I waver

From house to garden and again to house,

And undetermined which delight to favour,

On verse and rose alternately carouse."

Vita Sackville-West 1917

The ultimate chicken take-away

After all the nervous anticipation, Diesel is the only surviving chick from the clutch of eighteen eggs laid under the oil tank. Three more hatched and perished but alas nothing came of the remainder. Diesel is now a curious mix of fluff and feather, keeping close to mum’s side as it learns to forage and peck. 

Comical as he/she(?) is however, I had been hoping to enjoy a whole family of downy offspring bobbing about the garden.

Two broody bantams got me thinking. In a repeat of last year they seem content to sit in the coop all day, oblivious to the fact they're not sitting on any eggs. So the least I could do for them was to sneak a few fertilised eggs under their warm yearning breasts.

I googled “hatching eggs” and it threw up a tantalising menu. 


Silver Spangled Hamburg, 
French Black Copper Maran, 
Black Red Auracana... 

Trying not to have eyes bigger than my stomach I settled on fourteen eggs.
Some I collected locally and the other half dozen arrived the next day in the post.

But unlike most fast food deliveries, these will have to simmer away for 3 weeks... 

June

A new month... a new calendar page, 

and a new magazine with a new illustration...

with thanks to Bluehillfarm and Country Living Magazine

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Is there any better accompaniment to some early morning pyjama-gardening than the two resonant notes of the cuckoo. Try as I might, my efforts to spot his stripy waistcoat through the trees were quite in vain.

I was witness, however, to a trio of smartly dressed blackbirds in a spat over territory. 
Lapels bristling and coat tails flapping they were hopping and swooping in a furious squall of ruffled finery.

Finally this chap decided he might be better off joining the Spring Exhibition at the Mayne Gallery in Kingsbridge. Catch him there from the 25th May onwards.

Binky is a small brown hen

Three weeks ago Binky went missing. 

She was absent from the evening register and nowhere to be seen at breakfast.

There were two salient possibilities -

a) she had come up against a hungry fox

b) she was concealing a teenage pregnancy

Fortunately it turned out to be the latter. I found her sitting on a clutch of eighteen eggs.

Now at this time of year she could have chosen to nestle down in any number of picturesque locations, framed by any flavour of blossom....

 there's cherry or

 malus or

 ornamental pear or

 acer or

apple...

But no! I am forced to divulge an unsightly corner of the garden, where beyond the emerging cow-parsley and the smiling primroses there is a corroding oil tank swathed in an unsightly tarpaulin. It rests on two ivy clad brick piers between which Binky found her covert sanctuary.

So far we have one little black chick “Diesel” 

....and you wouldn’t believe how many times a day I’m checking to see if any more have hatched!!