housekeeping

Arrived at the break of day, not in order to be heroic but because I was delivering a daughter to a train at 8.10am. It’s now 12.08 and I soon have to collect her from the station.

Firstly today I completed digging to the 4th post, which means roughly 48 feet of the bottom section now dug. Then I wrapped 3 lots of prunings in a blanket and dragged them up to a neighbour’s bonfire site, by which time the blanket was ragged and I knew how it felt. This has liberated the main path again, as far as I’ve dug. I’ve also generally cleared up, emptied old plant pots and stored them and wheelbarrowed the weeds I’ve dug over to the compost heap. I’m conscious that I have a friend/collaborator coming here on Friday to engage in walking my paths with me and for this task the paths need to be clear.

Time to go…

pre-planning

It’s so mild today that I’m able to sit on the palette under the elder/rose arbour, my usual position for drinking coffee, writing and contemplating during the hot summer months as the elder provides consistent shade. I’m here alone today which has become unusual, I’m digging, of course… almost a third of the way along the bottom section and path that runs along the edge of the upper section. This is all entirely virgin territory as far as I’m concerned, apart from the artichoke and rhubarb that I planted up against the wall last summer. So, when it comes to a plan for planting, anything goes really.

I am going to have to address this issue of planning pretty soon as I should probably already have made my seed order, planted garlic and be ready to soon put in broad beans. I’m going to designate a seedbed this year so I can be prepared with brassicas for next winter. I haven’t yet managed this very successfully, just the few straggly cabbages that are in front of me where I’m sitting here and that smell as though they’re starting to rot.

sprouts and friendship

Nearly called off wall-building today because I’ve a nasty cold but woke up to a sunny and bright morning and decided the fresh air would do me good. It has. I’ve been digging while my friend’s been building. I’m now sitting in the shed waiting for the kettle to boil for coffee for the two of us and one of the other allotmenteers who’s turned up for a chat and to harvest some of his sprouts.

I wonder how much of this cold I’m suffering from is to do with being stuck inside over Christmas, I think my body is acclimatised nowadays to being outside for a considerable part of most days. A short dog walk isn’t the same as a few hours digging.

I’ve been looking at the plan on my studio wall at home over the Christmas week and realising that I am way behind with my digging plan, however I hadn’t expected to be getting my wall rebuilt which has been a serendipitous experience in the thing itself and in the building of a new friendship.

Christmas cheer

Another wall-building Saturday, for my wall-building friend that is, I’ve been sieving compost with a view to filling my home-made plant pots which together with a packet of seed will be my Christmas presents this year.

I’ve dug the last of my parsnips and some Jerusalem artichoke for Christmas feasting and sawed up the last of my seasoned wood for the wood stove.

It’s 4.05 and the light is just starting to fade giving way to a beautiful almost-full moon.

the day after the night before

Wheelbarrow and soil are both back where they belong after their performance last night at BLOCassembly. Moments after returning the soil I spotted a robin taking a worm out of it, which seemed to me to round off the cycle nicely.

Wall building again today hindered by frost which glues the stones together giving an illusion of more stability than is actually there. However, if I waited until warmer conditions prevailed I’d then have plant growth to contend with.

I realised the other day that I haven’t been alone on the allotment for maybe 2 weeks. My work has become peopled recently. So far this feels OK but I’m surprised at being comfortable with it, I would have expected to be needing time here by myself.

preparation for an event

Just calling here for spade and trowel. It is my event at a gallery in Sheffield tonight, I am taking a barrow of soil with objects I’ve dug out of the ground here during the last 18 months. This will, I hope, be the starting point for the becoming of a narrative rather like the one that took place here early on the morning of 1st June.

The images show the hole where I’ve removed earth from to be used in my event tonight and the ice that I knocked out of a plastic bowl 4 days ago and which has not yet melted!

sub zero back-ache

It’s very cold today, 1pm and the ground is still frozen. I woke up this morning with back-ache and realised I wouldn’t be much use with the wall-building we’d scheduled. My friendly wall-builder is sympathetic having had a similar complaint just last week so I’m taking things steady, 2nd coating the gate and posts with wood preserver and first coating the 2 sides of my shed that had been exposed to the sun’s drying rays this morning.

gate progress

Rain stopped play for the last 2 days, this morning is overcast but dry, just, so I’ve brought my gate back here from home where it’s been drying out in our hall at the same time as tripping people up and generally being in the way. I have now preserved the wood, both the gate and its posts. I was intending to do the same to my shed but I think it’ll better to wait for a sunny day.

I have half an hour now before I need to leave so I’ll move some stone in preparation for wall-building, rumour has it that my wall-builder is moving about again.

sick note

After a stormy night it’s a mostly mild and bright day. Usually, nowadays, Saturdays are wall-building days but my consultant/colleague in this task has hurt his back and is in a lot of pain so the soup we usually consume for our lunch in the shed I instead delivered to him as recovery food. The other half of the pan-full is for our middle daughter who’s ill in bed at home. I hope it helps to make them both better.

This morning at a Christmas bazaar I saw a friend who lives up the lane from the allotment, she was commenting to her husband that she’d witnessed a scene she considered highly incongruous this week. She was referring to me sitting outside my shed with my laptop on my knee. Her husband, a farmer/ builder gave this some consideration and commented on the bringing together of work with a peaceful environment.

improvised matting

I’m sitting somewhat awkwardly on a concrete breezeblock in front of my shed, one of the same blocks that I discovered had previously been a set of steps. I have weeded in front of my shed to make space for them resulting in an even muddier path than the one I’ve been sliding about on for the last few wet weeks. Now instead of slipping I have boots encrusted in mud, so, I’ve decided to remedy this by making a mat of sorts out of skeletal yet substantial michaelmas daisy stalks. My theory is that whereas gravel or wood chippings just add to muddy boots creating a pebbledash effect, these stalks should stay in place better, we’ll see.

Now that I have a wall-builder on board there are certain jobs that need to be done before he is here again on Saturday so why, I wonder, am I doing a job that I’ve put off now for over a year? I wonder if I am feeling the need to reclaim my reflexive methods of working, or perhaps I just don’t like being told what to do!

semiotic tangle

4.23pm. I’ve been digging for about an hour, as the rain increased the light decreased. I’ve found what I think must have been concrete steps leading from the higher to lower level. Probably because of this having been a pretty permanent structure (until now) the nettle roots are some of the most impervious I’ve come across, they had woven themselves through a wire basket that had been buried there causing it to become at one with them, passively losing its original meaning.

This morning I was reading an essay about language and meaning, I feel rather like the wire basket when I read about semiotics, the concepts seem to tangle up my thoughts rather than liberating them. So, frustrated and slightly cabin-crazy from being in the house most of the day I decided to dig the remaining daylight hours. I intend to persist in the reading of philosophy alongside my allotment processes to discover whether one may begin to throw light on the other and vice versa.

preparation for a birthday

No digging yet today. It’s our middle daughter’s 21st this weekend so I started by sawing and filling my car boot with logs for the fire. Then I harvested what I could find, a few remaining potatoes, some small straggly carrots, 2 magnificent parsnips, three lacy cabbages and several Jerusalem artichoke. I even found some rocket and chicory that had survived the ice and frost as well as mint, thyme and sage.

The council lorry is coming early tomorrow morning so I’ve been sorting some rubbish at the same time as clarifying the space around the wall that my friend and I are spending the next few Saturday afternoon’s repairing. I can’t get used to seeing my images as though through a mirror. It is the result of taking pictures straight into my computer using its Photo Booth mode. Maybe I should take them through Photoshop and reverse them?

dark too soon

Sitting here in my shed in the dark, just as well that my laptop has an illuminated keyboard. I’ve taken a photo of myself that looks like something from hallowe’en!

It’s only 4.39 and it is now so dark I couldn’t see what I was digging and had to stop. It rained all day yesterday and I didn’t get here until later today as it started wet so the ground is pretty saturated. I started digging the lower section and became frustrated by it all being heavy and sticky so I did some pruning up by the wall that we are repairing, me and my wall-building friend. Since then I’ve been digging along the wall, which is much lighter and not as wet as the lower section. I’ve been digging out nettle and willow-herb roots and finding the most perfect soil. I think I’ll use this section for a seedbed and then plant pumpkins and marrows along it.

ordinary transformation

As I was sawing just now I came across an elder branch that had one polished bark-less side where it had clearly rested and rubbed against another branch influencing its growth into an irregular, twisted shape. I was reminded of a dear friend who worked and subsequently died in an accident on a scrap yard near to where I used to live. He used to save these sorts of branches to show me and he’d then carve and transform them into creatures that were suggested by the knots and twists in the branch or root. He would do the same with discarded metal using welding. As I was contemplating him and the influence he has clearly had on my current art practice I gazed up to the cloudless blue sky to see two planes drawing a heavenly kiss above me.

talking paths

I brought some more people to the allotment today, it seems to be something I’m doing lately. I made them cups of tea and coffee and we talked about peace and quiet as well as paths and how best to maintain them. One of the people who I’d never met before is a countryside conservation volunteer.. Tiny the cat came to meet them too.

The light’s dropping now and as a result the midges are waking up and getting hungry, I can feel them biting… always an indicator that it’s time to be going home. It’s only 4.07, the days seem very short now.

spontaneous actions and reactions

Tuesday 13th November 2007

I’m trying a new way of recording what happens here on the allotment by bringing my laptop with me and typing straight into it and also recording video and images directly into it. I’m interested to see if this allows for a fresher, more direct communication.

It was wet this morning so I decided not to dig and instead when I wandered into the local hardware shop at the end of my dog walk this morning to buy acrylic primer, I came out having acquired 25kg of galvanised wire and the hooks needed to create the fence between me and my bungalow neighbour. I feel slightly guilty spending money so spontaneously and without consultation but it does seem to be not only the best possible solution but also the cheapest. It took me all of an hour to install and the result is an almost invisible boundary… what could be better. It also means I can grow things like sweet peas up it that (as my friend said who I was telling when she walked by) ‘will benefit everyone’. Whilst I was fixing the fence some men came to fit a new clothes drier for my bungalow neighbour on the other side. There was some confusion because I think they thought I lived there and came to talk to me about the washing line, which misled them and ultimately upset my neighbour, and all goes to show how important the fence really is.

Since then I’ve been continuing my mission to prune the elder trees whilst the ground isn’t full of crops that would be crushed by falling branches. The sun is shining on the edge again, it’s such a glorious time of year.

frozen wonderland

Monday 12th November 2007

It’s a frozen wonderland here this morning, which is rapidly being dispersed by brilliant sunshine. It’s now 9degC in my shed but ice instead of water under plant pots is evidence of several degrees below zero overnight. A bit of log-sawing whilst the kettle boils soon acclimatises my body to these chilly conditions.

I’ve been thinking whilst digging of my friend in London who’s husband died last night – hoping she’ll eventually find solace in the digging of her allotment.

Came back after lunch and decided to cut back the elder over my writing/thinking palette. In so doing I discovered that the rambling rose which had seemed inconsequential is in fact a monster. Decided to weave it around the remainder of the elder thus creating what I hope will become a shady rose arbour next summer. Halfway through this job my phone rang… it was my research supervisor ringing for a pre-arranged telephone session at 2pm intended to be on my home phone! We’ve re-scheduled for 4pm.

boundaries and stories

Friday 9th November 2007

Two separate streams of thought today whilst digging…

Firstly and most prominently about boundaries, safety, vulnerability and different people’s perceptions of these issues. A friend is coming to repair my dry stone walls (boundary walls) tomorrow which is why this is on my mind.

The other thinking has been about an event I’m presenting at a gallery in December in which I’m hoping that things I’ve found in the ground will transform into stories found in the audience.

fencing preparation

I’ve just realised having written this date that it’s hallowe’en.

I’ve finished uprooting a pernicious rhizome that was dominating the boundary between me and one of the bungalows, it reminded me of a battle I had with bamboo in my last plot.

I’m trying to think of a friendly type of fence and have decided that whatever I use will have sweet peas growing up it. I’m wondering about 2ply, twisted garden wire threaded through the existing concrete posts’ holes for the horizontals and then raspberry canes or bamboo woven into the wire twists to create verticals.

neighbourly interventions

Wednesday 24th October

It was an outwardly eventful day yesterday. The bungalow man presented me with a bottle of wine, “It’s not much, would of cost me more if I’d ‘ad to pay someone. You’ll do it again next year won’t you?” I dug his bean patch on Saturday afternoon. He came out to chat to me a couple of times that day and to show me his new jacket, still bearing its label, that he was going to be wearing to a formal dinner that night. The next day he told me, “I had my photo took w’i’t dicky-bow, I’ll show you when it comes back.” And also how he’d had a disturbed night through indigestion. Over the next few days I’ve heard several recitations of this story to passing neighbours, hard not to since his hearing difficulties cause him to shout. I’m really enjoying this friendship developing.

Also yesterday, the woman who used to have my allotment made her way in to tell me her neighbour, up the lane, has thrown out a carpet and underlay, she’d have a word for me if I’m interested. She also pointed to a gooseberry bush I’ve liberated from weeds and says it has lovely sweet fruit if you can keep the birds off it. I told her I have a whole row of its babies (self-rooted). It’s just occurred to me that I could have a table in my gateway of surplus fruit bushes for path-users to help themselves to.

Not long after this the owner of the carpet (it turns out) and her little boys, stopped to talk about the no-bonfire rule and offered use of her bonfire site up the top of the lane as an alternative way of disposing of burnable waste. She took me up to see it.

goodwill beyond price

I think my plan to consistently clear and dig a section per week is building up my stamina. I seem to be achieving more than I expect each time and I’m realising I must have had some anxiety about how I could ever cultivate the whole plot which now seems at least possible. I’ve just thought that if I get on with tree-pruning I could dispose of the debris in a local bonfire night ritual.

I still have 18x12 feet and 6x4 feet to dig this week, plus the bungalow man has asked me to winter-dig his bean patch, when I’ve time – ha! I’ve decided it will probably take me an hour and will create countless hours of goodwill and will therefore be time well spent.

not-so-poor housekeeping

Friday 5th October

I’m uncovering the pile of roots that I dug out prior to planting artichokes in the Spring, this seemingly poor house-keeping has actually meant that I can now easily shake off the earth and they have begun the composting process.

I love this time of year – golden, warm not hot and crisp bright mornings, mostly.

Just noticed two cock pheasants skulking away between my pumpkins, I wonder what there is here to interest them.

rediscovered fragments

Thursday 4th October

I’ve resolved to dig 12foot strips at a time in the lower area, gradually working my way to the entrance. Tightened up the scythe and it works well on Golden Rod which it turns out is the rhizome who’s identity I was unsure of in the Spring.

I’ve cleared the lean-to at home this week and re-discovered a box of fragments that I dug out of the last plot I cultivated (in Cornwall), I’ve brought them here to sort out and possibly integrate into this current plot. I’ve just found the discarded empty tube of oil paint that I like to believe contained some of the pigment in Harold Harvey’s ‘Blue Door’. I found it close to where he must have painted from, in front of his house. Perhaps I’ll send it to the Penlee House Museum which is home to the Newlyn School collection.

2 hours (including a 15 minute break) and I’ve dug about 40 (6x7) square feet.

more time

Wednesday 3rd October

I’ve been scything a bit (I bought a scythe today) it seemed to tackle nettles and thistles better than shears but the blade soon came loose and I lost patience with it. So, I’ve returned to the digging I started yesterday. It’s very slow progress and since I have roughly 7,500 square feet of allotment the fact that it’s taken me about an hour to dig 15 is a little daunting. Just as well I’m not looking for a well-manicured plot. What it does show me though is that I need to be here more often and for longer.

An hour later and now I’ve dug 25 square feet today.

boundary concerns

Tuesday 2nd October

I’ve just dug out some pre-historic nettle roots… Tiny the cat has climbed onto my lap and is head-butting my writing hand… Cat’s bored now, gone to peruse the neighbouring allotment. The ancient nettles I’ve been tackling are at the furthest, lower corner of the allotment, close to my rhubarb and Jerusalem artichoke and encroaching into my bungalow-neighbour’s lawn along with thistles, teazles and bindweed. while I was working more over his side of the non-existent wire fence than my own I realised that I seem to be concerned with boundaries. I’m thinking that rather than working from the middle to the edge (and never getting there), I could work in reverse to establish good boundaries. By ‘good’ I mean friendly whilst clearly present. I’ve been upset this year by one of my neighbour’s ill-considered boundary matters and this has convinced me to take note of reasonable requests and act on them as soon as possible. This will include pruning my damson tree that disturbs a neighbours view of the hills as well as cutting back the trees and nettles from my side of the main path so that the allotmenteer who mows the path can get in closer to the wall.

rained off

Saturday 29th September - midday

It’s drizzly today, not ideal allotment weather. I’ve climbed into the damson tree and sawed off two big branches – exhausting work, holding on with one hand and sawing with the other. I’ll finish the job another day when I have the right saw, a stepladder and assistance!

I had a friend here yesterday – we harvested, cooked and ate a two-course meal whilst conducting a conversation about our mutual concerns. I recorded this conversation on my laptop and it will, I hope, be the first of many interactions of this kind towards my research project.

Another friend, who was going to call here today for coffee, has seen the rain and called on my mobile to invite me for lunch instead.

wildlife encounters

I’ve just watched a pair of ‘cabbage white’ butterflies mate on a raspberry leaf. One flattened itself out and projected its tail into the air while the other hovered above making contact a few times then flying away. The (presumably) female one then gathered herself and fluttered off over my head, greeny-white against the sky.

I brought with me today a dustbin full of compostable material. When I lifted off the cover from the compost a mouse scurried away. I do love these wildlife encounters.

There are pinky-mauve daisies in flower with a whole host of bees on them. One of my more eccentric friends worries about mobile phone radiation disturbing the flight-path of bees, he tells me that Einstein said ‘when the bees die, we die’, he obviously has little to worry about here!

Sitting in my shed for a moment, ‘Tiny’ came in to explore.

Absent-minded pondering

I do seem to be becoming absent-minded - just started pouring boiling water into an empty coffee filter then heard myself self-reprimanding out loud. I know I talk to myself quite a bit these days, often when I'm walking in the park where having the dog with me provides an excuse, or at least I like to think it does.

I have a resistance to anyone telling me how to contemplate or meditate. I used to put my resistance down to my mother, a yoga teacher, trying to make me 'salute the sun' in a morning when I was a teenager. In fact I think it's more to do with knowing or having known at a very young age, inherently, how to do these things without someone else's instruction but it having slipped out of focus. I was alone a lot as a child and lived pretty much in my own world of daydreams. I used to make things, dens and shelters, intimate environments in which to practice the art of daydreaming.

As I’m sitting here quietly I’ve been joined by what I now see to be a female blackbird that is rustling about in the peas in front of me. So, this is the visitor who’s been emptying some of my pea pods. It’s gratifying to think that I’m providing a meal for others as well as myself.

I’ve lopped several big branches off one of my elders to encourage it to grow closer to the ground so I can reach its flowers and fruit. I broke up the branches and twigs and added them to the pile that I have created as a small wildlife shelter.

It’s now overcast and a proliferation of midges have appeared so I’m beating a hasty retreat!

if in doubt ... make compost

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do here today but since I’ve brought with me a backlog of compostable kitchen waste and activator from home I decided to investigate my compost bins. To my delight I discovered perfectly rotted compost, enough to fill seven bags.

Now I realise why gardeners write about sieving compost – I‘ve found a variety of objects that have survived the alchemical process including sticks, elastic bands, mango and avocado pips, bottle lids and plastic labels, but the rest is brown and crumbly as described in the aforementioned gardening books.

Jam therapy

Saturday 8th September

6pm - I’m coming back down to earth gradually. Picking fruit (plums, damsons, elderberries and autumn raspberries) and making jam for the first time, has helped. Also eating peas and rocket straight from the plant. It’s a glorious evening, golden light after an overcast day. However, this time of day at this time of year the gnats make their presence felt so I’m heading for home.

Absence

August 27th Bank Holiday Monday

Gorgeous sunny day, I’d expected many fellow allotmenteers but I seem to be alone which suits me well today.

An indication of the state of my allotment is that I’ve just discovered bindweed winding its way around a chilli pepper plant INSIDE my shed. The miracle is that my seedlings are still alive despite no watering for a fortnight, the result of so little sunshine this summer since the hot and early Spring.

The thought of all there is to do makes me tired – I’ve definitely lost the plot this summer, it has run away from me, become a free agent. However it does present me with the possibility of not exactly a blank canvas but a fresh start since my sowings for winter haven’t materialised.

My heart has been elsewhere – firstly because of the unexpected, yet joyous, re-opening of doors for us as a family in Cornwall and then the opposite, the tragic death of two of our dearest friends also in Cornwall. For these reasons we have spent most of the summer there resulting in the neglect of my allotment.

Such sadness… the allotment epitomises it all, things dying down now at the end of the summer and so much to deal with. Yet beyond that, somewhere, the hope of new beginnings springing from the old, but I feel it could be a long cold winter.

Show prep

Tuesday 31st July

Bakewell Show tomorrow so I’ve come to collect possible exhibits. I’m not expecting or wanting prizes but I am enjoying the thought of allowing my collaborative partner (the allotment) the opportunity to show off. I’ve brought the list of categories to see what could fit the bill. I thought I may have beetroot but they seem to have either not developed or rotted in the ground. My peas may not be quite mature enough but I may enter them anyway as they have novelty blue pods, perhaps today’s sunshine could be what they need and I could harvest them at dawn tomorrow for the 7.15 deadline.

On my return

Saturday 28th July

I’ve been away for two weeks, just harvested peas, broad beans, onions, garlic, rocket and blackcurrants. Last year I daren’t leave it, this year I needed a break and whilst away the allotment blurred out of focus, no watering anxieties – the heavens have taken care of that this year.

welcome home

Friday 6th July

Great harvest just in time for a feast tonight with my partner home after a week away and 2 of 3 daughters. I feel like a hunter-gatherer.

Finally planted my cucurbit seedlings, climbers in amongst the barren currants and gooseberries and the rest between the soon to be harvested garlic. Also planted out sunflowers providing an edge to the main path.

liberation deliberation

It’s clouding over again after a hot and sunny start. I’m continuing where I left off yesterday, I suppose you could call it weeding - although this always conjures up a picture of kneeling at the edge of a flower border pulling out freshly germinated weedlings (which maybe says more about my family than anything) – my kind of weeding involves pulling up willowherb, nettles, thistles all about shoulder height and some creeping stuff, that must have been the inspiration behind Velcro, together with columbine binding it all together. However, apart from creating hard to dispose of enormous piles of debris, there is an amazing sense of liberation because it means I can start to walk around my allotment again and, more importantly, the plants can experience the light of day. I had no idea how many nearly-ripe blackcurrants there are.

What I think was a kestral just flew over clutching prey in its talons.

grasping nettles

4th July 2007

I’ve spent the last 2 days at home waiting for a significant pause in the rain, unrequitedly. I decided last night to come here this morning regardless of the weather and it seems to have been a good decision – only one brief shower in 3 hours – despite a glowering sky.

I’m very conscious of my neighbours since my plot has turned into a wilderness, a wonderful, fruiting, flowering wilderness but from outside I realise it communicates a total lack of control. This, of course, isn’t a great concern to me but I appreciate I am unusual in my approach to gardening. So, I decided during a fit of paranoia earlier to engage in some community-building and delivered broad beans and raspberries as well as sunflower and tomato plants to my bungalow neighbours. This gesture has been very well received.

As well as this I’ve been ‘grasping nettles’ - a therapeutic activity – and filling one of the 3 sections of my compost bin. Now I’m wondering where to plant my cucurbits (marrow, pumpkin, squash) and brassicas (kale, turnip, brocolli) seedlings. There’s digging to be done!

I’m wondering how my rhubarb is but visiting it would involve negotiating a spiky, impenetrable jungle of thistle, nettle and teazle and will have to wait for another day.

Just had a friendly visit from one of the recipients of my harvest earlier who’d come to thank me again and see what I’m up to. I showed her round as far as is possible and asked her to tell me if anything my side of her fence ever causes her a problem. She assured me she’s very easy going. “if you enjoy it that’s everything”, was her comment on my preference for digging rather than rotovating

3pm – Just made some coffee and snacked on broad beans- it’s a long time since breakfast – thunder is rumbling (as well as my stomach) and rain seems more determined than earlier today. It’s time to go home.

unaided progress

28th June 2007

I’ve felt I’ve been absent for months and on returning this seems to be evident. One of the advantages, however, of working with living media (as opposed to paint/canvas etc.) is that it continues the process of creativity without me…

…a blackbird carrying a lump of white bread as big as its head just flew into a patch of nettles and bindweed to the left of me and now to my right there’s a young bird in my potato bed being fed by its parent…

…I’m quite sure my allotment neighbours must all despair at my lack of desire for control within my plot, but they can’t deny its fruitfulness. When I remember a couple of months ago I was waxing lyrical about how I would miss the wildness if I ever eventually manage to control it, the chances of this ever becoming an issue are laughably microscopic.

Anyway, for the first time this year (apart from a few radish) I am harvesting – broad beans, endive, chicory and more radish