Boiling
A post from 2012 in memory of that unique man who was my Dad…
Gardeners, I’m learning, see things in a different way to normal people.
An ordinary family meal is imbued with more tension than a Christmas episode of Eastenders as I watch Mr Mandy Sutter boil to buggery the broccoli nurtured over past months. And he has cooked all of it.
‘We’ll never eat all that!’ I cry. ‘What a waste!’
Mr MS is a wily creature. ‘I’ll eat it tomorrow. I like cold vegetables.’
Mr MS is a wily creature
As he well knows, I’m out tomorrow visiting a stately home with a friend, so whether he eats it or not I’ll never know. But I keep quiet. I appreciate his saying something that saves face on both sides.
At the stately home, the slant view of the gardener resurfaces. Despite fascinating history and a beautifully restored interior including two ‘Yorkshire Rose’ windows and a carved stone head of Charles I, my friend’s and my interest is at best polite.
When we get to the gardens however, its a different story. ‘Oh! Oh!’ my friend cries amidst apple and pear trees. ‘It’s no good, I’ll have to move house. I MUST have an orchard.’
What arouses my passion is the compost heaps. There are four. Four! Imagine. And all at different stages of putrefaction. Next to them stands a large chicken wire drum full of dead leaves.
Magnificent
I’ve heard tell of leaf mould and its soil enhancing properties but it has never felt personal – until now. This drum, with its darkening coppery strata, is a vision. I long for beauty like this at our allotment and that night I hardly sleep. Yes, I know. But the leaf drum is easily installed the next day with wire and bamboo canes and is magnificent.
There is something else I long for. In Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic tale The Road, father and son walk a long road through a blasted anonymous landscape armed with little more than a tarpaulin to sleep under. Listening to the audio book ‘the tarp’ is mentioned so often that I become mesmerised by it. Never mind the searing insight into humans’ capacity for good and evil that McCarthy offers, what I take from the book is the desire for a tarp. I could keep the compost heap warm with it.
Dad and I take a trip to our local garden centre. In the greenhouse section, Dad fingers a tarp. ‘£14.99 for a plastic sheet? You’ve got to be joking.’
My heart sinks a little. But then Dad hasn’t read the book. The garden centre has a camping section so we go there to see if the groundsheets are cheaper. They aren’t.
‘Let’s go for a coffee,’ I say to Dad, resigning myself to a second trip to the garden centre after I’ve dropped him back home.
But on the way out of the camping shop, I notice something in the waste bin. It’s a large piece of thick plastic that on closer investigation has been used to wrap something big. We take it to the sales desk. ‘Can we have this?’
The chap there has already heard about our compost heap. ‘£48 please,’ he says.
‘How much?’ Dad’s mouth falls open.
‘Go on, tek it,’ says the chap.
We deliver a shocked laugh of thanks and scarper with our placcy prize before he changes his mind. In the coffee shop we take a window table.
‘It was nice of that chap to let us have it for free, wasn’t it?’ I say, trying as usual to manipulate Dad into showing warmth towards his fellow human.
But Dad, in his turn, is always trying to temper what he thinks of as my gullibility. He turns the corners of his mouth down. ‘Makes you realise how much money they must be making on the ones they sell for £14.99.’
I sigh inwardly. ‘I’ll get the coffee, shall I?’
Pushing the boat out
‘Hang on a minute love,’ says Dad. He peels a twenty from the wad in his pocket.
‘We’d better have some lunch. Mine’s a fish and chips. With garden peas. Have whatever you fancy. After all, we’ve just saved ourselves £14.99 haven’t we?’
I smile and join the queue at the counter. I’m grateful for the treat. I’m grateful too that we’ve got the tarp. At least we’ll be alright when the apocalypse comes.
Illustrations by Janis Goodman
The Reluctant Survivalist? Love it as always. You ROCK!
And sometimes it really is the view from the garden that takes your eyes off the wonderful displays of plants, Mandy. On a recent visit to Hidcote Manor and Kifsgate Court gardens in the Cotswalds I kept returning to gaze at the distant hills and sheep in the valleys although the gardens themselves were quite beautiful. Hidcote make their own manure for the veg. garden by keeping two lovely pigs – George and Ed -named after George Forrest and Edward Wilson, two famous plant hunters.
Thanks, Kathy and Marion. I love the idea of keeping pigs for manure. Chickens would be great for that too. I’m working towards it!
Hey Mand. I like that you’ve got Gandalf involved too – his staff clearly visible by the magnificent picture – to multiply by magic the quantity and efficacy of your compost and leafmould. Your credulousness in the matter of Mr MS eating reheated kale the next day is very touching, and can only be commended.
Mandy, I stumbled across your fabulous blog 2 days ago, and have been reading it at every opportunity since.
I thank you, thank you, and all the people who comment, for giving me the best laughs i have had for many a long day!
I too am a grower…I started a cut flower farm in March this year in Somerset, so can sympathize and identify with your toil on the soil!
I have been so busy with the flower growing, that my dreamed for veggie garden has taken a back seat, having not had the time to clear the groung for it. Then last week, my parents came to stay, and my Dad made me five 8x4ft raised beds. He is 76 and still a whiz with the power tools and hammer and saw. Now i just have to get soil to put in them(!). Better be quick, if i’m to have a hope in hell of getting anything into it!
Keep Blogging, it is a joy to tune into.
Mandy
John, thank you for bringing Gandalf into it: how delightful! I hope other Tolkein characters will now feel free to make an appearance, especially Orlando Bloom oops I mean Legolas.
Mandy, thanks for your lovely comments. It’s great to have a new reader! I take my hat off to you for entertaining the idea of veggy beds as well as your flower farm. Good luck with the soil: I’ve got 2 new raised beds in my garden, and the topsoil that came was strangely sandy. So some things have refused to grow. The strawberry plants love it, though.
Oh what I’d give for that amount of SPACE. As you know we have a tiny tiny garden ( conveniently terraced – Not ) but we always manage to have leaf mould due to the front of the house being opposite a small woodland, Every Autumn we dutifully clear up all the leaves & stuff them in big placcy bags & stab holes in bags ( VERY therapeutic )then put them at the bottom of the garden where something has been dug up & leave them there till Spring. But due to lack of space they have to be distributed in Spring before we can even think of planting /digging etc – but I’m sure your Dad would be proud of this resourcefullness !! Great story – yet again .
Charmaine, top marks: it sounds as if you are putting every square centimetre of your garden to maximum use. May your leaf mould multiply and your terraces teem!
Ah! Fond memories of the garden centre on the road linking Ilkley and Pool…I can’t remember its name…was that the one, Mandy?
As always, I love and enjoy your blog. I do remember this one, thank goodness – the old brain is still ok, it seems!
With much love,
Aaaange
Hi Ange, yes that very garden centre is indeed the one and not so far from where you used to live at one point. When I think of your old house there I think of Skippy and Fable practically wrecking the place!
Thanks so much for your loyal readership – it means a lot.
Xx
The rhubarb looks magnificent – and your writing is!
Thank you again John – it’s great to get a kind comment from you as always!