Return to 1998 SPRING Index
| There Are Better Things In Life |
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It was our original intention in this article to deal with some of the rather disturbing news items concerning Man's treatment of Earth, its other inhabitants and his fellow men. From just two of our leading newspapers we had clipped articles with beguiling titles thus: "Birds perish as farmers drench fields in poison"; "Designer dairy foods straight from the cow"; "Three per cent of patients become infected in hospital"; and "Passive smokers face doubled risk of heart disease".
All good stuff, no doubt, for anyone deeply concerned about the environment to knead together to make an article illustrating greed, cruelty, and stupidity in varying degrees. Then the thought struck us (we were planting our "first-early" potatoes at the time which is always conducive to deep thought) : why not write simply of some of the better things in life?
We had just come home via the local beach, on which we had observed several hundred Brent Geese feeding at the low water mark in the company of many smaller wading birds. As we paused for a moment from our labours and listened to the wood-pigeons at their Spring courtship, a pair of herons flew low over the oak trees on the south of our land and a cock pheasant called nearby. Surely now was the time to be thankful that at least here in Southern England, on the edge of the New Forest, we still had a Spring which was far from being a "Silent" one.
Our smallholding consists of a parcel of land of approximately two and three quarter acres (1.1 hectares) with a bungalow and various outbuildings. The land is divided into three paddocks for sheep, a smaller enclosure attached to the goat accommodation, and a kitchen garden. This last comprises of three plots for the rotational growing of potatoes, peas and beans, courgettes, onions, winter greens and leeks, and seven raised beds each approximately four feet wide and thirteen feet long, for bush tomatoes, saladings, shallots, squash, spring greens, garlic and anything else which benefits from deep soil and close planting cultivation.
Winter is the time for reflection, assessment, and a browse through the seed catalogues. We always promise ourselves that the mistakes of the previous season will not be made in the following one and, in fact, this works quite well except of course for the unforeseen minor disasters such as moles wreaking havoc in newly prepared seed beds. However we are still able to grow all our vegetables, and freeze enough summer crops to last us through the winter. We are particularly pleased with the frozen store this year as both pheasants and wood pigeons, despite the very mild weather, decided that our cabbages were more attractive than acorns or other wild food. Fortunately leeks, parsnips, and swedes did not figure on the birds' menu but we did add the birds to ours which just about evened the score.
Spring is always a very busy period for us, as the actual growing season is rather brief particularly for those warmer climate crops such as tomatoes, courgettes, and runner beans. Even on the South coast it is by no means unusual for us to have frosts during the first week in June and this can mean hurried draping of growing plants with "plant protection fleece" about sundown and removal of it next morning.
Fortunately as we are only growing for our own use and because we like a wide variety of vegetables, and seek to eat them when young and fresh, each planting or sowing is fairly small. Most years we have found that this makes it possible to avoid the hazards of late frosts, but we were caught in April last year by a particularly severe and unexpected frost which did considerable damage to our early potatoes. They were planted in a covered raised bed but the cover was really not adequate: so we ate new potatoes two weeks later than usual, and we are resolved to do better this year.
One of the most intriguing aspects of growing a fair amount of one's own food is the enduring hope that next season will be better and that those crops which have possibly done not too well, or have even failed completely, will next year produce really bumper results. During a recent conversation with an old and valued friend who is recovering from heart surgery in a quite remarkable fashion, we commented that we were pleased to learn that his son still grew some of his own vegetables. "Oh yes" came the reply "He still does a bit of digging and his son does too." Our friend, who is now in his eighties and works a full week in his old established family business, went on to say that he felt the planting and growing of your food crops gave you hope for the future and something to which to look forward.
Timing the planting carefully also ensures a good supply of fresh produce throughout the summer and well into the autumn. We plant enough broad beans, peas, and runner beans to freeze for the winter and these are most useful to add variety to our normal winter crops of greens, parsnips, swedes(rutabaga) and leeks. Our squash crop, carefully harvested and stored, normally lasts us from September until the beginning of May.
The total area of land we cultivate is quite small, some 60 feet by 54 feet, but we have kept it at a high level of fertility by heavy mulching with compost made from cleanings from our goat shed, pony droppings from an adjoining field, and of course every possible sort of surplus vegetation and usable household waste. Some years ago we bought a powerful garden shredder, mainly to chop up gorse tips and similar items to render them more easily eaten by our goats. We thought it would be a modern and easily used substitute for the old time chaff-cutter, and we knew that crushed gorse or furze tips were at one time much used for cattle feed in the New Forest. The results are greatly appreciated by our goats as a winter feed especially when there is not much other natural greenery available; but it is for the garden that the shredder has proved to be most useful. Items for composting are put through the goats if edible, otherwise they are put through the garden shredder if possible, and then it all ends up in the compost heap.
Apart from the improvement to the texture of our somewhat sandy soil and consequent better water retention and easier cultivation, we have the satisfaction of knowing that our vegetables and fruit are grown in land that has received no artificial or chemical fertilisers for at least a quarter of a century; and, to use a saying we picked up in rural Wales, "they do not taste of money".
Footnotes
Early potatoes: the best we have tried so far has been "Accent", we are growing it again this year and are also trying "Rocket". Click to return to article
Gorse tips are classified thus in David Mackenzie's book Goat Husbandry :
Starch equivalent 8.9%; Digestible protein 2.2%: Dry matter 51%: Mineral state adequate: remarks: Young gorse tips are
palatable and more nutritious. Click to return to article
Easier cultivation: we recently purchased one of each type of hoe (four in all) made and sold by the Chillington Tool Company of Haywards Heath, West Sussex. Their sturdy construction and ease of use together with their effectiveness makes us wish we had tried them years ago. At the end of the season we hope to report further. Click to return to article
