Testing testing....
Yes I'm still here. Still gardening. A man possessed by a hill.
The longer I've left this writing, the more gagged up its become, like Krakatoa about to blow blue moons of word-dust into the stratosphere...
Hopefully the words will flow freely soon.
Rabbits and slugs are individuals but come in hordes. I resort to those little blue pellets of death for the slugs, until the plants are big enough to feed them, but the only solution for rabbits is a fence.
Rabbit rabbit.. Once they have found your little eden, they will think about it constantly. They think with their teeth. Some like succulence, others the bitter or resinous. They will try anything once. Between them they are a disaster. The top end of my hill is a desert of scrapings and stripped saplings.
Planet Rabbit is worse even than Planet Sheep.
Fencing was a reluctant resort. One reason is the thought of using the 'bonker', as we call the heavy tube of steel, for knocking in the posts. At Fachongle we try to work together, or at least on projects that benefit the general good; on Fridays, and thus managed to enlist help. I will try to reciprocate this by bringing home the first early potatoes. They are one crop the rabbits were ignoring..
But now the wire is up, I have my garden back.
The prodigal garden.
I could bring my seedlings out from the cold-frame, and roll up the fleece. Am seeing the plants for the posts and the plastic again.
Eventually I will make some gates, but for now, use my upturned wheelbarrow as a stile. At first I checked the perimeter every day like a prison guard in World War Rabbit.
Things I have learned...
I planted broad beans and carrots too early, yet again. It's not worth the seed or the disappointment. My first broad bean seeds took the local mice through those starving early months of spring. I met a few in my hut this year, when their dawn nibblings drove me too, and they were darlings.
I learned that part time gardening is hard. The sun would suddenly turn out after delinquent days in a cloud, and cook my precious seedlings in their precious modules in their plastic bunkers. The sowing and nurture of seed is green maternity. I still mourn my fried mange tout like stillborn children...
I learned tricks too. Am clumping greens and roots, and early crops. Getting away from single lines. Leaving space for later crops, especially for the carrots under their protective fleece.
I saw Justine planting seeds last week from a saucer. It makes such sense, to measure the seed for a row into a container from which to broadcast it. A half sown row leaves you feeling stupid. Seed is
so expensive. Buy it loose if you can. A friend of mine bought beetroot seed from the local Farmers Coop, and it was embarrassingly cheap. The best deal otherwise I find is Franchi seeds. I have not yet had a packet of seed from them yet that runs out half way through a row...
The garden though is just a bit of it all. Of this twelve acre hill. I found by looking at an old map that its old name is Allt Wen. Wen is white, or holy.
I have been joining it up, making paths between the megalithic outcrops, and clearing small areas amongst the bracken, which will spring into a pool of bluebell next year. Along the way, I meet trees that I already planted. Some, like the Rowan, are thriving, others need to be rescued from the malicious scratchings of bramble fronds and the smothering of bracken. Something magical is unfolding before me and inside me.
After years of cattle and scrub and fire and bracken, my tree planting and paths and scything feel part of a shared healing and reawakening.
