This morning, I didn’t exactly bound out of bed like a lamb of remarkable sheen1, but I did emerge in an almost normal fashion. That is, by pivoting and bending, not, as has been the morning routine for the last two weeks, by rolling around and groaning like Big Daddy stuck in a bowl of porridge. This would be a good time for things to get back to normal, because this week would be a great week to do some serious piggie-food sowing.
Gardening is always a story of periods of patience interrupted by moments of frantic industry. The spring transition is always the greater temptation to leap into things early. If you follow lots of gardening folks on Instagram, they will almost certainly be way earlier with their seeds and sowing that you. Don’t worry about this. If you’ve not got your tomato seeds in pots yet, now might be a good time. I see plenty of people who are already transplanting theirs. Mine are just starting to make their first real leaves and they have at least another week until I need to worry about pricking them out.
The one thing that I do like to do earlier than everybody else is to challenge myself to see how early in the year I can have my first plate of potatoes. Last year, I planted some spuds in the greenhouse, just for a lark, and I harvested those in the last week of June.
This year, I have them in a very large pot inside the loft. They’s doing very strange straggly things indeed. I have no idea if they are going to actually make potatoes, but if they do, then I might be able to eat some of them with fresh asparagus. That would be wild!
There is no sign of the asparagus yet, but great news from the soft fruit beds is that the divided rhubarbs seem to be coming, and the gooseberry bed, which I also mucked around with in the winter seems to be doing just fine. The plants I moved are showing signs of life, and the two new bushes, propagated from cuttings, are also giving out “not dead” vibes.
This week, I shall be painting black walls white in order to paint them pink and also on the list is:
clear all the paths and edges from the gate to the loft
fix the ride-on lawnmower and as soon as the weather breaks, get mowing
choppy-chop at least another 3x 200m2 sections, taking us up to 800m2
make some progress on preparing the Pig Move (to summer pastures)
And that for this week, is plenty.
Except to say, please consider telling your friends about this newsletter. My “new subscribers” flow has almost totally seized up and in the last month, I have only had two new humans reading this thing2. I’ve added a “refer a friend” button. It’s new to Substack and I don’t know what it does, but feel free to try it out and let me know
Until next week, my lovelies
The Pirate Ben
x
(and hi to those new Humans - from their email addresses, I am going to guess they are called Lisa and Paula! )