Category Archives: Gardens

From farm emergency to emergency

June 16, 2016 Andrea Gibbons Leave a comment

I spent most of the morning weeding, but only after the feeding. The lambs were happy to see me, and Sandy is no longer my favourite. Those goddamn docks keep seeding and I have been speeding to lop off their heads and chop them down — I have discovered that the only way to be safe with flowering docks is to send the whole of them to the muck heap as they seed up and down every stem. Every time I look closely at the mulch pile on the raised bed I see the still-living flower heads growing up from the stems I cut a week ago quite certain I had removed the flowers. Wrong.

Lessons learned. Emergency in the making? Just like every hogweed and nettle flowerhead. It is too late now, I should have been doing this a month ago. I should have known better.

And did I tell you the tractor caught on fire yesterday, or was it the day before? It did. Fault with the wiring which is hopefully fixed, and it’s raining today so it should be just fine right? But I didn’t see it myself, so it’s almost like it didn’t happen, still, I am collecting emergencies. There have been infinite and ongoing small ones, but I have set a limit on size and scale you see — so I thought perhaps the milk for my morning coffee getting pinched this morning from the fridge didn’t quite make it into the list, because by after lunch my bitterness had gone.

The rain fell fairly relentlessly so I spent much of the morning in the polytunnel, destroying docks and burdock and mizuna run amuck and creeping thistles.

This afternoon, Leo and I cleaned out the cow trailer with a broom, a brush, and little more than a trickle of water. I remembered the pressure washer with great affection and even longing. Scrubbing and scrubbing and I am so tired. A little after four we went to let the cows into the middle path, but before we could send them through the hurdles we had to rig up, we were swept off to help deal with a proper spectacular emergency as the cows in the far field had got out, and were in the neighbour’s silage field. Off we went to collect them up — it was nice sitting down in a car. Very nice indeed. I had time to remember how beautiful it is here. Then we collected the cows, walked them down the lane (the cars had to stop for us and we ambled along cow-paced and it was the highlight of the day) and into their proper field. Bob fixed up where they had broken loose. We found the two cows we thought we were short, they had stayed in the field. Endless evening emergency search averted.

I wish I had pictures.

Almost 7 we got back and the poor lambs and Sandy and Lilly the kid still needing to be fed.

So. Tired.

Gardens, Smallholding

The lost garden, and hogweed

June 10, 2016 Andrea Gibbons Leave a comment

No baby animals today, the Steiner wonderchild did them (very very slowly, like everything else), but I did get to start work recovering a lost garden. Hopefully I’ll have time to clear it and start some lovely things growing between other chores before I go!

This morning really started with Molly providing some comic relief by standing on the roof of the wood shed:

But then we came to where I hope I will be able to point to and say I left this place better for having been here.

You come to a wire gate alongside some of the sheds, keeping the herbs and veg that once grew here safe from marauding chickens that run loose in the yard.

It’s some time since anyone spent any time down here, as you can see from the passage down to the gardens — though of course these weeds come up so ridiculously fast:

Arriving at the end of this passage is a very long lost garden, a huge undifferentiated swath of nettles and docks and hogweed and others.

This is looking back from the other direction:

The wunderkind began an attack on this later in the day with a strimmer — again, I so so missed the scythe. It is so much more useful as it cuts closer to the soil, apart from the noise and the petrol. You work your way along the edge of this towards a garden a little less lost, a series of raised beds, and bark put down between some of them to preserve the paths. What I also wouldn’t give for the little semicircular blade that would clear the paths…ah well.

Continue further — on your right, and down below you find Lilly and her mean father, Arthur:

You turn left to see six or eight more beds, with a polytunnel behind them needing reclaiming:

The view from the other side:

Quite a task! But first, I had to focus on cutting off all the flowering heads of the dock and hogweed before their seeds were dispersed across the farm.

Hogweed is quite interesting — I missed the media frenzy about Giant Hogweed, imported here from Georgia — this grows over ten feet, sending up huge white umbrels of flowers and its sap can cause horrible burns across your skin that may take days, weeks or years to heal properly.

from the Royal Horticultural Society:

The giant hogweeds are usually referred to by one name, Heracleum mantegazzianum. Research by RHS and other botanists shows that, while this is one of the species, there are as many as four other giant hogweeds at large in Britain some of which are biennial and others perennial. However, when tested all these had high levels of furanocoumarins (the chemicals which cause burning by making the skin sensitive to sunlight) and so all pose a risk to public health.

There is also a native hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium, which will be a familiar plant to gardeners and those who like to go walking in the UK. It can grow to six foot or so when in flower but is nevertheless a much smaller plant than giant hogweed. It can cause rashes and other skin complaints but reactions tend not be as severe as with the larger species.

The giant hogweeds were introduced into Britain and Europe from the Caucasus Mountains in the nineteenth century. The earliest documented reference to their introduction into Britain that has been traced is from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Seed List of 1817 where giant hogweed, under the name of Heracleum giganteum was listed among seeds supplied to Kew by the Russian Gorenki Botanic Gardens. They were soon introduced into the horticultural trade and being aesthetically impressive plants, were widely planted in ornamental gardens throughout Britain. Unfortunately they quickly escaped from cultivation with the first naturalised (‘wild’) population recorded in Cambridgeshire in 1828, and are now widely naturalised as invasive species throughout much of Britain and Europe.

What they don’t note is that the shoots of the native hogweed are apparently quite delicious steamed and buttered. I definitely want to try that. In picking them, however, they are still not pleasant to handle so gloves must be worn. They can’t be strimmed, because that can send the sap shooting across your skin (again a scythe wouldn’t have that problem) with force, which makes it even more painful. They have to be dug out one by one — I didn’t do that today, just walked around the very considerable field that has recently been mowed picking off the flower tops.

Here is some alongside the little bit that has been left as woodland, and where willow grows aplenty for use by the wood and willow-worker who has workspace here.

I picked a plethora, and tiring as it was, I got to explore the far end of the field where I had not yet been (except when I was sitting in the tractor). I found another badger sett! A lone one, but seems to be well used.

The views are stunning, back down across the farm:

Across the other field that will at some point become hay:

It started raining in the middle of this, and has not yet stopped. I did a little more work on the lost garden, but left my ipod in the caravan so have no work-done picture. We have a half day tomorrow, so I will get one then I suppose.

Long day, but a good one. In other news, my last rejection apparently wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was yesterday as I skimmed it over. But I still haven’t been able to read it again myself. Time for all things.

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Gardens, Smallholding

Hens aren’t always good mothers, and planting beans

May 31, 2016 Andrea Gibbons 1 Comment

Long day today, but a very nice one. There has been some drama around the chickens that I haven’t yet written about. Two of the broody hens were given eggs to hatch, and on Friday the chicken eggs started hatching. Not the duck eggs the second broody hen was sitting on — the ducks here are terrible mothers apparently, not surprising given the traumatic scenes preceding the laying of eggs. Though apparently it has more to do with the domesticated nature of the breed. Though it doesn’t look too likely that they have succeeded with the duck eggs either.

The hen started with 12 I think, broke three, and only 2 of the remaining 9 hatched. On Monday afternoon we thought that both chicks had been smothered or predated because they were not in the secure house with the mother. But a few hours later we found one chick with the mum who had incubated them, and another with another of the broody hens. So this morning, we had to set up two (rather than one) secure little houses with runs to allow mums and babies a little privacy and extra safety from jays and foxes.

The calm and competent new mum who rescued one of the chicks:

I couldn’t even get a good picture of the nervous not-so-good-but-trying mum, but her chick is very cute as well and heads this post.

Then it was back to weeding and beans. We planted two more circles of french beans in the broad bean bed. These are white flowering heirloom beans — Cherokee ‘Trail of tears’ and Sarah’s Old-fashioned black beans. I am pretty sad I won’t be harvesting and cooking up these beauties to try them out.

The afternoon was spent digging a new bed for some scarlet runner beans. Two months ago they covered these two beds with plastic as they had been overrun with couch grass and nettles.

We peeled back the plastic enough to plant a new row of beans crowding their seed trays. These are usually just planted into the ground, but the weather has been so strange and changeable the past few years given climate change and all, Rob planted a bunch in trays — and May’s snow and hail I discussed in earlier posts proved he was wise.

The couch grass had died back enough we didn’t need the azada, just a rake to peel it off the top. The nettles though, were well entrenched and required spade work.

We put a line down with this brilliant victorian contraption that I forgot to get a picture of but I will, and then dug out a trench a spade wide and deep

A sprinkle of seaweed calcium balls, some cut up comfrey plants, a layer of rotted horse manure, the old soil raked back over and we were ready to plant. We put in sticks using the trowel as a spacer

In the bean plugs went, mostly scarlet emperor, one per stick.

We planted out the seedlings most in need. Alongside them we also sowed one heirloom borlotti bean which will prolong the crop yielded by this bed as they will be ready for harvest weeks later. When we ran out of seedlings we continued sowing seed directly into the ground, two for each pole rather than one.

I learned that beans climb round the poles counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere, so that is how you should wind and tie them. That is quite cool.

I also learned how to make dumplings — a heaped tablespoon of self-raising flour per person, half that amount of suet, parsely is quite nice though not necessary, salt and pepper, water until it looks like dough, and then just drop them on top of your covered stew for ten minutes.

Yum. Imagine that, with scones and clotted cream and fresh strawberries for desert. A good day.

City & Country, Gardens, Smallholding

Market Day in Tavistock!

May 29, 2016 Andrea Gibbons 1 Comment

Tavistock market day — we were in the pannier market, in use as a market place since 1105 (though this building has only been there for a 150 years). I remember coming here when I was little, remember snapshots of this place I thought was so so magical as a child. When I was 5. When I was 13. When I was 16. I remember best this market, along with the church, the ruins, the Tavy — and yet I don’t really remember the high street at all. Strange.

This is the view at about 7:15 am, we left the house at 6 am and traveled across mist-covered hills to get here.

I also remembered the wondrous lanes with their high beech hedges and the line of trees on the road out towards Lamerton. So beautiful. I wanted to go there, but there was work to be done…and it is very hard to get around here on your own without a car. So that will be saved for another time.

The market has changed from what I remember. Much more that is new (and cheap, though there was lots that wasn’t cheap of course), more food. I remember above all tables of antiques and old jewelry that resembled quite glorious treasure to me back in those days — and there is still an antiques day. I bought a little compass here last time I came — there was almost nothing like that on the Friday when we were selling though.

It was so strange being here as a worker with a stall, selling veg I had picked myself. I wondered how many times my grandmother had wandered through this market, what she would have thought to have found me here.

Why don’t I have more pictures of the stall in its full beauty? I just don’t know.

I enjoyed the work, if not the early hours and the loading and unloading and setting up and packing up and loading and unloading. Most of the customers are regulars. We talked about health and wealth and family plans, growing food, recipes (a layer of banana over the rhubarb in your crumble with some almonds on top to help reduce the sharpness? Interesting). I met a Quaker who travels the world volunteering in conflict resolution processes. He owns a purple bowler, bought from the hatter at the other end. He too had been a WWOOFER, and many of the other customers were eager to know if I were enjoying it and where I was from. Clearly Rob had long-ago explained why there was an ever-changing succession of people helping him with the stall.

Next to us was a geographer and urban planner, who had left work in townships in South Africa and then town planning here in the UK for retirement in Devon, and now sells Spanish olive oils and olives and beautiful vibrant pottery. A farmer on the other side, with homemade jams and marmalade and honey (I bought you jams, mum!) Peter Marshall pops in regularly apparently, who we published at PM and I always thought must be quite a wonderful man based on our correspondence when I was working on his webpage. I am quite sad to find he is away on his boat at the moment. A retired oceanographer who knows James Lovelock. A surprising number of intellectuals have retired around here. It was an interesting mix of farmers and characters and wealthy women wearing extremely well and a very posh man quite interested in the many heirloom tomato plants also for sale.

One old man paused at the blue duck eggs, they make the most wonderful scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted he said with happiness and nostalgia all mixed together. He had to get permission from the wife to get them he said. He won’t be back, said Rob. Rob was right, and that made me sad.

A number of people asked me if the produce was English. Rob takes in a selection of organic veg and fruits from elsewhere for things that aren’t in season here or just don’t grow here — oranges, bananas, tomatoes. Funny how many people after hearing no as the answer to that question did not buy. I wish I had asked them why — I hope it is a question of buying local.

The morning was quite brisk but the afternoon a bit slow. I loved the camaraderie between traders. The friendliness of customers. Talking with one of the other traders as we were packing up, I mentioned it seemed much different than working in a shop, that people recognised you were independent and working for yourself and treated you better. He and others agreed with that assessment, though it doesn’t stop everyone from being really rude.

If they are really rude, though, even your average market stall holder can tell them to just fuck right off. It’s nice.

Also interesting, Tavistock has enough critical mass of people who are willing–and able–to pay a bit extra for organic. Many regular customers have actually come out to visit the farm on open days — and they are the ones who make the stall worth it in terms of income. Holsworthy just didn’t have that critical mass being more remote and poorer, so they didn’t keep the market stall up there, though an additional outlet for the veg would be nice.

We sold quite a bit I thought — though never enough. I met up with mum’s cousin Rosemary for lunch, which was lovely. I went to a herb talk on the dandelion, which I will blog separately because it was awesome. We returned home with far too many broad beans, so we spent a while getting them out of their pods and ended up with this:

Some to be frozen, but many to be enjoyed with butter as a side to some of the nicest vegetarian lasagna I’ve had in ages. A lovely day, though exhausting.

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From here to there, Gardens, Smallholding

From Mines to Market Gardens — The Tamar Valley

May 24, 2016 Andrea Gibbons 2 Comments

Sovereigns, Madams and Double Whites: Fruit and Flower Pioneers of the Tamar Valley is a wonderful book I found in the library here. It emerged from a 2001 project to uncover the market gardening landscape, and is full of oral histories and quite wonderful photographs. It is the story of the long-gone smallholdings up and down the Tamar valley. They were built up and down the steep south-facing hills for the earliest flowers and strawberries.

Almost all of them have now become grazing and farm land, or woods.

There is so much here of England’s industrial and agricultural history that is long forgotten. It is so strange to think of this area as a centre of copper mining, much less arsenic refining, but so it was:

For a brief period of twenty years in the mid nineteenth century the Tamar Valley became the copper centre of England, the river crowded with shipping carrying ore to be smelted in South Wales. However by 1868 the largest mine, Devon Great Consols, was nearly exhausted and metal prices slumped putting hundreds of families out of work. Arsenic refining took over but in turn was abandoned. By the 1930s mining was dead leaving a strange and dramatic landscape of waste tips and ruinous buildings half hidden in lush woodland and intricately mixed with villages, farms, riverside quays and market gardens. (1)

Apart from copper, the Tamar Valley was known for cherry and apple orchards, and had the earliest strawberries in the country — that was where the money once was. Early strawberries and the famous Tamar Double Whites, a lovely fragrant daffodil planted here by the thousands and their remnants now left forgotten in hedgerows and bordering fields. But the market gardens along the slopes here reached their height in the 1950s, when they supported an industry of 8-10,000 people, more than the entire population today. Special tools to work the hillsides were invented (a special dibber!), and diggers to move soil up slopes.

It is amazing to think smallholdings could provide so much work, and that they once sent flowers and fruit all over the country. Somehow it pleases me greatly to imagine early daffodils from Devon arriving to bring joy in Birmingham.

Also fascinating is the role that changing transportation links played in this story. In many ways this agricultural revolution was due to the arrival of the Great Western Railway. It reached Plymouth in 1849 and bridged the Tamar to Saltash in 1859 — before this, the river Tavy had been the main way of transport. But the trains allowed a much faster movement of fruit — allowing it to be sold within 24 hours of picking. Because of the warm micro-climates here in Devon allowing the very early growing of fruit, the possibility of transport opened up new possibilities just after the waves of lay-offs from mining.

In the change to market gardening, many followed the pioneer James Lawry. On a visit to Crystal Palace in London in 1862 (I do so very much love accounts of Crystal Palace), he heard of Covent Garden market. Visiting it, he discovered their earliest strawberries arrived in June, while back home in Tamar Valley their crop was much earlier. Upon learning the difference in price for Strawberries in London as opposed to Devon, there seemed little to lose. He started sending his fruit to a Mr. Israel in 1863.

Lawry helped establish not just strawberries, but also punnet-making, and thus began a thriving networks of smallholdings and associated employment for the whole family.

In 1966, Beaching’s cuts to train services and closure of multiple stations ended what was left of this industry as transportation costs became too high, fruit could no longer arrive to markets within 24 hours at a low enough price. I already felt like spitting whenever his name is mentioned. Of course, globalisation, and the flying in of fruit from countries around the world did not help either.

In 1971 there were still 250 viable holdings, by 1979 only 140 growers left, and the extreme slopes fell out of cultivation for the easier flats where mechanization could be brought in. Now they are all but gone.

We probably won’t be able to fly in strawberries forever, so perhaps this shall be full of smallholdings once again. Interesting thought.

The oral histories are short–a few paragraphs of key memories–but so interesting. Alan Rickard’s father had been to Canada to work in the mines there, then returned to work five acres growing cherries, dahlias, rhubarb, irises, strawberries and daffodils. This was apparently true of many families, John Snell’s father went to the mines first, then Ford’s Detroit plant and then returned home. Almost all of the gardens sold a similar variety, though most seemed to specialise in one or two. There are a few fishermen, who gardened on the side. Others seemed to be more gardeners who fished. A few German POWs who remained after the war. A number are still in the business, generally where their children and grandchildren have taken over — though in large modern greenhouses or polytunnels.

One of my favourite quotes from Alan Langsford:

When I was a little boy I wanted to be a Dutchman when I grew up. [The bulb-salesmen] all wore suits, drove nice cars and didn’t work outside on the land! (142)

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Gardens, Smallholding

Herb gardening, and I use a scythe

May 23, 2016 Andrea Gibbons 1 Comment

Today we worked clearing out a bed of herbs that had been sadly overrun, hard work but most satisfying. The lemon balm smelled most divine. It was a beautiful day today, mostly sunny and warm.

Honestly, there may be nothing I’d rather be doing than working in an herb bed on a day like this.

An overall view of this afternoon’s progress.

I wanted to learn more about herbs in this place, so here a few of the herbs I was working to clear around, the pictures probably give an idea of how much weeding remains to be done. These descriptions are all from Mrs. M. Grieve’s herbal, which I quite love.

Myrrhis Oderata – Sweet Cicely

Sweet Cicely is very attractive to bees; in the north of England it is said that the seeds are used to polish and scent oak floors and furniture. In Germany they are still very generally used in cookery. The old herbalists describe the plant as ‘so harmless you cannot use it amiss.’ The roots were supposed to be not only excellent in a salad, but when boiled and eaten with oil and vinegar, to be ‘very good for old people that are dull and without courage; it rejoiceth and comforteth the heart and increaseth their lust and strength.’

Tanacetum vulgare – Tansy

It is connected with some interesting old customs observed at Easter time, when even archbishops and bishops played handball with men of their congregation, and a Tansy cake was the reward of the victors. These Tansy cakes were made from the young leaves of the plant, mixed with eggs, and were thought to purify the humours of the body after the limited fare of Lent. In time, this custom obtained a kind of symbolism, and Tansies, as these cakes were called, came to be eaten on Easter Day as a remembrance of the bitter herbs eaten by the Jews at the Passover. Coles (1656) says the origin of eating it in the spring is because Tansy is very wholesome after the salt fish consumed during Lent, and counteracts the ill-effects which the ‘moist and cold constitution of winter has made on people . . . though many understand it not, and some simple people take it for a matter of superstition to do so.’

‘This balsamic plant,’ says Boerhaave (the Danish physician), ‘will supply the place of nutmegs and cinnamon,’ and the young leaves, shredded, serve as a flavouring for puddings and omelets. Gerard tells us that Tansy Teas were highly esteemed in Lent as well as Tansy puddings.

Culpepper says: ‘Of Tansie. The root eaten, is a singular remedy for the gout: the rich may bestow the cost to preserve it.’

Prunella vulgaris – Self-heal

The Self-Heal holds an equal place with Bugle in the esteem of herbalists.

Cole, in Adam in Eden (1657), says:

‘It is called by modern writers (for neither the ancient Greek nor Latin writers knew it) Brunella, from Brunellen, which is a name given unto it by the Germans, because it cureth that inflammation of the mouth which they call “die Breuen,” yet the general name of it in Latin nowadays is Prunella, as being a word of a more gentile pronunciation.’

Cole further explains that the disease in question ‘is common to soldiers when they Iye in camp, but especially in garrisons, coming with an extraordinary inflammation or swelling, as well in the mouth as throat, the very signature of the Throat which the form of the Floures so represent signifying as much’ – an instance of the doctrine of signatures of which William Cole was such a ready exponent.

‘There is not a better Wound herbe,’ says Gerard, ‘in the world than that of SelfHeale is, the very name importing it to be very admirable upon this account and indeed the Virtues doe make it good, for this very herbe without the mixture of any other ingredient, being onely bruised and wrought with the point of a knife upon a trencher or the like, will be brought into the form of a salve, which will heal any green wounde even in the first intention, after a very wonderful manner, The decoction of Prunell made with wine and water doth join together and make whole and sound all wounds, both inward and outward, even as Bugle doth. To be short, it serveth for the same that the Bugle serveth and in the world there are not two better wound herbs as hath been often proved.’

Melissa officinalis – Lemon Balm

(My favourite)

The word Balm is an abbreviation of Balsam, the chief of sweet-smelling oils. It is so called from its honeyed sweetness It was highly esteemed by Paracelsus, who believed it would completely revivify a man. It was formerly esteemed of great use in all complaints supposed to proceed from a disordered state of the nervous system. The London Dispensary (1696) says: ‘An essence of Balm, given in Canary wine, every morning will renew youth, strengthen the brain, relieve languishing nature and prevent baldness.’ John Evelyn wrote: ‘Balm is sovereign for the brain, strengthening the memory and powerfully chasing away melancholy.’ Balm steeped in wine we are told again, ‘comforts the heart and driveth away melancholy and sadness.’ Formerly a spirit of Balm, combined with lemon-peel, nutmeg and angelica root, enjoyed a great reputation under the name of Carmelite water, being deemed highly useful against nervous headache and neuralgic affections.

Many virtues were formerly ascribed to this plant. Gerard says: ‘It is profitably planted where bees are kept. The hives of bees being rubbed with the leaves of bawme, causeth the bees to keep together, and causeth others to come with them.’ And again quoting Pliny, ‘When they are strayed away, they do find their way home by it.’ Pliny says: ‘It is of so great virtue that though it be but tied to his sword that hath given the wound it stauncheth the blood.’ Gerard also tells us: ‘The juice of Balm glueth together greene wounds,’ and gives the opinion of Pliny and Dioscorides that ‘Balm, being leaves steeped in wine, and the wine drunk, and the leaves applied externally, were considered to be a certain cure for the bites of venomous beasts and the stings of scorpions. It is now recognized as a scientific fact that the balsamic oils of aromatic plants make excellent surgical dressings: they give off ozone and thus exercise anti-putrescent effects. Being chemical hydrocarbons, they contain so little oxygen that in wounds dressed with the fixed balsamic herbal oils, the atomic germs of disease are starved out, and the resinous parts of these balsamic oils, as they dry upon the sore or wound, seal it up and effectually exclude all noxious air.

John Hussey, of Sydenham, who lived to the age of 116, breakfasted for fifty years on Balm tea sweetened with honey, and herb teas were the usual breakfasts of Llewelyn Prince of Glamorgan, who died in his 108th year. Carmelite water, of which Balm was the chief ingredient, was drunk daily by the Emperor Charles V.

I used a scythe to cut grass for the first time this morning as well! It’s harder than it looks, and although using a scythe I wasn’t actually scything but ‘mowing’ in the proper terminology.

I also did more weeding on a bed of broad beans and some volunteer potatoes, and got one and a half episodes of Night Vale in.

And to finish it all off, I milked the goat once again. I was better this time. Exciting day…

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art, Gardens, Travel

Stockholm, lovely Stockholm

May 18, 2016 Andrea Gibbons Leave a comment

Stockholm has brought us tiny baby goats, Joe Bataan, Nietzsche’s death mask and more Munch paintings than I have ever seen before, an exhibit on Satyajit Ray and Tagore’s artwork, discovering how good the Swedish modernists were, the best boar sculpture, meatballs and reindeer stew and skinksmorgas, medieval alleys, turf houses and farms, the red room where intellectuals and artists once congregated that inspired August Strindberg’s novel by the same name, knowing that the king encouraged every Swedish household to grow their own tobacco, boats, wood-paneled working mens’ bars…amazing trip. I might write more later, but everything in life is going so fast and I am off to a new farm this morning.

Stockholm

From ferries to amazing buildings to food at Kvarnen and Pelikan, restaurants/bars in Södermalm (which is the area I by far loved the most). The red room in Berns. Boats and stick figures, also inlcuding a few pictures of Thielska Galleriet, where we saw: ‘Olof Sager-Nelson and his contemporaries. “Anywhere out of the world” along with an amazing collection of Edvard Munch and Nietzche’s death mask, a bit of Blasieholm as described by Fredrika Bremer…I love this city.

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Gamla Stan

The petrified medieval centre of Stockholm, with wonderful narrow alleys that we went slinking through so as to avoid completely all tourist thoroughfares. It is hell. of. touristy. But quite beautiful when empty, so I was sorry to spoil it for others with my own tourist self.

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Skansen

Stockholm’s open air museum, this I did want to write more about because I loved the ancient buildings. I am fascinated by the process of ripping them from the ground they grew out of to bring them here. We shall see when I write!

There were also baby goats.

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Snus- och tändsticksmuseum

Part of Skansen really, but incredibly amazing place…I will write more about this too, and it’ going into the novel too, but for now:

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Millesgården

Studio and collection of Carl Milles, and most of it was stunning though that crazy array of statues in front of the sea was a bit overwhelming… but I liked visiting a further island by ferry, seeing a bit more of the everyday city. Satyajit Ray and Tagore — amazing.

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We saw the photography museum as well, missed lots of things but hopefully we’ll be back. When we’re both much wealthier because it was by far the most expensive place we have ever been.

City & Country, Environment & Justice, Gardens, Smallholding, Working

Writing Countryside. Also Farming. Day 1

April 26, 2016 Andrea Gibbons 3 Comments

Days are really long in the countryside, especially when you’re not quite used to this work. They leave your muscles aching at the end of them. It is not yet 8 o’clock and I am thinking about going to bed. I have 3 almost-but-not-quite-yet blisters, I do hope they stay that way.

But it is just my first day.

I missed lambing, which made me sad because I do love lambs. Now they are all four weeks old and still hell of cute but a little skittish. Look at them though:

These guys were hanging out next to me while I was mucking out the lambing shed through almost the whole of the morning. I think they hoped I might feed them, or they were just hanging out next to the hay.

I had heard of this mucking out malarky. It is good for instant gratification. Good for your back muscles. Good for bringing out unknown abilities with a pitchfork.

You feel it afterwards though. It was sunny for a while, grey for a while. Then it rained. I was in the lambing shed

It hailed. I moved on to weeding a bank of willows, wild garlic, daffodils and bluebells. The hail was large as you can see.

It snowed a little later on, because hail isn’t slushy, right? But I was eating a delicious sandwich.

Back to work I discovered gloves don’t fully protect you against nettles and those bastards are totally going to win the long-term weeding war given their root systems. Dock is as hard to get out, worms love clay soil, and there are actually tiny centipedes here. Two kinds of ants living secretly underground. Weeding on steep slopes is also no joke. But look at this beauty

I didn’t mind when it snowed later, I was definitely ready for tea.

The sun came out, the snow still fell. This place is beautiful though, especially this view down to the old mill.

A good first day. But hail and snow in April? Hello crazy weather days…

Building Social Spaces, Environment & Justice, Gardens, Health, Sustainability

Starting a Community Garden

March 9, 2016 Andrea Gibbons Leave a comment

To go from gravel covered ground to a vibrant community garden of raised beds is going to take a lot of work, so we thought the sooner we started the better. The 5th of March was chosen and we stuck to it and we had a number of brave and wonderful people brave the weather to join us:

We planned a number of activities so that all ages could participate even at this stage of the community garden, from planting seeds to planting sacks. We set up a few tables in the foyer though, so people could plant some seeds to take away and grow food on their windowsills, and if possible to bring us back a plant or two that could grow and flourish here.

The sack planting was a bit chilly but very cool, and tomorrow’s post will be a complete how-to on how to make your own. They are very useful ways to grows vegetables in small urban spaces like balconies or a little patch of paved garden.

The key learning, however, is that it is not too early for strawberries.

The main things for Saturday, however, was to build one of the large herb beds we want to set alongside the path across the Precinct site, so people can pick fresh herbs for their meals as they walk from Cable Street to the Limehouse DLR and back.

We started with the large but fairly flimsy structure that our first load of firewood was delivered in. To get it in out of the first drops of rain, I had already sawed this in two as you can see:

To shore up those flimsy sides we broke up two other pallets (given to us by a wonderful foreman name of Gary running a building site off Commercial)

And screwed it all together:

At that point it started to hail. We brought it all inside the hub.

Paint doesn’t usually last too long on outdoor beds, cracking and peeling with sun and rain and, er, hail. But we have gallons of marine paint left over from painting the trim on the containers and that is much more resilient, so we went ahead and used that to paint our first herb bed. Half orange and half turquoise.

It isn’t the best paint to use inside and in enclosed spaces, but we made do…

We’ll be lining it and filling it with wicking materials to conserve moisture despite the windiness and exposure of our site, then soil and plants, probably also adding a bench to make it somewhere people can sit and enjoy the fragrance once it warms up a bit. Looking at it, I wonder if it doesn’t need a few more planks and a little more solidity, but we’ll be keeping some of the spaces as things will grow as happily out of the side of it as they will from the top. We’ll be posting another how-to once it is all done, but for a first day this was absolutely lovely and we got so much accomplished.

Best of all, I think, was the time we were able to work outside and chat with people on their way through who just came up to to find out what we were doing, to say how happy they were that this vacant piece of land was finally being put to a community use, and even just how much they loved gardens. It really felt like we were creating a sense of community then, and gave us a good taste of what will be possible when the sun is shining and people are looking around for things to do outside…

I’m going to end this gratuitously with a puppy, Nala is the Precinct Art Space’s newest tenant and made Saturday even more wonderful than it was before. Along with always having strawberries, may we suggest trying to find a puppy to join you…