So How Did That Happen?

So now I’ve been the proud owner of a fully up-and-running polytunnel for a whole month. And I’ve learnt one or two things.

The first is – it works! It’s amazing. And I love it. I know it’s only a tiny polytunnel, and I’m not exactly going for self-sufficiency, but I can certainly see the potential.

Because I was so delayed, due to bad backs, dog walking, work, age, life …, I was worried my polytunnel might look a bit pathetic for the summer. This is not exactly scientific, but I shoved in what I had got, which wasn’t much: tomato plants I’d been given; an aubergine and a chilli I bought and a knock-down price from a local garden centre after they’d done their best to kill them; four melons (which promptly died) and about six squashes I’d grown from seed, and a few runner beans and peas (also grown from seed). To fill in the enormous gaps, I put in the old staple of nasturtiums, on the principle that they look pretty and are edible, and would keep down any weeds until I’m ready to plant my winter crops of carrots etc.

And then I got busy. Not on polytunnel stuff, but work and life. And somehow, without me even looking, a jungle has taken over in there. I’m still amazed. Halfway up a Welsh mountain, this makes such a difference! I keep on looking at the weedy specimens I’ve kept outside as a sort of control group, and the huge, lush things inside, and I just know that me and my polytunnel are going to be happy for years.

Just one or two things to get sorted. The first is an irrigation system. I didn’t bother when I ordered the polytunnel. I had romantic visions of me and my iPod wandering out each evening to uncoil the hose and water peacefully, in between pulling out a few weeds and picking the odd tomato or so.

Okay: hands up. It doesn’t happen.

Well, it does most of the time, but uncoiling the hose is a faff, I still haven’t got an outside tap, and watering in the rain (and up here in Snowdonia we have serious amounts of rain) after a day of dodging showers, driving through puddles and getting drenched while walking the dog, is not exactly my idea of fun. There are warm sunny evenings when it’s a nice way of unwinding from work, but I think an irrigation system might be better. And then there’s the question of what I do if I go away. Not even a whole polytunnel of tomatoes might lure my neighbours or cat sitters into getting out the hose every day.

So an outside tap and a simple irrigation system, plus timer for holidays, is my next priority.

But these are just teething problems. And in fact, although I was disappointed about not being able to get into full swing this year, it’s actually been quite good in that it’s given me time to get to know my polytunnel and understand its potential and what might work best for me, before I start serious planting.

I’ve now added a few lettuces (also half-dead bargains from the garden centre), and I’m going to plant salad stuff from seed (rocket, yum!) to keep on cropping through the year.

And maybe I’m relaxed about this because the veg box has started again, so I’ve lots of lovely organic, locally grown, freshly picked and dug up veg every week. And am I glad I resisted temptation and didn’t plant courgettes. I love courgettes, but there are only so many one woman and one dreaming-of-non-veggie-sausages dog can eat.

This week I also found a jam-making pan in the local charity shop for £5, while doing my usual root around. I was about to go out and invest in a new one, so I quickly grabbed it with both hands. There’s lots of lovely fruit out there at the moment.

Time to start trying my hand at jams and chutneys!

The Comfort-Lover's Veg

This is my veg box.

I did start to grow my own veg when I first moved into my house. Great beans, rubbish carrots. When I became ill, that was the first thing to go. And by the time my energy was coming back, I had discovered the wonderful local farm which grows everything from potatoes and leeks, to tomatoes and sweetcorn, with the usual assortment of squashes thrown in.
Which leaves me with a dilemma. I want to grow my own veg, but I’d be growing the same things at the same time as the farm, and I fill my freezer with veg stews and soups as it is. Plus the veg in this veg box is about as fresh as you can get. Everything is dug up or picked the day before you collect, and you can’t get much fresher than that.

Okay, so it’s a fifteen minute drive away. But, like most people who get their veg there, I’ve gradually joined forces with others who live near me (i.e. within walking distance), so usually no one collects every week. Veg share. If I gave up the veg box, there would be plenty of people to take my place and not let me back in. An eighteen month waiting list of people at the last count, and I’m not going back to the end of that queue. No way.

So I’m not giving up my veg box. Despite never quite knowing what’s coming next, the weird squashes and vegetables you’ve never heard of and haven’t a clue what to do with, and curly kale coming out of your ears when it’s in season. And Jerusalem artichokes, which, in my opinion, should be allowed nowhere near polite society.
Sad to say, this is my last veg box but one of the season. This veg is so fresh the boxes only appear during the growing season, from May to January. Hence a freezer packed full of stews and soups to carry me over the lean times when it’s a return to the supermarket or a scurry round the health food shops in search of an organic potato fix. It would, of course, would be exactly the same with any veg I tried to grow here in my garden. In fact worse, because I’m higher up and on much poorer soil to start with.

So I think I’ve just talked myself out of digging and watering and the eternal non-chemical war with slugs. Or maybe not. I was thinking of getting a greenhouse, and pottering about with a few tomatoes. But now I think I might be brave and go for a polytunnel instead. A small one, of course. I like the idea of its own little eco-climate and growing things like grapes and melons and experimenting with the slightly more exotic. I assumed that all polytunnels were of the strictly commercial variety. But apparently not. They come in all shapes and sizes, and I’ll still have room left for a few fruit bushes and trees and an a home for three or four ex-battery hens. (If I get that far). And keep the flowers, of course.

So that’s my plans for the spring sorted out. Which will have to wait as there’s no way I’m digging in soil that’s only just recovering from being snowbound and deep frozen for the past weeks. Meanwhile, I shall do the winter thing of staying in the warm cooking up lots of swede and carrot and potatoes with a few leeks into a big pan of soup for next week. The best packed lunch in town!

And I know spring is on the way. This week, I only had my own veg to collect for once, so I walked down the little track to the farm, on the principle that every walk can be a dog walk and with a youthful collie the more walking opportunities the better. We strolled back with the veg in my arms, dog sniffing happily in the undergrowth. It was one of those still winter evenings when you can just smell spring in the air. A pale sky stretched above us, laced with the black branches of trees. A bird was singing. Can shopping possibly get better than this? Then I discovered that funny thump, thump noise was the sound of me leaving a trail of potatoes behind me in the mud....

Perhaps it was as well there were only the squirrels there to see the ensuing scrabbling about in puddles in the dusk, and they had other things (as in dog) on their minds.

Right, time to cook that veg and have another go at making yoghurt. I was all set last week, but as everybody up here in the mountains had been snowbound for weeks, last weekend was when everybody caught up with each other. It was like Christmas all over again, which was great, except by the time all the visitors had gone, so had the milk. So I had the rest of the chocolate and a glass of wine instead.

It’s still raining outside, up here on my bit of mountain, and plain nasty. So soup and yogurt-making, here I come.