Summer update: Notes from a small garden.

Posted on by celfypridd

 

DSC_5212 (2).JPGIn January I wrote …”Thinking back over the 27 years since we moved into this house I always think of mid-January and February as months when the ground is so hard with frost that it was best to plant Garlic and Onions in advance. Garlic needs a period of cold as does Rhubarb. Now I’m worrying that the ground is so wet that the Garlic crop which is beginning to show will rot and the weather has been so mild that Rhubarb has begun to sprout which is not a good sign at all. Our hardy Leek crop has started bolting too. All of which raises questions about whether the changing weather patterns will lead to these crops being unviable. So much for global warming and the benefits of a Mediterranean climate! No doubt growers will adapt but what other changes will the unpredictability of our weather bring? I planted 13 black currant plants from cuttings I’d taken from our mature bushes and have been concerned that fruit buds have developed in the absence of cold weather. The problem this brings about is that when the flowers show too early there’ll be no bees and other insects to pollinate them. Disaster. The apple trees in our small orchard are not showing fruit buds and there’s still time for some cold weather to slow things down. We juice most of our apple crop which provides us with apple juice for the year. I know that apple growers across the country are getting a bit twitchy because of the prolonged mild weather and the risk of an entire crop failure. Its changes like this and the repercussion for anyone growing vegetables and fruit that has been absent from any discussion about climate change. ”

Well find ourselves this summer with an orchard of sixteen apple trees and of these only two developed blossom and fruit buds. Unfortunately the two that showed blossom were second year maidens so that I took the blossom off to allow the tree to use its energies for growth. But for the first time in twenty years we have no apples of our own and no fruit juice will be bottled for the coming year. Has the fruiting cycle of our entire orchard turned biennial? Or is the continuous wet and mild climate bringing factors to bear that is changing the fruiting cycle? I shall be waiting anxiously to see what the coming autumn and winter brings and whether we shall see out orchard in full blossom! Our neighbours report exactly the same from their gardens and I’ve met people from other areas including London who also report barren apple trees. Could it simply be a common problem of mismanagement a bumper harvest last year and no thinning of apples so that the tree is exhausted and unable to support fruit buds? Or is it a combination of all these things?

Meanwhile I brought in the garlic crop yesterday. A relatively sunny break after days of rain. The bulbs are smaller than  last year and I’ll clean and hang them in our stables which is shady and airy. I noticed quite a few had started regrowth. So again concerns are raised about whether our years supply of garlic bulbs will store well. On top of this an absence of bees of any kind. In my mind change in our climate is occurring. How we adapt our growing to this change is going to be key.

Repatriation

Posted on by celfypridd

 

He stood in the darkness of the C-130’s hold

Time seemed to have stopped a minute so slow

Waiting in the silence for the men outside to go

They’d come dressed to honour their friends

Standing to attention to give that last salute

To the fallen in the coffins draped with union flags

 

He watched the flag lowered slowly to the ground

He stood to attention and listened to the padre’s words

He’d watched men stood stiff and heard the bugle blow

Holding themselves together for that final show

Carrying each coffin into the planes hot steel hold

The ramp was raised and that  silent blackness again.

 

RAC

Remembering “Le Peste”

Posted on by celfypridd

 

Do you hear?

The warning bells

Ringing out loudly.

Can you not see?

The beacons flaring

Or the alarm called out

Can you not hear?

Is this a contagion?

That leaves people blind

Unable to hear lies

Or prevents the smell

Of putrefying corruption

That once upon a time

Would make us vomit.

A disease that stops

people hearing

The bland hypocrisy

The use of words

That have a completely

Different meaning

Marking a different

Hidden intention.

Was this plague

Carried by the fleas

Of the rats swarm

Or was it carried

On the west wind

By the Jet stream

That cold high mistral

Blowing wild across

The Atlantic sea

And moved through

the continent

A malignant spore

That eats at our hearts

So that we feel nothing

So that we no longer

Feel anything at all

So that the dictators

Breed and grow fat

Like maggots squirming

In the warm fetid stench

of the carcasses sodden

slow smouldering decay.

And when the alarm

Rings out “the plague”

Has set on our land

Is loose in our world

We mistake the bells

For the weddings toll.

Is it the nature

Of this disease

To turn one thing

Into another kind

So that we are pleased

But do not see

The blight of our

Mistaken judgement.

And we all march

To the drum beat

Of that old song

“Work makes you free”

And so the hours stretch

To pay the bills

So that one job

Becomes two or three!

When will the children

Be required to work?

The clock chimes

Backward in its block

And no one lifts

A straightened finger

of the left hand

to put the pendulum’s

measure in its place,

and open people’s eyes ,

to see the gored butchers,

slice the life’s breath

from our short lives.

I hear you say

The contagion

Is just gadgets

And electronic wizardry

That urges us

To look the other way.

And tells us only

When we have more

Will we be really happy.

Is this a contagion?

That leaves people blind

Unable to hear lies

Or prevents the smell

Of putrefying corruption

That once upon a time

Would make us vomit

And arm ourselves

Against such a threat

In fierce determination.