Comedy parsnip, anyone?
I dug these up this morning, the last of our parsnip crop from 2021. The large one is a good, big and chunky handful, the smallest enough for a modest Sunday lunch portion. Most of the parsnip crop has been stereotypical parsnip shape i.e triangular of the isosceles variety, but a small handful have been quirkily artistic in their growing method. Of course, they wouldn’t get past supermarket standards but my goodness they taste amazing, and all in all I have been very happy with the crop. I’m always secretly thrilled with any parsnips I grow because they can be notoriously difficult to germinate. The first of the crop were lifted at the beginning of December so we’ve had almost three months’ worth. Still harvesting chard, and some purple sprouting broccoli is imminent proving the pigeons don’t get it first.
I’m really looking forward to this year’s growing season. My only mild irritation is that not all the raised beds are full of ready-to-go compost. Our compost bays have worked hard since we moved them and have provided some good stuff. But not enough stuff. If I want to be at full growing capacity this year, what I really need to do is order in compost in large quantities.
In theory, this is a good idea and would immediately ease my mild irritation. In reality, there are logistical issues to this plan. For the compost delivery would be dumped on our driveway and then it would need to make its way to the raised beds which are, location-wise, about as far away from the driveway as they could possibly be.
Picture the scene: huge pile of compost dolloped on driveway. I am attendant in wellies, gloves, a wheelbarrow and spade to hand. I load up the wheelbarrow. I push the wheelbarrow up the drive and around the corner of the house to the courtyard, then negotiate small raised step onto the courtyard. I wheel the barrow across the courtyard and…
…get stuck because I now need to negotiate 7 narrow steps upwards to get from the courtyard up to the middle garden. They are NOT steps built for wheelbarrows. I know. I’ve tried. An empty wheelbarrow is doable. One loaded with compost is not. Not without sustaining personal injury anyway
I suppose I could transport the compost up in bucket and/or garden trugs. Once I get up the steps I have to walk up the middle garden (there is a slight but noticeable upwards incline) to the top garden where, at the very back, are the raised beds. There would be a lot of walking up and down. How many bucket loads of compost constitute a tonne? I envisage it would be an all day job. It would burn many calories. I probably wouldn’t be able to move the next day. It could be done. But…
Other options are:
1) get the compost supplier to deliver the compost into the field at the top of the garden. This would rely on the farmer being agreeable to allowing access and the delivery lorry being agreeable to dropping somewhere beyond kerbside.The compost would be physically nearer the beds BUT I would have to negotiate a barbed wire fence and holly hedge to get it into the beds. Unless I developed a very strong and accurate throwing method
2) I could employ someone to move the compost for me. However, in my heart I know I could move it myself and employing someone else would be tantamount to laziness, and one thing I am NOT is lazy
3) I could NOT buy any compost but merely hop over the barbed wire/ holly hedge barrier into the field and er, dig a hole or two or three and er, appropriate the diggings of the holes into the raised beds. I mean, the farmer wouldn’t notice, would he? Not if I did my digging under cover of darkness, and covered my tracks with carefully arranged brambles and other assorted undergrowth?
4) I could stop being in such a mad crazy rush to have eight fully working raised beds this year, take my foot off the pedal a bit and accept that full veg production at Damson Cottage might not happen for another year or two yet, until the compost bins have had time to produce more of their black magic. After all, I’ve still got three beds filled, and a new rhubarb bed and some hops and a fig tree to wrangle. And an ever-spreading fruit cage AND plans for increased flower production. And some new strawberry plants to make a new strawberry bed, goodness knows where at the moment. There will be plenty to keep me busy. I could be thankful, come next Winter, that I didn’t have eight beds growing all at once.
Standing amongst the beds the other day, I felt happy they were there, ready and waiting, and that, in the fullness of time, they WILL all be productive. I also noted that there is space between the raised beds and the compost bins to add four more raised beds, now that the chicken run has been dismantled because the stupid chickens prefer living up a tree. Four more beds, eh? Making 12 altogether. Closing my eyes now I can see how it is going to be.
And it will happen - in time.
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KJ