The thing about gardening is that you have to be “in the mood” and when I got up on Wednesday of this "Chrimbo Limbo" week, faced with the prospect of another day of reruns of Minder and The Sweeney forcing me to an even earlier start time for my early doors sojourn to the Fox, I was definitely “in the mood”.
The trouble at this time of the year, of course, is what to do and so having dug out the December issue of Kitchen Garden and taken my copy of Arthur Hellyer’s Gardening Bible off the shelf, I retired to the reading room for inspiration.
The extent of what is possible each month of the year is reflected in the number of pages offered up by Arthur in each of the appropriate chapters. For example the busiest gardening period is in the Spring, March (31 pages), April (34 pages) and May 33 pages). For December, Arthur can only come up with eight, of which one and a half are on digging, trenching and sterilising your soil which hardly inspired me to rush up the allotment armed with spade, watering can and Armillatox.
However, as I read on I was reminded that it was not too late to sow onion seed and sweet peas and that my fruit trees and grapevine should be pruned back earlier rather than later.
Armed with seed packets I ventured out to my greenhouse for the first time since the snows.
First let me describe my greenhouse(s). It is not a traditional clean cut free standing aluminium and glass structure.
Several years ago I built a 5 x 4 timber and plastic lean to structure to the front of my garden shed. About six years ago this was extended with an 8 x 3 DIY lean to along the side, and last year by a proprietary lean to structure on the front of the original. I like to think that it has a bit of character, which, in estate agent speak, equates to the fact that the corrugated plastic roof, leaks. Not much under normal weather conditions but when faced with torrential rain or an extended period of snow, it struggles to cope.
So when I slid open the door I was greeted by three very wet rooms. In order to dry them out sufficiently to work in I would have to carry out the annual ritual of the switching on of the greenhouse illuminations, not quite in the same league as Blackpool or Great Yarmouth, but nevertheless always, for me, an exciting time.
Having succeeded in turning on the power I checked the most important item of equipment in any greenhouse, the radio - OK, the two lights - OK, the two greenhouse heaters - both OK, and finally, having dried off the thermostat sufficiently enough for it to operate, the centre piece of the display, the 4 x 2 heated propagator.
Predictably I was, as I am every year, greeted by a loud bang and tripped fuse.
Unperturbed I set about repairing the damage and eventually had things working and the greenhouse drying out and in a condition ready for my seed sowing.
Now, as most of you are aware by now, I didn’t get where I am today by doing anything that can be put off until tomorrow, so having convinced myself that I had done enough for the day I retreated to that last bastion of conversation, the public bar of the Fox to engage in some intellectual and thought provoking debate (and a pint or three!).
It went a bit like this:
