So Long And Thanks For All The Picked Strawberries

Have salad will travel

First, an apology. In my previous blogpost there was an erratum - I stated that “60% of the British population are active followers of this blog”. This should have read “0.0006% of the British population are active followers of this blog”. Therefore the conclusion drawn in that article, that the line subsequently advocated in the post on how to vote in the EU referendum would have a substantive and conclusive impact on the vote itself, was also erroneous. I must apologise to any of you who had drawn false comfort, or in fact false fear, from the belief that Britain would choose to remain in the EU.

This, in case you have just woken from a long coma and the first thing you have done is check my blog, did not happen.

The first turnips of the season!

Instead we have lurched into the unknown. We are the first country in the EU to decide to quit and no one is quite sure how to do it. We've lost a Prime Minister. Pictures of Boris Johnson looking perturbed are everywhere. Things could get pretty weird over the next few months.

My salad bag delivery round happened to fall on the day of the results, last Friday, so I was able to glean people's reactions to the news as I went. Some were dejected, one woman said she felt as if there had been a death in the family. One chap exclaimed “well that was a shock wasn't it!” to which I retorted “Yes it's a sad day for Britain” assuming by his comment that he had hoped to Remain, but the opposite was true - he said he is a firm believer in Britain being able to stand by ourselves. The shock must have been that there were enough similar-minded people to cause it to happen.

From right to left.. Anna's car, my car, and a farmer's car

Interestingly a referendum in the UK has no legal force. Things actually get decided by Parliament. So it is technically possible for MPs to vote down the “Leave the EU” Act that Mr Johnson will put before them at some stage. I'd love to see the look on David Cameron's face if they did. But do you think those other EU nations would happily re-open the door and allow us back in as if nothing ever happened? They are

all rather cross with us right now and probably will remain so for a good long while.

All this topical gumph leaves me little room to explain how I ended up meeting a Bishop in full white bishop-regalia, mitre and crook included, in a tiny rural church. He had been leading an “ordination” service in Bangor cathedral only the day before, turning ordinary folk into priests, so it must have seemed quite a contrast then to be at this little church in Llan with a matching tiny congregation, on the very periphery of his diocese, with a long-haired and bearded English hippy playing the reed organ. But nothing seemed to faze him. All in a day's work for a bishop I suppose.

Should We Stay or Should We Go

Just climbed a mountain. Glaslyn lake is in the background

Tomorrow is the day when the UK decides whether to stay in the EU or leave it. A big day. The results of this referendum will impact us all in ways that both campaigns have been trying to varying degrees to elucidate and quantify. Yet who really knows what will happen with either outcome?

There are those who say that remaining part of the EU is like clinging to the side of a sinking ship, and others who say that leaving it would trigger its collapse. Some maintain that Britain would be a weaker country outside the EU with less global clout (notably Obama and other world leaders). Others insist that we would stand on our own two feet as the world's fifth largest economy and be able to forge closer links with emerging economies.

Then there's the plethora of other factors that should be considered if we did snip the knot - will big companies desert us? Will house prices plummet? (About time, perhaps.) Will regulations protecting the environment and labour rights be scrapped? Will we all have to start picking our own fruit if the Eastern European migrant workers aren't allowed in? Will our economy simply implode?

No doubt a lot of you have got rather desperate at the lack, so far, of any advice from this blog author on which way to vote tomorrow. As even conservative estimates say that 60% of the British population are active followers of this blog, the next paragraph or two will in all probability determine the future of our nation.

Will I, as a (very) small business-person, be advocating Leave so as to rid ourselves of all those ridiculously burdensome EU rules that simply make it almost impossible to conduct trade for a profit? On the other hand, will I as a (very) small farmer be calling for us to Remain so as to ensure the continued annual receipt of subsidies through the Single Farm Payment?

Well, as neither the burdensome rules nor the subsidies actually reach me in any way, I am able to call this one with a free conscience. I suggest we all vote as I voted a few weeks ago by post:

Yes, let's stick with those pesky mainland-Europeans. We are Europeans too, believe it or not (the Channel only cut us off a blink of geological time ago.) The EU needs reforming but we should stay involved and work together to reform it. We would not do well as an island-fortress. Being part of a large bloc gives us all more of a chance to counter the ever-increasing global force of China, and of the huge multinationals who seem to be wresting ever more power from democratic governments (eg ISDS in the TTIP negotiations). And Britain staying in will give other countries less of a reason to quit the EU. The more we work with, talk with and trade with our close neighbours the less chance there is of a descent into armed conflict. Let's stay in.

Another One Bites The Dust

Anyone tell me what this is on one of my lettuces?

It's the one certainty in life, other than taxes. We hear about it every single day on the news. We are the cause of it for all the creatures and plants we consume, as well as the many insects we swat, squish, accidentally step on, flick off our shoulders or clap between our hands (or attempt to). And yet if you're reading this, you've never actually experienced it yourself and for most of us the very thought of going through it is, well, almost unthinkable.

Death. It's quite the fashionable subject around these parts. The local priest chose it, with apparent trepidation, as the subject for his sermon. It must have been on his mind as he had three funerals to conduct within the space of a week. A “Death Cafe” is being run on an occasional basis in Machynlleth, which advertises itself as an “opportunity to discuss thoughts and feelings about death, dying and the end of life times in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.” And the monthly “Pub Philosophy” group's topic this time was also death - “Why Should We Fear Death?” the question posited for discussion.

My asparagus are long and thin

This latter meeting was one that Anna and I decided to attend. It was our first time at Pub Philosophy. I'm not sure I have ever sat around with a bunch of people talking about our own deaths before. It generally isn't considered a polite conversational gambit: “So, how do you feel about your approaching demise?” It was very interesting to hear people's different opinions, expressed openly and honestly. I was put on the spot a little as the group leader knew I am a Christian and would therefore have an expectation of an “afterlife” which most of the others did not. But even with that hope of something better, the sheer unknown-ness of it still makes death an unnerving prospect, to say the least. 

A vacated blackbird's nest, hidden in one of my firewood stores

Having a forum to talk about your own death does at least make you think about it for a bit as it forces you to consider what you should be doing with the life you have. When you're in the middle of living, trying to cope with all that life throws at us, the end of it all can seem remote, even abstract. If someone close to us dies, however, we may be suddenly hit by that brutal no-longer-there nature of death and our own eventual demise might seem more tangible. We'd then perhaps be grateful for having a local Death Cafe to talk it through.

So, a cheery blogpost this wet Wednesday. Next week, taxes.

Quinoa!!

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Welsh Market Garden

Early morning in the polytunnel

The heatwave continues. Soil is parched and cracked. There have been ten whole days of bright sun and no rain, temperatures in the shade regularly over 20 degrees. We hear of floods in France with bemusement. How can Wales be so hot?

My evenings have been taken up with hours of watering, filling up the watering can from the garden-bath countless times, taking it to where I feel the crops might be thirstiest. The soil swallows the water fast. It's better to water deeply than sprinkle it widely so the water sinks to the roots, but this takes time. One 10-metre bed can take 20 or 30 minutes. I have over twenty beds - do the maths! It's not possible to water everything, especially as I have the polytunnel to water each evening which can take at least half an hour.

Portioning the rhubarb

With the sun, warmth, and the occasional water, the plants are responding. Walking past the broad beans of an evening is a sensory delight - the sweet fragrance fills your nostrils, and the buzz of the bumble-bee tickles your ears as it samples each black-and-white flower. In the polytunnel the pea plants are a riot of intertwined stems, leaves and tendrils reaching for the roof and covered in multi-coloured flowers and, hurray, pods! At the other end of the tunnel by the thickening stems of the sweetcorn, the nasturtium and borage are now producing their flowers, some of which have already been plucked off and popped into a salad bag.

But inside the polytunnel lurks an intruder.

My first delivery of firewood... to a close neighbour

Every day in there I find plants pushed upwards by something burrowing underneath - I have to bend down and push them firmly back down so the roots aren't dangling in air. This happens all over the polytunnel. Radishes and chard seedlings have been killed. I'm sure growth of larger plants must be checked by the disturbance. I've laid mouse traps with peanut butter as bait at the entrance to tunnels but whatever it is has spurned them - so it's not a mouse. Large plastic bottles with the tops cut off have been buried halfway along a tunnel in the hope that the rodent will fall in, but they've avoided them so far.

It could be a mole - or possibly moles. The holes seem quite small for a mole though. Whatever it is, I'd like it to go away now. Please?

Sunlight streams through the conifers of the Dyfi Forest

In The Grand Veg Scheme of Things

The polytunnel peas and broad beans are doing their thing

Three months ago today I arrived back in Wales to begin the growing season, and today is also the first day of the veg box scheme! This first week I am supplying the three r's : Rhubarb, Radish and Really nice salads.

It's something of a knack to judge each week not only what crops are ready for harvest, which is the easy bit, but also how much of each. Every Monday Katie will be expecting each grower to text her by 10am what is available and how many portions. I wander round the garden, eyeing critically each veg bed, trying to count roughly how many plants or leaves or stalks are big enough, and in good enough condition, to be picked and sold on the Wednesday. I have to err slightly on the conservative side because if I over-promise and under-deliver, some customers will end up with not enough veg - A Bad Thing.

I then convert this to a number of “portions” per veg - e.g. 8 radishes make one portion, so does 450g of rhubarb - and text Katie. This week it's 15 portions of rhubarb, 5 of radish and 5 salad bags. She then texts back whether she can take all of what I offered or only some, depending on what everyone else has offered (she's taking it all this week). And then on Wednesday morning it's the big harvest, packing and delivery session.

Marshmallows and bonfires - a match made in heaven

This normally takes quite a bit of effort but this week unusually I will have a helper! Anna is now in the area, having moved up last week from Pilsdon community to a terraced cottage in a village a few miles from here. Fortunately for me she loves gardening and so she has already spent a while planting some of my kale and cabbages. In return I have been assisting with filling her unfurnished house with things to sit on, eat on, sleep on, keep clothes in, and keep food cold in.

Today not only am I delivering the three r's to Machynlleth but we're also taking the trailer to collect a second-hand washing machine from Llanwrin. These things are not built for ease of lifting. By the time you read this, either the machine will be installed and happily making sloshing noises to itself, or it'll be on its side somewhere on top of one of us.