On gardening
Ahead of my second year taking part in the National Garden Scheme, for this edition of Wild Geese Mail I’m sharing my thoughts on gardening.
When I started this newsletter, I said that I would include the odd gardening tip, so for this edition, it’s all about gardening (with a note on property at the end).
I believe that gardening is five dimensional. Gardens are physical spaces which are three-dimensional. An additional dimension is smell, and another one is time. I like to plan ahead. I plant bulbs in the autumn and they come up in the spring. I am always thinking ahead, planning what it’s going to look like and therefore time is a critical aspect.
Old wives’ tales and superstitions are also part of my gardening ethos. For example, you should always plant garlic before the first frost - ideally, this is the end of September/beginning of October. I always plant new potatoes on a Good Friday, despite this moving by up to four weeks in the year. If you want to stop mice from eating broad beans (I am currently losing a battle on this!), you soak the beans in paraffin for 24 hours before planting them in the ground. In my experience, they left one in two alone, which is certainly better than the first crop where they managed to eat all of them! I'm going to try the same paraffin trick with peas next year because the mice seem to work their way through the peas and the French beans.
When it comes to my vegetable gardening, I like colour. So I like to grow black French beans, yellow courgettes and beans. This provides a nice contrast to all the green and they look as good on your plate as they do in the garden.
This year, I'm looking forward to a really good crop of gooseberrys. I’d like to make some gooseberry fool or gooseberry shortcake – I haven’t decided which. My rhubarb has been great, especially as a a rhubarb and strawberry fool made with fresh cream. I find that a crumble or pie can get a little boring.
My garden is open on 1st June for the National Garden Scheme and as well as wandering around chatting to other gardening fans, I'm serving cream teas. The National Garden Scheme is a charity set up to support healthcare charities, including Macmillan and Marie Curie. In Surrey, the gardens that were open last year raised a total of £100,000 for the charities and this year we hope to raise even more.
I am on Instagram if you would like to see more of my garden.
And a quick note on property. We are all waiting with bated breath for the legislation to finally be enacted for leasehold reform, before parliament is suspended for the upcoming general election.
Whilst I'm not involved in the day-to-day leasehold management sector anymore, I am seeing the effects the new fire regulations are having on buildings. It is causing managing agents and leaseholders a considerable amount of cost, time and resources to ensure that buildings are fully compliant. Of course, safety and compliance are of the utmost importance, but this is adding pressure on leaseholders who ultimately have to pay for the service changes which cover these costs.