Hedging my bets

light at the end of the (poly)tunnel

I am not going to write about spring just yet. Even though I have spotted the first daffodil, the magnolia buds are now the size of rosehips, I toasted hot cross buns yesterday and I don’t need my torch on the early dog walk. All that said, I am still wearing thick socks in bed.

The garden looks miserable. All sludgy and spiky and forlorn. I didn’t do any over winter veg so there are just the remnants of last summer’s spoils with a few spindly leeks, reliable stalks of eternally sprouting kale and a bushy broccoli which remained bush and no broccoli. We cleared two of the veg beds last autumn and tucked them up under a cardboard and manure duvet and now I wish I had done this with all of them.

I am an impatient gardener. A bit like the local farmer who starts getting twitchy about our hedge this time of year. It borders the lane and if we don’t sort it out, he does, so there is a competition for us to lay the hedge before he rounds the corner with his mechanical beast of a trimmer and hacks into it. Sometimes he wins. Even though it is our hedge and technically none of his business.

We have so much to do in the garden that I could happily ignore a rogue cut by a pipe-puffing farmer, but Steve is adamant about laying the hedge so every February, without much of a clue about what he is doing, he devotes a weekend to this ancient craft. With a billhook and a deep frown, he tackles the thicket, weaving, pruning and sawing the hazel branches, until a sort of twisted artwork appears along one side of the veg patch. It's quirky but effective and the seasonal commitment has become a marker point midway through winter.

Last weekend Steve got stuck in and I cleared and stripped the heftier hazel offcuts to use for supports in the veg patch; a wigwam for the runner beans, an arch for the sweet peas. In the freezing grey of the day, it’s hard to step into the future and picture the garden transformed, but there is a shift in energy and light this month that makes me get out the seed box and start planning.

When I was in London recently, I visited a community with a vegetable garden and an enviable selection of raised beds, where each harvest was put out on a table to be shared by all. Even when I am not looking for honesty boxes they appear in some form or other and I find it immensely reassuring, not just because it shows a commitment to growing and producing, but that it signifies small, important acts of sharing.

It has reignited my passion for doing my own again and I have been thinking about what worked last year (all the beans), what didn’t (the damned peas) and what can do the dual job of feeding us and filling the honesty box. No surprise that courgettes are at the top of the list. Along with a fanciful idea to get a tiny polytunnel for growing the tomatoes, chillis and cucumbers and as a place to hide/read/drink wine/think about a tricky edit/have a little scream about the tricky edit.

My book doesn’t just look at a mental health crisis and a marriage breakdown, heck no, in cheerier news it also charts our progress in establishing an honesty box, the local and global inspirations behind it and how being in the garden together – and in fact, not together – was a large factor in surviving a difficult year. I loved writing it. It broke me apart a little and then it put me back together and I miss immersing myself in the particular rhythm the book created so it is good to be able to continue it here.

So, how are you all embracing this wintery month? Other than diving into the telly with Amandaland, Am I Being Unreasonable and Miss Austen, I have just finished reading Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, a reimagining of the life of the Bronte sisters, told from Emily’s perspective. It’s beautifully written, expertly researched and carries an atmospheric bleakness that suits February well. It has stayed with me as I squelch through the fields in a shiny anorak and squeaky walking boots, Margot at my side, and think about Emily, her long coat flapping as she strode across the moors deep in thought, with her loyal bull mastiff, Keeper. I bet she would approve of a polytunnel…