I’m not really a one for quotes, I find them harder to remember than Latin Plant names! But I do recall one that go’s
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail!”
Apparently, it may, or may not, have been said by Benjamin Franklin.
So, I scrawled down a few notes to work on a new year’s blog as it’s been a while since the last one…(to be continued).

Planning…


There always seems to be an opportunity for a bit of planning with gardening. For me the most intensive part of that is the thinking that goes into the what, where and when of the veg plot. I’ve been growing Veg with Intent for over twenty years now, mainly the intent being to feed the family as healthily as possible. Which is why the veg plot is managed organically. In general, it’s been a success, even the inevitable courgette glut circumnavigated with spiced tempura batter.

Some varieties of some crops will do well nearly anywhere, others need to be matched to the right soil and climate, our potato repertoire had to totally change when we moved to a different soil type in 2012. Variety choice is quite an exciting journey in trial and error…will it grow at all… will it grow well here… will they eat it? Across the years we’ve grown a lot of Heritage varieties, usually sourced via friends, seed swaps, or Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library. Peas, the tall heritage types are one of my favourites. They grow well in our conditions, don’t really cross-pollinate, and reliably grow right through to seed so are easy to save for the next crop. It must be said some varieties have been less popular with the family due to being “bitter” …(apparently). I researched the suspected cultivars and found that quite a lot of the old cultivars were grown for drying. As the seed matures the sugars in them that power the growth turn to starch which is more stable when the pea dries to survive the winter frosts. This is why those decadent Elizabethans started the craze for eating unripe peas! I reported the findings back to the complainants, (apparently) they will try and help more at next harvest time! This quirk of an earlier time actually leads to a more versatile crop which, does not all cop at once spreading the harvest, is tasty fresh when young, & is reliably storable when mature.

Food security & seed sovereignty are increasingly relevant in a changing climate, I thoroughly recommend getting involved in the preservation of crop diversity and home seed saving. After a number of conversations at shows last year, I am I am currently trialling a number of ‘Forget Garden” type perennial fruit veg crops, if these go well they may well join their more ornamental relations on our stall. The icing on the cake is that quite a few of these peas, like Salmon-flowered Peas, have fantastic flowers too.

At the last count I have 22 varieties of heritage pea… and not the space to grow them all. Ensuring I grow these out for fresh seed within their viability time can be a challenge, so I use a big but simple spreadsheet to help. The other aspect of ensuring as continuous a flow of veg as possible is growing varieties suited to different parts of the season and staggered (or successional) sowing. To achieve this in limited space I use a similar technique to Charles Dowding of No Dig Fame. Most seed are sown in reusable root trainers, (then sometimes grown on in 3’’ / 9cm pot’s ) in a cold greenhouse. Mainly this “buys time” at the start of the season while the ground is still a bit cool and unworkable. Later it ensures a second crop is ready to plant out as the first goes over. By the time you factor in early and late type’s, of multiple sowings, of multiple varieties it gets a bit of a management job.

I originally organised my veg by the sowing time on the packet and used the back of scrap paper to organise weekly or monthly. This only sufficed for so long … I typed the packet instructions into a spreadsheet … it sufficed for a bit longer … I realised the packet timings might suit Monty but are not so relevant for the North! So, I did the research on germination temperatures and growth speed to cropping and built a new starting sheet from the ground (soil) up. Then tweaked it over the next 5 years till it was workable. I never usually actually hit all the targets, and a degree of flex is always needed depending on how the weather runs, but maintaining the intervals makes filling the plates and freezer easier.

These spreadsheets, which contain the full method of how they were created, and the information sources, are now up on my website here as Downloadable resources. If you can use them, great; if they work or you tweak them to work, better; if you find any major flaws or have any ideas for significant improvement, let me know.

Pondering…

There are times and jobs in the garden that demand absolute focus, often they involve sharp edges &/or power of some sort. There are other times, like this part of the year, or jobs, like sweeping up, that be accomplished with a degree of supervised autopilot that allows the mind to ponder. I sometime ponder, “what exactly is this gardening thing so many of us do?”. It’s a one that keeps coming back to me, so I watched Monty’s Great British Gardens for clues. I’m in Britain, but I didn’t inherit an estate, so it was visually pleasing, but it didn’t really help. Though it definitely has something to do with a human’s bothering plants, in a particular places, for particular reasons. That particular ponder then drifted off, but I’m sure it will return.

Planning

A certain amount of the planned tasks for this for this year’s cycle has already been accomplished. The Bees & Hive Products page of the website has been updated for the season just past. Details are via the link but the TLDR for here is, trying, very, as it was for many insects last year. The Plants section has been updated with images gathered in the brief times it didn’t rain last year. In some cases it is entirely new images to replace the place holders, in others it’s improvements in image quality or additional pictures, closeups, etc. Plant availability will be checked as they come into growth and updated, probably, in March / April but hopefully before our first plant fair. Plant fairs for 2025 are now all booked and can be found on our Where to find us page, and as events on our Facebook page. We had hoped to add more but after such a poor growing year and some personal stuff to navigate have deferred.

Sometimes plans don’t go to plan. The website updates planned for last winter regarding reference pages relating to Growing conditions got scuppered by an IT failure. By the time that got resolved I was fully occupied with the practical growing stuff and struggling to find enough dry days to check Bees and cut grass. Some of this resource has been set up but not published, the rest of the set of inter linked pages that really need to all go up together are still to compose. Between now and Spring properly springing that’s what I’ll be doing when its too wet or dark. Wish me luck. Because things like this, and writing blog posts take time I’ve set up an Instagram you can find at @crosbyholmegrown, Its far more immediate and I hope to be more frequent on there with updates of both Veg & Perennials.

Far more exciting news is that I have just completed finished the initial planning for submitting a proposal for a Plant Heritage National Collection of the genus Prunella. Prunella (Selfheal) is one of Plant heritages “Missing Genera” with no currently existent collection. It has a native species that is popular with pollinators and grows well in what passes for my lawn, so we have good hopes. The process will take a number of years and will definitely be a journey rather than a destination.

Pondering…

Some stuff in gardening is scientific fact … e.g. plants sequester carbon mainly (60% ish) by means of the carbohydrates in root exudates they use to feed their symbiotic bacteria & fungi, also by dropping decaying organic material (40% ish). Some things are received wisdom from observation, … “Parsnips are the first to go in and the last to come out”. And somethings become more arbitrary the more you ponder them.

Lets take the matter of Parsnips, a Biennial, commonly regarded as meaning ‘takes two years to grow mate’! But here’s the thing, if I don’t dig them up and eat them, they become un-chewable by about March unless you’re a beaver. If I then troubleth them not through intent or neglect they’ll flower (& are great for pollinators), develop fruit (great for birds), and drop seed by about July /August. Late summer is effectively ground zero, or New Year’s Day, for the Parsnip. In the warm late summer soil it will germinate, grow leaves, and store starch in its root until it gets too dull and cold. It will then pull the salvageable nutrients from the leaves into the root and rest, (sleep?) until it perceives it is once again bright and warm enough. Then, if untroubled by the gardener, it follows through by shooting, flowering and setting seed once more. This seed-to-seed life cycle of the humble “Nip” takes pretty much exactly one year. Webster defines biennial as “growing vegetatively during the first year and fruiting and dying during the second”, and we can see this make some sense. But the Parsnip is as heedless of the Gregorian calendar as it is or our arbitrary demarcation of where one “growing season” starts or ends. Biennial only exists in the gardener’s mind! Of course, understanding the Parsnips lifecycle is what allows us to end up with chunky roots … by sowing it earlier than is natural it has time to develop a bigger root before it rests …but by not sowing it too early we prevent the seed rotting before germinating temperatures are reached and stop it chancing its luck and flowering in the same human year / growing season.

In the mind of this pondering gardener, it supports my earlier ponder that gardening definitely has something to do with a human’s bothering plants, in a particular places, for particular reasons! Also, leeks are sown before parsnips, and can be harvested  way after parsnips turn woody at the core.

Planning

I recalled another quote regarding plans and looked it up …
Attributed to an 17th century essay by Helmuth von Moltke you usually see it paraphrased as “No Plan survives first contact with the enemy.” This phenomena was also noted by Robert Burns who noted almost a century earlier that “…The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft agley…”

(…continued from the top) Riding in just ahead of Burns night this year Storm Éowyn changed my plans to write this blog. With Merry Brandybuck (obscure reference!) nowhere to be seen, it placed one of our trees, and one of our neighbours on our powerline, leaving us without power for 5 days, a 20-foot monolith of a stump, and a huge amount of clear-up to do. Our ornamental Salix (willow) were under those branches and had to be severely cut back to below the damage. So while there will be no pussy willow this year my new quote is …’when life gives you Eowyns make firewood, cuttings, and a new garden feature’. Flexibility as well as diversity are key survival strategies in a changing and challenging world.

As a parting tip from this gardener I’ll offer you this; Always make a plan, but only ever use one side of the paper, when, as it aft will, it gangs agley, you can always use the reverse for a shopping list, or lighting the paraffin lamp.

Podcast Coda

As stated in a previous blog quite a bit of garden can be mundane, so I often listen to podcasts in the potting shed. It keeps me both educated and entertained. By way of signal boosting for these shows here are couple more, this time neither are directly related to ‘gardening’.

Escape-Pod

Available here and from most podcast and streaming services. A multi award winning Sci-fi genre fiction podcast established in 2005 with a back catalogue now over two decades long and approaching 1000 weekly episodes. My absolute go-to for short (½ – 1 hr), original, thought provoking Sci-fi. Travel time and the universe while you weed.

Future Ecologies

Available here and also from most podcast and streaming services.  A stunning podcast  “exploring our eco-social relationships through stories, science, music, and soundscapes”. Recorded and produced by a small independent team on the unceded and asserted territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh), as well as the Penelakut, Hwlitsum, and other Hul’qumi’num-speaking peoples
(otherwise known as Vancouver and Galiano Island, British Columbia). BC has a climate similar to Cumbria (damp!) and Iv’e learnt a load about Ecology from this podcast. Episodes are only released when ready, but are usually monthly and about 1hr long. The back catalogue is well worth exploring, extra content is available to subscribers.

Potting-shed podcasts will now be included in our resources pages to compile these listening suggestions.

And Finally…

I just wanted to give a name-check and shout out to the fabulous Mrs Melody Bird. It’s been a pleasure to watch your writing evolve over the last year , I feel a little may have rubbed off on me.  If you are interested in smallholding life, concerned about how our climate is changing and how our children are not being educated in a manner fit for the future they will face please check out her diary over at North East Byline Times.