Skip to main content

The Queen and the Worlds Biggest Caterpillar

Today, we are mostly hitting our head against horticulture. Hmmm. We are not the Queen.


Today, I am hitting my head against horticulture. What to plant in the veg patch to make it gloriously productive and wonderful through winter. And if I plant it, will it survive anyway? The potatoes have gone and an early frost nipped the corn. I have stopped picking the beans and hopefully the last ones will fatten up to produce some very superior kidney beans, for very superior bean salad.

Then what? I think that various oriental things such as mizuna and mustards might be the thing, and spinach sounds promising, but it is all terribly experimental. I am going to put in some exciting garlic varieties and I have scored some rather jolly looking flower sprouts from Suttons. Like mini pink and green cabbages, I hope they taste as good as they look.

I also have a big box of bulbs from De Jager, which is extraordinarily exciting. De Jager does big bulbs as standard and in the spirit of getting what you pay for, bigger really is better. (As I discovered with some chunky Acidanthera that I got from Avon Bulbs last spring. My track record with summer bulbs is dismal but these ones worked and hope springs anew). I really, really want to get planting but it will have to wait until the weekend when I will vanish in a flurry of fritillaries, a nest of narcissi, a...um....posse of paperwhites? [enough! Ed]

Anyway, it is going to be good.

The picture above is a particularly awesome caterpillar that Isabella and I found on Sunday. It was vast and hairy and handsome and everything I admire in caterpillars. According to the internet it is a Fox Moth but if anyone knows different then do say so.

Listening to: Well, the soundtrack in my head is Oasis’s ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ which is an improvement on much of their recent work and a lesson for us all. In real life, the last thing I heard which I liked was ‘Big Red Combine Harvester’ at my offspring’s harvest festival, which we sang with enthusiasm all the way to school.

And there was some dire, miserablist wailing from my daughter’s stereo earlier, with some fellow claiming he needed ‘love CPR’ which must go down as one of the most rubbish lines in history. Trouble with some bands is they think such claims will make them sound sensitive and interesting (don’t start me on Scouting for Girls). Which they may, if you are pre-teen or take medical dramas seriously. Not me on both counts.

I think such chaps should wake up, smell the substance abuse and start smashing guitars. If your Rolls Royce is not in the swimming pool you are not doing it properly. So there.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Different View

Sharp angles and offset rhomboids: Heligan in Winter I woke up this morning convinced that it was late. The light was grey behind the curtains and the room was silent. Reluctantly, I looked at my phone and discovered that it was in fact early. It has been a busy few weeks, but walking up the road, the magnolia buds are suddenly swelling in furry promise, and lilacs pertly tipped with green;  Crocus tommasinianus have appeared where there were none. Acer griseum and white-barked birches stand bold, in full knowledge that their spare charms will soon be overwhelmed with spring. Time has passed while I was not looking. So as the season creeps forward - and faster it does, when ignored - I am looking back, with a kind of regret. The thing is, that although gardens are considered 'off peak' in winter, there is often no better time to see them. This is the point where they show their true colours and strengths. As a visitor, you can read their geometry and detail without ...
2 comments
Read more

Metamorphosis

Writing a book is often likened to having a baby. And with some justification. There is the giddy conception and whirlwind of excitement, then the warm glow of a contract signed. It then the process starts to lag and become heavier; sweetmeats are deployed to maintain performance – pregnancy, like literature, is an endurance sport. My new book, Published by Green Books, 22nd September  2016 Finally, fat and fecund with promise the manuscript is delivered to the publisher, for supervision and medical intervention if necessary. And, finally, the screaming and anguish suddenly stops. The Author's desk (the buns have already been eaten) And here is where the process differs. After months of to-ing and fro-ing, deliberations about nuanced argument and tone of voice, followed by concerns about stacking words in a column and balanced captions, it is confiscated. They just take it away. To put it another way, it is like watching caterpillars. They eat and eat and eat and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

On The Road

Galanthus 'Fly Fishing' at Bellefield House . My latest snowdrop crush. Back in the dim and distant mists of time, when dinosaurs roamed the land and pterodactyls were frequent bird table visitors, I spent an enjoyable few years managing rock bands. There were headline gigs, support gigs. Mainstream venues and pubs. In some places the PA was state of the art, in others you thanked your stars for the decent size amp in the back of the van. Some nights the crowd was ecstatic. Others, the bar man, his dog and a couple of regulars would sit there, nodding and comparing the band to musicians that had died before the lead singer was born. Occasionally people listened to the first thirty seconds, got bored and went off to get drunk and find someone to sleep with. So it goes. I have just finished a modestly epic tour of the land, promoting The Plant Lover’s Guide to Snowdrops . And, as I pull myself vertical, brush off the debris and straighten out again, there are som...
4 comments
Read more