Digging a hole or two

If ever I would stop thinking about music and assorted sporting activities, as The Disposable Heroes of Hiphopresy almost said, I’d get on and open some seed catalogues. I feel happier doing it now I’ve sorted the plant orders for the coming year – you’ve got to do the big stuff first. After the snow and the big freeze I’ve no idea if I’ve lost one, two or 3000 plants, so I may have plenty more to order in a few weeks. It’ll reveal itself in spring when at least I’ll have a little sunshine to cheer me up if the news is bad.

The weather station recorded -14C on two nights which is pretty special for this part of the world. The snow may well have been the saviour, duveting the ground and the roots below. Time will tell. The cold did bring the fox(es) a little closer than normal – tredding a snowy path through the vineyard.

So, ahead of any additional replacements the spring reveals, these are the plants coming to the farm for planting in the next month or two:

1400 replacement grape vines – thank you, once-in-a-hundred-year flood
750 grape vines for the sweet wine vineyard
30 quinces to extend the quince orchard
60 almonds
2 Asian pears
a few blackcurrants
a couple of jostaberries
2 Mirabelles
15 perry pears
a load of raspberries
140 rhubarb
11 plumcots
2 pears
1 plum
1 American bladdernut
4 edible fuchsias
2 Worcesterberries
1 Crimson Chaenomeles quince
1 Gold Chaenomeles quince
1 Cido Chaenomeles quince
1 Nivalis Chaenomeles quince
2 Chinese dogwood
2 Chinese mulberry
17 Mahonia aquifolium
100 swamp cypress
2 coleworts
2 daylilies
2 ostrich fern
2 Great Solomon’s Seal
2 winters bark
1 snowdrop tree
and 59 sweet chestnuts.

I think there’s more but I’m a little too snoozy to remember.

It would’ve been 60 sweet chestnuts but I forgot I was ordering one for Lia Leendertz, and given that the ordering conversation was in french and my french starts and ends with La vache qui rit. I’m happy to live with an odd number on account of it being a nut. Almost interestingly, the lovely Italian liqueur Nocino is made using rocket fuel and walnuts picked when you can slide a knitting needle into the centre without their shell stopping it. There’s a competition each year in Italy which has two limitations: to enter you must be a woman, and your Nocino should be made using an odd number of walnuts. I’m putting my own vodka-based version into the book – DiacoNocino I think I’ll call it. Some sugar and a few months are all that’s between you and a dark sweet liquour that’ll take your ears off if you go for a gulp rather than a sip.

The vines, all 2150 of them arrive at the end of April and they’re barerooted so we have to get them in sharpish. Me, Trent and two trowels.

A couple of years back Ernst and his team planted 3500 in a morning but they had a clean field (the metal framework the vines grow on went in afterwards) and all the gear to do it professionally. I think it might take Trent and I a little longer.

The other 500 or so plants have to be planted, mulch matted, staked and tree guarded where appropriate in 8 days in March – 8 days being the intersection of when I’m done with the book and when Trent’s here. That’s 31.25 each a day; 4 an hour. It doesn’t sound too hard, but many have rootstocks a good metre or so across so a fair size hole in unploughed grassland for each is the order of the day.

Until then it’s mostly writing and eating the pork rillette made with the five spice powder I made using szechuan pepper from out by the veg patch *polishes halo*

Almost forgot…all this working at home means my contact with the outside world is limited. There’s no time not to be not writing the book and everytime I go to do anything that isn’t write the book I feel guilty. My diet is shored up with dried apricots and rooibos tea. The air can get a little interesting in the office as you can imagine. I open the window. I tweet. I ration my tweeting as my attention span is that of a 2 year old.

I has given me the opportunity of fulfilling a small ambition. I am not shaving. As opposed to growing a beard. Growing a beard implies an active involvement, something more than simply not doing something. I’m just watching to see what’s going on. 15 days now. The longest I’ve ever been since shaving became something more than an optimistic teenage pursuit. I’m wearing a hat too, as extended periods without having to see other people have given me none of the necessary compulsion to tend my appearance in any more than a perfunctory way. I have homeworker’s-hair. Hair and beard means I look a little like Badly Drawn Mark.

I’m sort of liking it in a not-having-to-do-something-I’m-not-that-interested-in kind of a way. I’m going to let it go for a while longer, probably until approaching the Soil Association conference next week when shame will get the better of me. On the Sunday before (I think it’s the 31 Jan) I may offer myself a few hours of free pleasure by shaving it into certain styles. Perhaps inspired by great cricketers of yesteryear. The ordering of facial styles is vital – with a little care it means I could do a Merv Hughes followed by an Ian Botham – although rumour has it that an Australian barmaid has already managed that feat.

Suggestions for notable moustaches/beards welcome.