A View From (Adjacent To) The Greenhouse; Rivers Of Blood….Innit?

It’s easy to get a little bit despondent, especially if you spend too much time focusing on the stories of doom and gloom that are drip fed to us, on a daily basis, by the bought and paid for MSM. It’s nice though to take a step back and do something different. Something which can, even if only for a short while, reinvigorate the mind and provide a little bit of hope for a future which can, at times, seem just a little dystopian. The year one and two pupils at the local Primary School are doing some work on the topic of “Living and Growing” and I recently had the pleasure of hosting a small group of them in the greenhouse. They were all bright, interested and inquisitive and they showed a real interest in both the plants and the process. They each planted a bean in a small pot to take away with them and they each got half a (washed) strawberry. An hour, on a dull Friday afternoon, that’ll live long in my somewhat failing memory. They were particularly taken with Burt, asking all sorts of questions, especially as to why he needs to wear glasses. I blamed it on his age, which (eventually) got a laugh. They were also impressed with the nettle fertiliser. “It smells like pooh” they said in unison, which gave us all a laugh.

I planted some kohl-rabi in the greenhouse last year, with very little success, but I thought I’d give them another go in one of the outside raised beds. It’s possible I may have planted them a little too close together (a common error of mine) but they are starting to fill out now and the colour’s very impressive. I’ve no real idea what I’m going to do with sixteen of them, apart from eat them in one way or another. It may well be that one of them forms part of my entry in the “Flower & Vegetable” (compatible size) category at the village show. Watch this space!

A poor image, I know, but the sun decided to make an appearance for half an hour and I got a little bit giddy. The peas are a “heritage” variety called Hurst Green and they’ve taken a very long time to germinate, but I chose them for both the promised flavour and their “hardiness”. Although I had my doubts early on in the season and I even “double planted” when the first lot failed to materialise, I think they’re going to do well. Pods are appearing and all the plants seem strong, which is just as well, given the buffeting they’ve been subjected to in recent weeks. I’m looking forward to tasting them, that’s what it’s all about!

The broad beans, which I started off in pots before transplanting, are providing any amount of pods, although I’m a little bit disappointed in the number of beans per. I planted Bunyans last time around and they were very prolific, with seven or eight beans per pod. This heirloom variety (the name escapes me) is yielding fewer, but they are good. I’m hoping to be able to combine them with the peas, before too long, in a simple vegetarian risotto. It’s always a pleasure when we get to the “plot to pot” stage of the season.

There’s been a real dearth of butterflies about this year and, more worryingly, bees. I suppose the weather has much to do with it, but you know what they say about every cloud having a silver lining? I started four cabbages off, from a packet of seed a neighbour had left outside her house in a “help yourself” box last year. I did try a couple last year, but a combination of my over-watering and the voracious little green offspring of cabbage white butterflies saw them make their way to the compost heap, rather than the table. Any road up, I have four fine specimens reaching maturity and at least one of them will be good enough to show. Fortunately cabbage freezes well, too, so there’ll be a decent supply to see us into the winter, as well as some to make a bowl or two of coleslaw. I’m not too sure how well cabbage soup will go down, but I may give it a go. You never know!

The old vine is doing very well, as is the new one. I can’t make up my mind whether to take the easy route and juice all the fruit for freezing or try to make the grape jelly again. I’ve harped on about this before, although my reader may not remember, but following the first successful attempt I’ve never managed to get a set since. I’ll probably stick with the juice, we’ll see.

I don’t know for certain, because I don’t keep a diary (maybe I should) and if I did I’d probably keep misplacing it, but I reckon by mid July 2023 we’d have been almost sick of eating bruschetta for tea and stewed tomatoes for Sunday breakfast. Happily though things are slowly taking a turn for the riper. It’s obviously a personal taste thing, but fresh tomatoes, marinaded in a splash of decent olive oil, a dash of cider or white wine vinegar, with a pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt and a soupcon of black pepper, served up on some nice toast with just a hint of garlic and topped with a couple of torn basil leaves is one of my favourite things to eat, especially when the main ingredient is fresh picked and you know where it’s come from. It’ll be soup time soon enough, but the summer’s for bruschetta!

Whatever the trials and tribulations of tomato ripening, the cayenne chili plants are beginning (after a slow start) to exceed even my wildest expectations in terms of fecundity. The only fertiliser I’m currently using on them (I have used tomato feed previously) is the nettle “broth” and it really seems to be doing the trick. I think I mentioned last time around that the nitrogen in nettle promotes healthy leaf growth, over fruit, but I’m seeing little evidence of that. I have put a dozen or so banana skins in the large butt, for the potassium, maybe that’s the secret. Every day’s a school day!

The yellow pear tomatoes (somehow I’ve ended up with five plants of this particular variety when two was the number I thought I’d germinated) are also doing well. They add a bit of colour contrast to the bruschetta and cook down well with the mixed breakfast tomatoes. They’re not my favourite eaten raw, the skin’s a bit tough and the flesh is quite soft, but you can’t have everything.

Following the brouhaha in Harehills and the somewhat less destructive but somehow equally disturbing events in London at the weekend I’m guessing I’m not the only one whose thoughts turned to Enoch Powell and his now infamous “Rivers Of Blood” speech. Although, to be fair to him (and I’m certain we should be) that isn’t quite what he said. His actual words were;  “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood'”. It’s easy to see how both the media and his political enemies, even in those days, would end up both misquoting and demonising him, but the essence of what he said was correct, as we increasingly see it playing out on our streets. The details of what started a night of rioting in this particular part of Leeds are still open to some conjecture, but, aside from that it’s pretty clear that the sizable Roma community, who’ve made it their home, were at the centre of the trouble. Having said that, once the “fun” started others from the wider immigrant community, showing scant regard for the law of the land and the wider community, were more than happy to get involved.

There are estimated to be over 100,000 “Roma” living in England (mostly immigrants from Eastern Europe), although, given the porosity of our borders, nobody really knows . Large numbers of adults within this community are unemployed. As with other ethnic immigrant groups, “multiculturalism” isn’t something they really buy into, although we’re supposed to embrace the concept of it, regardless of whether or not we too know it’s a political fantasy and regardless of whether or not its impact on our lives is negative, which it frequently is.

Thankfully, there were no “rivers of blood” (this time) but the incident, in which a bus was set on fire and a police car was overturned, shines yet another very bright light on the failure of successive governments to deal properly with immigration, both legal and “irregular”. We’ve allowed so many people (not just from the Roma “community”) to come here who have little or no intention of integrating into society on any level beyond taking housing, schooling, medical care, benefits and the time of interpreters (the NHS alone spent over £100million on interpreters in 2019-2022). Many can’t speak our language and clearly have no intention of learning. As their numbers grow and they become more politically active, something we’re seeing more and more evidence of, the challenges we face as a once mostly homogeneous society will grow with them. Politicians tell us to “live and let live” and not to overreact, but they don’t live in the ghettos their policies have created and they don’t pick up the bills when they come due. The average wage in Albania is IRO £700 per month, In Romania it’s IRO £400 per month, making our benefit system a very attractive proposition for many. I don’t know what the answer is, I fear we’ve crossed a Rubicon, but I do know that if something radical isn’t done, and very quickly, it isn’t going to get better anytime soon. This Labour government, unless I miss my guess, will achieve nothing in this area beyond exacerbating an already out of control situation. It’s a mess.
 

© Colin Cross 2024