An (Algaes’ Eye) View From The Greenhouse; An Civil Society….Innit?

I may have mentioned (I could check back, but I can’t be bothered) that we had an early harvest of small, not very tasty and far from sweet strawberries, following the early warm spell back in April and May. The same plants also put out a profusion of “runners”, far more than I can ever remember in the past. Me being me, I did begin to despair of getting a decent fruit or two, but I needn’t have been concerned. I’ve been picking between ten and fifteen lovely ripe fruits on an almost daily basis for a couple of weeks now, and they just keep coming! I’ve taken sixty potential new plants off the runners and I’m storing them hydroponically (in a tray of water) as replacements for the plants that aren’t doing much of owt. Happy days.

Got a bit of a shock the other morning when I turned up at the greenhouse to find Burt had gone AWOL and his twin brother Algernon (Algae to his pals) had been asked to stand in (geddit?) for a week or so, while Burt went off to “find himself”. This perplexed me a bit, mainly because I hadn’t known either that Burt was lost, or that he had a twin. Any road up and when all’s said and done, a scarecrow’s a scarecrow, so I didn’t make too big a fuss. Not that it would have mattered too much, Algae’s a dour fellow, one of those “strong, silent” types, with a permanently turned down mouth, who suffers from a rare condition which makes him very sensitive to any form of spoken instruction (hence the ear defenders). Sadly for him, Burt (I’m guessing people in his line of business have a feel for the weather) had chosen his time away well. By the time Burt got back on the job Algae resembled a drowned rat, who abruptly abandoned his post, leaving only a hastily scribbled note for Burt; “Thanks our kid, but next time, get somebody else, I’m used to broader horizons”. It turns out Algae’s a cornfield type of fellow.

We’ve had the first feed from the broad bean, I made a “green” risotto all from the garden (apart from the rice, the stock, the seasoning, the butter, the oil and the cheese) using baby leeks and chard stalks for the ‘soffritto’ and broad beans, a couple of pods of peas (still little joy on the pea front), half a dozen finely sliced, young mangetout and some shredded fresh mint. Very tasty it was, too. It isn’t the first time I’ve made it, but it is the first time I’ve used mangetout as an ingredient, they certainly don’t take anything away from the dish, so it probably won’t be the last time I make it this way. What I won’t be doing, as nice as they are, will be planting quite so many of the “eat all” pea variety!

I had considered giving the leeks a good “thinning out”, mainly because it can be a bit of a faff when they get established too close together, but I’ve found that if I take my time and replant the smaller ones that I disturb without compromising the roots, I can naturally spread them out and make use of the slightly larger ones when I’m looking for a milder onion flavour. Not revolutionary, I know, but, as the saying goes, every day’s a school day!

I bought the netting primarily to protect what was going to be a full patch of brassica, but in the end I only planted a single row of a “sweetheart” type cabbage so found myself with space to finally get some runners and other climbing beans going. It’s been a slow start, but they’re coming along nicely now. Sadly neither cabbage or actual beans will be in evidence for the village show (watch this space, show edition in a fortnight, I’ll bet you can hardly contain your excitement) but I’m hopeful of plenty of both for the freezer, come September time.

For all the ups and downs there have been, and there have been more than enough downs, I’m very hopeful for the carrot patch. I probably mentioned that growing carrots in close proximity to onions is an old gardening trick (I found out about it earlier this year). It seems to have worked, all the onions, more or less, are doing really well and the carrots, which I’ve yet to disturb, appear mostly to be doing very well. The Chantenay have been slow to germinate, as have the parsnips (neither in the picture), but the ordinary carrots and the ‘mixed’ variety all seem very healthy. I’m thinking now I should have maybe thinned them out, but this is a first for me. Looking forward to seeing the results.

The lone courgette (see last edition) is now in the ground and seems to be thriving, although it isn’t of a size quite yet to allow it to be ‘trained’ onto the frame. The majority of the earlier planted capsicums are now starting to flower, with a couple of this particular variety producing fruit. Not having the foggiest idea of the type, the first taste (something of a ritual now) may well be quite interesting. Any road up, there should be plenty for both chilli jam and the newly developed (they’ve gone down quite well) pepper relishes. I suppose there’ll be a glut come the end of the summer, but that, as they say, is (greenhouse) life.

Nervousness is my constant companion where both the larger “salad” type tomatoes and the San Marzano are concerned. Although we’re now achieving both height in the plants and decent size in some of the fruits, there’s little hint of any ripening just yet (twelve days to showtime!). A nice extended spell of warm, sunny weather would be beneficial for this process, rather than the “sunshine and showers” (apologies if this offends anyone) that seem to be dominating current weather patterns in this part of the world. I suppose it’s payback from the Klimate gods for being a “denier”. I wonder if I could get Packham, Milliband, Vince’ or one of the other Klimate Shamen to lift the hex, just for a fortnight, like?

The simple dictionary definition of “Civil” is: “relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns, as distinct from military or ecclesiastical matters”. Having cleared that up, I thought I’d offer up what I believe to be Algaes’ opinion on the news of the forging of a “new partnership” between government and wider society, through the device of  the grandly titled: “Civil Society Covenant”. Now, far be it from me to pour unmerited scorn on anything Keir Starmer, his lawyer friends, his close confidantes and his SPADS come up with, but I’m sure I’m not alone in being ninety-nine percent certain that we’ll end up with another “talking shop” Quango which will put a further barrier between the ordinary UK citizen and an increasingly distant Westminster elite, whilst, at the same time, providing fat salaries for lanyard wearing apparatchiks who are already well versed in making “non-jobs” pay very handsomely indeed. This so called “fresh approach” has been some months in the making and, according to the blurb accompanying the announcement, over twelve hundred (obviously already well established) “Civil Society” organisations were consulted during the drawing up of said “Covenant”. The full report’s here: https://ncvo-app-wagtail-mediaa721a567-uwkfinin077j.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ncvo-acevo-civil-society-covenent.pdf

All well and good, you might say. At face value, at least in theory, it isn’t such a bad idea, but we’re all fully aware of the veracity of that old saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. For my humble part, I’m far from certain that the whole process will (if it hasn’t already happened) be monopolised by vested interest groups, hoping to get first go at the (inevitable) trough, along with established charities (some with dubious links to the intelligence services and the police) who rely for their continuing existence on the breakdown, rather than the rebuilding of what was, from the post war 1950’s up until the mid 1990’s quite possibly the most civil (and civically minded) society that’s ever existed in the UK. The landscape’s changed somewhat since then though. In most of our cities and large towns there are virtual ghettos where many of the residents, by dint of their “culture”, lack of education, or lack of strong parenting, wouldn’t recognise what I might consider “civil society” if it bit them on the backside. I have no doubt that “leaders” from said communities have been well represented during the consultation stages (they know the ropes). They’ll make all the right noises, and they”ll take the money, but the dream of a multi-cultural, mutually respectful and integrated society is as far from reality now, if not further, than it’s ever been.

I’m not going to bang on, because I could be completely wrong about all this, but even a cursory look at the final report talks about the need to “Establish (both) a Ministerial and a Director General lead for civil society in every (government) department”. A simple enough phrase, but loaded, all the same. Will the resultant expense, both in salaries and direct grant aid to charities and other “Civil” organisations go on to enrich the lives of the ordinary citizen, whilst, at the same time, providing value for already hard pressed taxpayers? We’ll see, but if the track record of this particular government is anything to go by, I’d not be holding my breath.
 

© Colin Cross 2025