A (Burts’ Eye)View From The Greenhouse; What’s Anglo-futurism, When It’s All At Home?

It’s an easy mistake to make, Burt and I (although, TBF, Burt’s a few inches taller than I am) are easily confused when viewed from the rear, bending down (as it were). Any road up, the time had come for the reducing of the nettle and banana skin soup, from full strength, via tub two (where it’s diluted by about 25-30%) to the main butt, where it’s further reduce to around half the strength of the original mixture. I’m not sure whether the addition of the ginger (from my daily cup of nettle tea) brings anything to the party, but I don’t suppose it can hurt in any way. I think this concoction works as an additional feed, but I’ve taken to using organic seaweed concentrate once a week, to try and get some life into the tomato plants, hopefully, by the next time I take to the keyboard, we’ll have a red un or two to show my loyal reader.

Just when I’d given up on having at least one viable courgette plant (I know, they’re the devils work), having not managed to get four “Shooting Star” seeds (HOW MUCH!) to germinate, I arrived at the greenhouse, ready to clean out the compost in another “barren” pot, only to find this little beauty poking itself through the crust. I potted it on into a six-incher, in the hope of getting a bit of strong root growth before planting it out and it duly accepted the challenge. I think it’s going to be okay, now, all we need is for the tomatoes to ripen and fatten up and we should have some fine soup to see us through the winter months!

The clue’s in the name, I suppose. “Shooting Star” is a climbing variety, I’ve grown it for a couple of years now, mainly because it thickens soup, without adding flavour of any kind, but I’ve never really manage to properly train it. Accordingly, given my failures with both netting and mesh, I’m going to attempt to train two “stems”, one along the lower cane and one along the old metal water pipe, which sits a couple of feet above the horizontal cane and which I managed, as only I can, to cut out of the photograph. The string’s to support the first stem up to the cane frame, where a side shoot should hopefully form to run up the first vertical cane and along the pipe. The best laid plans….and all that old malarkey. Nowt ventured, nowt gained.

A first time crop to celebrate the opening up of the outside growing area, and it’s doing very well, although the weather this weekend has led me putting in further support, in the form of a length of “michael” from the mainframe of the external structure to the furthest mesh securing post. I’ll grow them again next year, but given their fecundity, I doubt I’ll put as many in. Having not really eaten a great deal of mangetout over the years, I find myself pleasantly surprised at how good a snack they are when eaten raw (crisp, sweet and peppery) and, so long as they don’t suffer from overcooking (it’s a fine line), they make a decent vegetable addition with a roast chicken dinner, especially when the peas (that’s another story) are steadfastly refusing to flower. A winner.

And so to the disappointment that is (are) the peas. Although I do have half a dozen plants that are showing signs of flowering, I’ve planted and replanted the rest of the row several times. Whether mice are taking the peas directly out of the ground, or whether the hot spell, followed by the relentlessly damp period has caused them not to germinate is beyond me. These are new seed of the same strain of pea that were so successful last year (Hurst Greenshaft) so the lack of germination, when others have germinated is puzzling! In an attempt to fill the row and be able to pick peas into September, I put a dozen of a different type in a tray in the greenhouse, of which seven germinated, they’re now in the ground. The recent buffeting hasn’t done them any favours, but at least they’re still standing, which is something. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.

I can’t claim not to have seen this lovely specimen of a turnip, I knew it was there, I could see the purple of what turned out to be its barely mottled skin peeking out between all the weeds! I don’t like weeding (I may have mentioned this previously), but it’s like a great many things in life that are a chore, it’s a job that needs doing. The ongoing hip saga makes getting back up a bit of a trial, not that getting down’s so easy either, but, bloody minded as I can be, when I set myself a challenge, I generally rise to meet it. I planted a row of these, maybe six inches apart and, once the offending foliage was in the bucket of doom, I found, much to my delight, another half dozen poking through the soil. They’ve a way to go yet, but if this first one’s anything to go by, they’ll be well worth the wait.

I decided it was time to put some of the main-crop spuds in, I’d been waiting to start in the first rows where the earlies had been, but they’re only just coming ready (the Caledonian Pearl’s a very nice, if low yielding potato). The ground’s still a bit “claggy” but I didn’t want to take a chance on leaving them much longer, they’ll hardly be ready for harvesting by the end of September, as it is. Any road up, the B&M department, mindful of my (hopefully temporary) infirmity took over the task. Hopeful of a more plentiful harvest, as I believe is usual with main-crop, we reduced the rows to six rather than seven seed. I suppose we’ll see what happens in three months or so.

Burt may be a quiet fellow, but he isn’t stupid. He was the one who suggested that, rather than give away the last of the late germinating Palermo pepper plants, I may as well make use of the “bit of grund” next to the courgette and plant them out, which I duly did. Once that was sorted out, and while I was doing the weeding (just by where Burt spends the bulk of his time) we got to musing over what we might do, should either of us become ruler of this once fine country. Burt surprised me a bit, I thought a taste of the old high life might be too his fancy, given how he spends most of his time, but not a bit of it. Not for him money, cars, private jets, yachts, a bevy of servants continually at his beck and call, or even an endless procession of scantily clad scarecrow-ettes. “Have you heard of Anglo-futurism he enquired of me?” “Only in passing” came my reply. This cheered him up no end, I’ve never seen this usually taciturn fellow so animated. “Ill be honest, Colin” he said, “I need to find time to look into it in a little more detail, but, basically, it’s an embryonic Nationalist movement, rooted in what’s called ‘right-wing progressivism’. It sees ‘progressive liberalism’, open borders, State overreach, the erosion of free speech (in the real sense), slavish devotion to DEI and the growing disconnect of Westminster from the citizenry of the country (as exemplified by local and central governments seeming collusion in the ‘rape gang’ scandal and the political choices being made around ‘gender’) as being provenly counter productive to the well being of the nation state. The rebuilding of England as a modern industrial powerhouse and the placing of the needs of the indigenous population above any global aspirations are its guiding tenets.”  Burt drew breath (thankfully) because it was a lot to take in, but it also made a great deal of sense. Maybe, I mused, if enough smart young people start to think in this way, we’ve got a chance.

Imagine living in a country, I thought, where the needs of the citizen were paramount and the foreign criminal and benefit sponger were returned from whence they came. Where being English/British instilled a sense of pride at how well we were doing at looking after ourselves, rather than how the rest of the world viewed us. Where any help we gave in the wider diaspora wasn’t at the expense of the ancestors of the people who’d contributed so much to making this country what it once was. Where compassion was approached pragmatically, rather than because it’s easier to waste money on compassion than it is to make the decisions that need to be made. A country where the demands of single interest and faith groups were put aside for the greater good, rather than pandered to for a chance at an easy life.

Burt, having regained his usual stoical demeanour looked down at me (I was still kneeling by the turnip bed) and said; “I’m surprised a man of your political leanings wasn’t more aware of Anglo-futurism, but if you want to learn a bit more this article from January https://unherd.com/2025/01/could-anglofuturism-liberate-britain/ would give you a broad idea of how it sees itself.” “Thanks” I said and went to the shed to make a mug of nettle tea.
 

© Colin Cross 2025