A View From (Just Outside) The Greenhouse; Birds Of A Feather

I’ve learned to kind of expect the unexpected where the greenhouse is concerned. There’s rarely a day goes by when there aren’t at least one or two (feathered) birds in there, struggling to find its way out once a human has invaded its new found space and flying into the glass in the process, but the encounter on Thursday morning of this last week was a bit different. I’d watered early and was filling up the cans and tubs when I heard a fluttering down to my right. An obviously tired fledgling wren was balanced on an old piece of perspex at the side of the potting table, as I watched it flapped its wings a couple of times, but, unusually, it didn’t try to fly away. I put on my best bird whisperers voice (I’d had practice a couple of weeks earlier with a house martin, if my loyal reader recalls) and calmly informed it that it was in no danger. I told it I was going to pick it up and let it go, expecting a flurry of wings and maybe even a little peck for my trouble. Surprisingly, the tiny bird didn’t move as I cupped it between my hands and carried it to the door, where I made to let it fly off. Instead of doing so, it sat on my finger for long enough to allow me to get my phone out of my pocket, open the camera and take a couple of pictures. It was almost as if it was posing. After a couple of seconds, following the photo shoot, if took to the air, flew to a nearby fence post and perched there looking back at me before returning, I hope, to its nest. A most pleasing couple of minutes communing with nature. Life affirming stuff.

Although a couple of the longer peppers (now green, soon to be red) have started to rot on the plant for no discernible reason, the bell pepper plants are all now starting to produce, in various stages of growth. I planted one purple variety (a growing plant rather than from seed) and it now has three decent sized and healthy looking fruit which will hopefully stay that way whilst increasing in size. There are maybe a dozen flowers still to drop, so it could be a decent crop. My next missive will be post the village show, where I’m hoping to enter one of these in the “vegetable and flower” category. Before anyone starts, I know capsicum aren’t strictly vegetable, but this is the northern hinterlands we’re talking about here.

It isn’t really like me to moan on and on about things, but I probably mentioned how disappointed I’d been with my San Marzano tomatoes last year. Any road up, I had a look around for another variety of plum tomato seed and came across “Nagina” which is more a Roma type of fruit. Notwithstanding the ongoing issue with pests (more of which later) I have several plants of this type doing well and producing lots of fruit which is just beginning to ripe. I’ve tried one and they’re (so far) just as the blurb on the seed packet said. Thick fleshed, full of flavour and with a very low seed count. I’ll keep my powder dry for a few more weeks until I’m certain, but I think I’m on to a winner here.

The B&M department is partial to a slice or two of cucumber on its lunchtime sandwich and accordingly it makes ample provision for such eventualities. There are five cucumber plants in the greenhouse, not counting the ” Armenian yard long” and they are, to say the least, not a little fecund (the Armenian not so much as yet). I went off cucumber a couple of years ago and although my youngest daughter quite enjoys them, as does the granddaughter, I can see us putting the “please help yourselves” box outside the main gate before much longer. I mean, how many cucumber sandwiches, outside of Palace garden parties, can one eat? A bit of hooptedoodle now. For those not “au fait” with the “not Isaac Q” reference, it’s from the film Soldier Blue. Honus (Peter Strauss) asks gunrunner Isaac Cumber what the Q in his name stands for. Nothing, he replies, my pappy (if memory serves) just liked the sound of it. The line always struck me as cleverly humourous.

As well as the cucumbers, the B&M department was also instrumental in the (experimental) planting of three Butternut Squash plants (from seed). I tried one myself  a couple of years ago and did manage to produce a couple of smallish gourds, but I always felt, though happy to be proved wrong, that they’d do better outside. Unusually for me, as the three plants began to prosper, I looked up a bit of relevant plant care for them. They like water, the type of soil isn’t a big thing and they respond well to feeding (nettle, seaweed, potassium mix). Once any fruits appear it’s best to remove most of the larger leaves to allow daylight at them, to help stimulate growth. I have a feeling there’ll be a new kind of soup on the menu later this year.

A simple thing is a radish and, quite possibly, the easiest edible to grow of the lot. If you’re a radish eater, or a grower, or both, you might have noticed how those you can buy in the shops don’t quite have the peppery taste of the “French Breakfast” variety and they also tend to have a longer shelf life. I’ve grown them outside this year, for the first time. Again, my reader may be fully aware of this, but picked an hour or two before eating and with nothing added to them but a little salt, they punch well above their weight in terms of both crunch and flavour. They don’t keep though, but one or two in a morning and fresh out of the ground (maybe that’s why they’re called breakfast) really gets the taste buds going.

Remiss of me, I know, but I mislaid the packet that this particular tomato started life from, it’s the second “new” variety, along with the Nagina I’m trying this year. I wanted a larger tomato for a couple of reasons, one being the concern that the Greek ones I’ve been growing from seed I brought back from Zakynthos may give up on me and the other being that Mrs C, although she does like a tomato, gets a bit put off by the irregular shaping of said Greek variety (it takes all sorts). This particular breed’s a good size, maybe half as big again as what you might call a standard salad tomato and its shape couldn’t cause even the most sensitive amongst us to shy away from them. The taste, of course, is everything, it won’t be too long now before we can give them a try.

Whether you’re a rough old gardener like me, or a conscientious, attention to detail type, pests will always be a problem. The neem oil may be doing what it professes to be able to do, and the sticky traps are certainly doing their bit, but the problem, by and large still exists. I think it’s growing, but that may be simply my perception. Whatever, I decided to do a little research to see if there might be something more I could do to, if not eradicate, then at least reduce the population of this tiny but very annoying white fly. Apparently, the sticky traps work best when hung on the branches of plants, rather than just in the vicinity. I spent several hours, mostly on my hands and knees doing just that and, when I’d finished, I felt just a little proud of what I hoped I’d achieved. Early indications are promising. At the same time as I ordered the traps, I also ordered a small supply of the eggs of a tiny wasp that predates on white fly larvae. That’ll show em’, I said to myself.

The eggs arrived the day after the traps and I couldn’t wait to get them into the greenhouse and going about their business. I thought it best to quickly read the instructions before doing so, just to make sure I was going to be doing it right, whilst still broadly sticking to my (partially) organic plan. “Take down any sticky traps before releasing the Encarsia” it said. Me being me, I compromised by taking down the traps on the plants where I hung the wasp cards and a couple of others in the direct vicinity. I still await the great hatching. Watch this space! In other news, white fly (tiny, horrible, sadistic little buggers that they are) love to suck the sap from courgette plants, too!

On this Wednesday past we were all treated to the unedifying spectacle of the Uniparty indulging itself in a circle-jerk of sycophancy, as Sir Keef, renowned toolmakers son and erstwhile Prime Minister, took his final PMQ’s at the despatch box. His departure was accompanied by much gnashing of teeth, the rending of an hair shirt or two, and the plaintive and mournful words of a female Welsh MP, dressed as if for a night out on the town rather than the business of the day, holding back tears as she poured praise on a man so reviled by the nation that his own party had to throw him under the proverbial bus, for fear of seeing themselves joining him. The questions themselves were puerile, the banter vomit inducing and the “fakeness” of the whole occasion told us so much about how this whole system operates. The King Is dead, long live the king (of t’north) as the saying goes. In short order, our Andy was duly invested as Labour leader and Prime Minister, having only recently become an MP (for the second time) and having only received 25,000 votes. “Country before party” is the narrative, however the reality is self survival before party, with the country finishing a distant third. Apparently, it’s Andy’s intention to bring Hope to every postcode, but what he didn’t tell us, and what is now becoming clear, is that he intends to bring a share of Hate to each constituency, too.

A chap called Matthew McGregor (a close confidante of Nick Lowles one would assume) was appointed this week as the new Director of Political Strategy in No. 10 Downing Street. He served as Hope Not Hate’s Director of Campaigns and Communications from 2018 to 2021, and remained a listed director of the organisation until April 2022. Hope Not Hate is ostensibly a charity and supposedly non-partisan, but it’s a left wing organisation clearly long associated with Labour and now aligned with Burnhams’ version of what Labour should be. Alison Phillips, a board member of Hope Not Hate has been appointed as Burnhams’ “Director Of Transition”. The claims that Labour, under Burnham, will govern for the whole nation and create opportunities for all rings, with these two appointments, a little more hollow than it previously did. A Prime Minister ideologically captured and so famous for being easily swayed that he once held the sobriquet “Flip-Flop” is the last thing this country currently needs right now. I can hardly wait to see who he puts into cabinet!
 

© Colin Cross 2026