A View From (Just Outside) The Greenhouse; A Slice Of Life

Not being too knowledgeable where apiary is concerned, but also knowing that some bees do build their homes underground, both the head of the B&M department and myself assumed that the black and yellow stripey things emerging from and then returning to a hole in the ground by the outside tap (the hole being roughly the size of a pound coin) must be bees and, therefore, entitled to go about their business undisturbed by human hand. Something non human clearly wasn’t having any of that and this morning (Sunday 02/08) I discovered the whole nest (the paper like detritus seems to confirm that they’re wasps) had been exposed. I’m guessing some sort of predatory creature (a stoat or a weasel) thought there may have been a meal to be had. This isn’t uncommon and we do have both of these animals in the vicinity of the greenhouse. Badgers are more likely to take on a nest of this kind, but there’s little evidence of a large animal being the culprit. What signs there are indicate that it was attacked from both sides of the wire fence, so that rules out a badger to my way of thinking. Every day (or so it seems) is a school-day down our way!

One of the things I’m eager to get from the greenhouse this season i the ingredients to make lots of spicy pepper relish. To this end I’ve planted a couple of Scotch Bonnet plants, (my Habaneros all having failed) alongside maybe dozen or so sweet peppers of different sizes and (potential) hues, including two long sweet red pepper, the fruit of which I intended to use as the main ingredient for the said condiment. Although both of these plants are now producing plenty of peppers, the fruits on one of the plants are getting to a decent size and then beginning to rot from the centre out. I’m familiar with blossom end rot and tend to take off the dead flower ends if they don’t drop naturally, but this is different. Any road up, a brief look into what might be happening indicated that the soil in the greenhouse could be a little lacking in both calcium and magnesium. The nettle fertiliser and the organic tomato feed I use have traces of both these elements, but there’s a lot of ground in there and I decided a little boost wouldn’t go amiss. I’m dosing all the plants once a week, having added a tiny amount of the concentrate to the nettle water. Come next season, I’ll get a good dose of this “magic” in there from the off. £20 for a litre might seem expensive, but the dilution rate’s 5ml to 100 litres!

Whether or not there’s a lack of essential nutrients in the top soil, I have to assume that the grapes get their sustenance from a little deeper underground. Apparently, under the clay layer (between 1 & 3 metres in thickness) we sit on a bed of carboniferous limestone which, one would assume, is rich in calcium. Whatever the case, both vines continue to do well and, although ripening was late(ish) last year, the recent spell of sunshine has started the process already, although we have lost some fruit, close to the glass, to dehydration. An early harvest looks to be in prospect.

The first truly ripe “Greek” tomato of the season. I’ll reiterate, just in case I have a new reader (unlikely as that may seem). I took the seed from a tomato I was served in a restaurant on Zakynthos, back in 2019. The taste is superior to any other tomato I grow, but the size of the fruit and its shape make it hard for some people, used to the uniformity of many English grown shop bought tomatoes, to get their heads around. No such qualms for me or those people who benefit from my largesse, but it’s odd that shape and size are more important to some folk than colour and flavour. I suppose it takes all sorts.

If you know your onions (as I’m supposed to) then you’ll know that if you’re going to show them you need them out of the ground for a week or so to allow them time to harden off a little. Neither white nor red had any real size about them (unlike in previous years) although both varieties had nice shape and good colour. Given my previous experience, notwithstanding the size situation, I thought the ones I’d picked would make the grade. I normally tie the tops, but decided not to bother this year, again working on past results, but pride (or was it hubris) often comes before a fall. I was first in the hall so I didn’t have a clue as to either the level of competition or quality I’d be up against. Needless to say, after several years of winning firsts I came away from these two classes completely empty handed.  Eight entries in red onion and seven in white, all tied and all bigger and shinier than mine! Must do better, as the saying goes.

A month or so ago the B&M department had taken the scythe to a large bed of nettles in the field to the side of the greenhouse door. Rain and sun being abundant this year, they soon returned with a vengeance which is good news for the nettle fertiliser, as much of what’s in the hedgerows has all bone to seed. I haven’t made it my business to find out definitively, but I’m guessing young, vibrantly green plants store more nutrients than older, dried out ones.

We didn’t allow the first one to reach its (possibly mythical) yard in length, give we were eager to see what all the fuss was about. There’s no doubt that it’s an unusual looking fruit, but for me that’s where any fascination ends. I looks like a cucumber and that’s what it tastes like, too. Maybe the supposed melon like sweetness develops as it grows, but the weight is such that any fruit’s likely to hit the ground before it reaches optimum ripeness. The plant itself has taken no looking after, but I don’t think we’ll bother next year.

Apropos of nowt, really, just a small selection of some of the veg being grown this year, as it makes its way from ground and plant to shed and then to home. The broad beans are particularly good this time around, ironic really, as this class was taken out of the show due to lack of entries last time around. I’ve had a word, but I doubt it’ll make a difference! Runner beans were left in (the class’s actually for any climbing bean, but I defy anyone growing outside to have decent climbing beans ready by the 1st of August this far north and west, given the weather we’ve had. The carrots are also very tasty, with good colour, although the heritage varieties haven’t been that good. More lessons learned.

And so to the village show itself. Unusually, it’s neither a fete nor a purely horticultural event even though it retains the title “Flower Show”, it’s bigger than that in its own small way. There are no entertainments and the whole thing (apart from the set up and clear down) only takes four hours, but in that short period a small parish community (entries aren’t permitted from outside said parish) comes together to see who and who hasn’t won prizes and to view the exhibits/entries which are laid out on trestle tables around the walls and through the middle of the village hall. My large salad tomatoes took first prize but I had a show to forget (if it were only about winning) to be honest, although I did retain the wild bird photo trophy and I regained a memorial shield which has some significance for my wider family. The youngest entrant was under two and the eldest in their eighties. A wide range of crafts and skills are on show, with children’s classes being particularly strong. Many hours will have been spent baking and preserving. Woodworking, needle-craft, metalwork and pottery making keep adults occupied for weeks, if not months before the big day, with handwriting, modelling, poetry and painting allowing the creativity of the youngsters full rein. I have a feeling this is what village life’s always been like in those places as yet untouched by the strength of “diversity” and long may it continue. A few hours of normality in a place out of time, where the past isn’t seen as regressive or reactionary and the future, with 97 more entries this year than last, offers up the belief that, in one or two little corners of Britain at least, folk of all ages can still come together, as they’ve always done, to have a catch up, whilst celebrating their communities and their shared ideals.

A chap with relatives in the village, who has a young family of his own, makes the trip every year to coincide with the show from his home “down south”. He posts a bit on X and he shares (as one or two other people do, I’m sure) my broader political views. Although village show day isn’t really about politics, apart from in a parochial sense, we do tend to have five minutes or so, discussing the current state of play before the lure of the tea and cakes (especially the ginger squares), baked and served up by some of the ladies of the parish, becomes too strong and we have to repair to what was once the reading room to chat with neighbours (many of them farmers) while we indulge our inner selves, the outside world put to one side again, at least for a short while.

“This Burnham fellow” Nick said, “what do you make of him”? My answer was less than complementary, as you might imagine. Nick laughed “The more I see of him” he said, “the more he reminds me of some sort of game show host, a poor mans Leslie Crowther, if you like”. It’s just as well I didn’t have a mouthful of cake, to be honest. Nick joined his company and I sat down to chat with Geologist Dave, who’d just shown up. Nicks’ comparison of Leslie Crowther to Andy Burnham was all but forgotten until, following the Manchester mayoral election (only held because a coup against Keir Starmer had been engineered by some of Burnhams sycophantic admirers) the King oop North was pictured with his newly elected replacement. Now, I don’t know if you remember Crackerjack, a BBC children’s show back in the day, but when Crowther took over from Eamonn Andrews he inherited a comedian as his sidekick called Peter Glaze. On seeing Burnham and Bev Craig together, my first thought was “where’s me cabbage”?

Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Flanagan and Allen, Morecambe and Wise, Hinge and Bracket, Barker and Corbett, Martin and Lewis, Cooke and Moore, Reeves and Mortimer, icons of comedy, all now displaced by t’King and Queen Oop North, Burnham and Craig. Unfortunately though, the joke’s on us (again) and I doubt neither the citizens of Manchester, nor the wider public will find it even remotely funny. Is it a bap, or is it a barm cake? Hahahahaha!
 

© Colin Cross 2026