Reepham Life

By Victoria Plum

I’m thinking about dry conditions. You probably are, too.

When I lived on a Greek island I planted orange and olive trees where the soil was very poor and conditions generally very dry. Once established these trees would thrive – but getting them established was difficult.

So I planted the trees as deep as possible with as much water as possible, filled the hole with soil, about three quarters full, and then laid a square of plastic sheeting horizontally, about 18 inches square, with some holes in it around the tree and then filled the hole with the remaining soil. I left the soil a little lower around the tree with a small soil barrier to secure water where I wanted it.

The holes in the plastic allow water through to the roots below, but the sheet stops excess water loss. The heat of the sun causes condensation on the underside of the plastic layer, so moisture then drops back down to the roots rather than evaporate into the air above.

The wild mountain garrigue there, of thyme, sage and the wire-netting bush, grows from only a few inches high to perhaps two feet, so you might think these plants are young.

However, when dynamite blasting of the rock has been done (to create flat areas for building) you can see the exposed roots of such small plants actually go down through fissures in the rock perhaps 20 feet in search of water and sustenance.

So they are old, perhaps hundreds of years, and will cope with any drought. Perennial plants usually cope with drought better than annuals, and research is being done on the viability of perennial corn crops. What a shock to an English farmer’s system that would be!

In my garden here I only water plants newly established this season and when the butts are empty I use a hose, but only trickling very slowly at ground level to soak the ground because I don’t want to compact the soil by pounding water onto it.

A traditional gardeners saying is “a hoeing is as good as a watering”, which just emphasises that air is as important to plants as water.

And soil quality is crucial. I was at the Eves Hill community market garden (pictured) for two days (mid-July) and there, on soil essentially pitifully poor and impacted, the constant and liberal application of green waste, courtesy of Broadland District Council and keen volunteers, opens the soil for root growth and helps to hold water where the plants need it, so that in this difficult season growth and plant health is surprisingly good.

By Victoria Plum

My orange Fritillaria imperialis always seems to be hard struck by lily beetle, though I suspect some leaf damage is slug or snail-related.

Despite foliage damage the flowers were superb. The distinctive smell seems to attract a variety of insects (flies in particular) to the entire plant, not just to the flowers. My yellow one had no flowers this year: I suspect LB damage under or at ground level.

My Lilium pyrenaicum (pictured) usually suffers from LB, but being a “good doer” seems to struggle through and flower just the same. This year there is no sign of damage, despite being only a few feet from the Fritillaria.

I wonder now whether it is the weather that makes the difference. While the pupating LB stage likes to be moist, under ground level the adult beetle (a native of warmer climes, not Britain, so is an “incomer” as we call those “from away” round here; in Cornwall they call them “blow-ins”, a useful term for invasive insects) seems to like warmth and sun.

So if the weather is hot and still, as it was when the Fritillaria flowered, this encourages the beetle activity, but the cooler weather (as we had in early May) seems to inhibit the hatch, so none to be seen on the L. pyrenaicum yet.

I was so impressed by a friend’s lovely pots of lilies that I allowed myself to be seduced by the catalogue pictures and now have pots of various lilies in front and back gardens.

Will they survive the onslaught of LB when it comes, as come it will? My only remedy is to frequently check the plants (crushing beetles between fingernails) and it is this constant vigilance that has led me to my observations regarding weather conditions.

I have placed the new lilies by doors and paths in frequent use and so, as an optimistic gardener, I hope to beat the beetle damage by strategy, though of course I know I can never eradicate them.

P.S. Has anyone actually seen any bats use the new “bat corridor” bridges over the new NDR or even over the old ones on the A11 at Elveden?

By Victoria Plum

The county recorder for butterflies, Andy Brazil, gave the talk at the Reepham & District Gardening Club meeting this month.

Butterfly Conservation has now been going for 50 years; you can join and give real help to preserve butterflies.

Research is done, of course, but interestingly quite low-tech “citizen surveys” by members provide valuable ongoing information, and have done so for a number of years.

We know that butterfly numbers have dropped by 52% since 1975, and that habitat loss and fragmentation, pollution, pesticides, land management changes and climate change are to blame.

As gardeners we can seek to provide sheltered, and not too tidy, insect-friendly gardens and the “simple” flowers that provide nectar for them.

To tidy or not, and how much to do, is my yearly dilemma. I am not a tidy gardener instinctively, but I have learned that the environment I want to create needs a bit of judicial organisation – otherwise the wrong things swamp the right things. So I try to use a guiding hand to govern my garden rather than an iron fist.

The fashion for leaving seed -heads and tall stems for winter interest, rather than having a huge tidy up in the autumn to “put the garden to bed” for the winter is advantageous, of course, as those stalks and seed-heads provide shelter for overwintering caterpillars and insects.

If you use the old stalks to bundle up and position at different heights about the garden you don’t need to provide expensive fabricated posh “insect hotels” (imported from China with attendant environmental damage owing to unthinking manufacture and sea pollution, not that I am on my hobby-horse here).

Pollution from vehicles has the knock-on effect of producing nitrates that over-fertilise grass swards, pushing out wildflowers, which are crucial to many butterflies.

So please stop using your car (but actually I really need mine so I will continue driving).

Meanwhile, I have signed the 38 Degrees Save the Bees online petition, which has succeeded in banning neonicotinoids for use in agriculture.

But I have some pesticides in the shed from my local outdoor superstore containing all those “banned-for-agriculture” chemicals, so I will continue to use them to improve my plants and lawn.

And did you know that the Red Admiral butterfly used to be known as the Red Admirable, and it was only during Nelson’s fame that over a period of 10 years the name gradually morphed to what we now know?

By Victoria Plum

At the end of January I attended an open day at Eves Hill Veg Co, the not-for-profit community market garden just outside Reepham on the Norwich Road in Booton.

I found several hardy souls amidst the rain and wind and polytunnels in a very exposed position.

(I used to ride on the high tracks round here and well remember thinking to myself on a wild and windy day that if I needed emergency dental treatment now would be a good time because one side of my face was completely numbed by the wind and weather.)

Here I met that force of nature, Hannah Claxton, who started this exciting enterprise in April 2016 on a piece of stubble ground, creating a market garden out of nothing.

This project is for people and the community, and relies on people from the community to supply labour and support. What volunteers gain is expertise and fulfilment, support and comradeship in exchange for their efforts.

Money raised from the sale of veg boxes, and salads to restaurants, goes into the project, and although keenness and hard work can achieve miracles, sometimes only money will do.

For example, the first polytunnel, which was principally made using reclaimed materials, proved not man enough to withstand this winter’s wind, so money is needed for a stronger version.

Some machinery is needed to make the best use of the man-hours available – and money is needed for this.

Lest you think this project is woolly and airy-fairy, please think again. Innovative, radical and well-thought-out methods are employed.

For instance, produce is assessed by the square metre and weighed to monitor productivity and profitability.

Although this is farming on a small scale, large-scale farmers could learn lots from the modern and clear-thinking approaches employed here.

Another important task for Eves Hill Veg Co is to facilitate entry to farming for young people. To this end a “100 Club” has been started to raise money for an apprenticeship scheme.

And from June you can order your own veg box to bring locally grown, fresh veg to your kitchen. Look out for the open days and check out the new website.