Nature and Nurture

Who here looks forward all week to Friday nights, to our weekly dose of Gardeners' World? In our house, it's a firm favourite and something we enjoy to start the weekend off.

This week's episode was a powerful one I thought, with a moving interview with Kate Garraway as she talked about her personal relationship with the garden and how it has become a refuge for her children too at a very difficult time in their lives with more than just coronavirus to contend with.

It was an episode with a message, made even more poignant for those who had read Monty's interview with the BBC earlier in the week, in which he commented:

...the benefits of nature are all about the physical connection with the rhythm of the natural world.

Some of that rhythm is bleak - winter is cold. And yet even if inside you are bleak and grey and cold, if you believe that spring will blossom inside you, as well as outside in the garden, that's powerful.

This was notion was reflected in what Kate Garraway was saying, that long-term planning in the garden offered her hope and a sense of the future. I think a lot of people have found this to be true, perhaps this year more than ever, with increasing numbers of us taking refuge in the garden or outdoor spaces close to us. More people have been growing their own fruit and vegetables, and finding the nurturing process to be so fulfilling.

This year, here at the Rectory, we have certainly attempted to grow more fruit and veg. Unfortunately we haven't always been successful though! First the birds hampered our efforts with the gooseberries; I had proudly told Mum that I had counted 17 little gooseberries that were still a little small, but I hoped would be plump enough to pick by the weekend. Alas, when the weekend rolled around I was dismayed to find the birds had beaten me to it and not a single gooseberry remained!

Next we had my dog, Bentley, thwarting us at every turn! He's a clever little chap and loves to watch what you're doing and then have a go himself. So this year he has become an excellent student at picking beans and mangetout, pulling carrots, swedes and digging up potatoes (with a little help from Mocha). And then of course there were the cabbages - 30 I had lined up this year, savoy, red and white. Well, let me tell you, my little beagle loves his veg!

And then of course, there were the slugs and caterpillars. Despite all our efforts of companion planting, grit, copper tape etc., what Bentley started, the slugs, snails and caterpillars finished off. But from it all, we have learned a lot, spent a lot more time in the garden and created a new relationship with the space around us. The garden has become more than just outside space, but a real life-line and escape for Dad when he's been shielding this year too. Simply observing the changes in the world around us has been more poignant than ever.

If you haven't caught up with Gardener's World this week, I'd highly recommend it - it's on iPlayer now.

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I thought I'd finish up with two little updates for you today. The first, I'm afraid to say, has been another sad tale of life in the Rectory garden - that's right, the sparrowhawk has been up to his old tricks again. I spotted him descending into the garden on Thursday morning, but despite running into the garden, arms flailing and dogs ahead of me, we were too late and the stockinged devil took off with his brunch in his talons. Sadly the garden has been deserted since, and now there is one less sparrow quivering in the bushes.

The second update, I'm happy to report is a much sweeter little tale.

Having filled her birdfeeders one day, a friend of Mum's went down the next morning to find a surprise visitor:

Her little field mouse friend had obviously found his way into the bird feeder, spent a very happy night enjoying the buffet and cleared out the feeder, but then finding himself slightly more rotund than he had been some hours earlier, could not squeeze himself back out. The poor little chap had to wait for the shame of being released from the top of the feeder before he could make his less than stealthy retreat!