Brent Eleigh | Change…

07 Jul Change…

Posted at 22:18h in Brent Eleigh Hall by Merriel Gardiner 0 Comments

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Remember when months ago back in the chill of midwinter I said that the garden was like wings? Well today I caught a glimpse of it flying. Sometimes there are such stunning moments of clarity. The sun was out. In the distance two figures were digging. In the foreground another was watering and another weeding with me. Earlier we had harvested our first potatoes. They were so perfect like reaching under a hen and feeling the first chick hatched.

Productive view.

The sunflowers are out in force and spotlighting the walls…

Benjy gives the sunflowers a good water and seaweed feed. I think the contrast of the harlequin sunflowers in the foreground works well, with the traditional giants behind.

You may be wondering how the newest recruit got on, on his first day. On Friday I interviewed Raffe and offered him the job as my assistant then and there. He was passionate about our project. Yesterday he saw the garden for the first time. This morning at 8am he arrived with a van full of the most beautiful old tools and promptly moved in.

I had a huge seed order to phone through, various things to order and general admin things to sort out. Hastily I waved him in the general direction of the others. By breaktime Raffe had simply become one of us.

I was so worried that the potatoes would be riddled with wireworm, but not at all! They are great for the soil tilth too, leaving it crumbly and rich where they’ve been growing.

Raffe, Polly and me with our haul. Just before this shot Polly had sweetly said ‘Welcome to our family’

We harvested the first raspberries, plump and juicy and safe below the fruit net, which I have to say arrived JUST in the nick of time; one day before the first berries were ripe to be exact.