From Slugs to Secateurs - What I've Learned This Year

The Garden; How I Tend it and What Lives Here

In this publication—Home and Place Writing—I hope to inform and inspire you to think more deeply about what’s around you, and to write about it in a way that entertains. Creative non-fiction writers employ the same formulas that fiction writers use to grab readers’ attention and keep it, to dramatise events and generate tension. Sometimes I think I need to add more light and shade to my own writing and, being a bit of a perfectionist, I always want to spend more time editing to make the words sing on the page. However, writing on Substack is less about perfection and more about community and communication, about sharing and learning.

I usually prepare my Substack posts in advance of Wednesday’s publication day, however this week my routine has been totally upside down as we’ve been very busy at home organising a family event with the result that I’ve not had time to draft, redraft, and edit my post. Instead, I’m going to write straight from the heart onto the page, with just one look over to check for typos. Let’s see if there’s a different feel to my writing.

During the lulls in party planning I checked back on some of my Friday Notes. For almost a year I’ve posted a very short Note beginning: ‘This week I learned...’ My aim with this is to keep a diary of learnings, proof to myself that I continue to be curious. The Notes are quite random. I guess this is what happens when we soak up information and experience new things, nothing comes themed or tidily packaged.

But in checking through these particular Notes I noticed there were some threads I could pull together; one is the goings on in the garden. We moved to this garden just over a year ago and have a couple of acres consisting of grassy areas, a small wood, and two orchards.

I’ve been working mainly on growing fruit and vegetables and we installed a polytunnel and marked out an area for an allotment. This is the first proper growing season for us and I’ve learned a lot—slowly understanding the Scottish weather, being more aware of nature’s own growing cycle, and working out how to make space for the crops I want to grow to feed the family.

So, expanding on the Notes I posted over the past months, here are some garden-related learnings:

The Honeyberry

I planted a Honeyberry bush in January, in a raised bed that was previously overgrown, which I’ve now earmarked for berry fruits. Never having planted or even eaten a Honeyberry I was intrigued by the picture on the plant label of elongated purple fruits. The label provided basic information and I thought we’d be able to find a good spot for it so it came home with us. What I hadn’t realised when I picked up the little pot grown plant in the garden centre was that one Honeyberry is not enough for pollination. I needed at least another that would be a good partner. So by the middle of the month I was hunting for a second plant, and this time I went straight to the source and purchased online from a Scottish nursery.

The news is that neither plant produced fruit this year but both look healthy and are growing well. Maybe next year I’ll get to taste a Honeyberry.

The Magnolia

We don’t have one of these in our garden in Scotland although I had planted one in a previous garden because I adore the beautiful flowers—great goblets of sugar pink petals, some of the largest I’ve seen on any plant in the UK. I’ve always looked at this tree in admiration, never as something to eat; it’s taken me a lifetime to learn that the petals are edible! Now I’m keen to try them.

Our garden is the opposite of manicured and I don’t think this non-native ornamental tree would suit the vibe here, so I’ll have to find a neighbour who has one and see if I can arrange a Magnolia flower-tasting tea-party next spring.

The Moles

It is obvious we share this garden with moles because they keep putting up heaps of earth in the grassy mown areas. We’re not too worried about the molehills as we don’t mean to have perfect lawns but once we started our veggie growing I was curious as to what effect they’d have on the plants.

Well, not only have they absolutely loved the polytunnel because the ground is warm beneath it, they have made it a fun place to play. A lot of the plants we put into the ground have been pushed up by the moles.

I learned that they make some twenty metres of tunnel a day. Twenty metres!

We’re not keen to fight them, after all they were here first. Instead I think I’ll have to change my growing methods and use containers in the polytunnel.

The Slugs

It’s not only moles we have to contend with. Slugs are also finding our plants very tasty. I learned that they are deaf and see almost nothing, and they use their other senses to find tasty morsels. We’re trying very hard to be totally organic so we don’t want to use slug pellets. But, yesterday, after finding many of my plants tattered and ragged, I decided to make a stand. I wanted to put down some saucers of beer but could only find cider in the fridge. It worked. I found a few drunken slugs this morning. Keeping a slug pub going might become expensive though!

The Spiderlings

At certain times of the year you cannot walk through the polytunnel without catching a few spiderlings in your hair. It’s one of the reasons I often wear a hat. I learned that tiny spiders eat pollen—despite being, as a rule, carnivorous—and no one seems entirely sure how they eat the pollen since their mouths aren’t built for it.

I want fewer moles and slugs, and more spiders! I think they’re good for the polytunnel. And another creature I need more of but haven’t seen in great quantities here are ladybirds. In one of my previous gardens down south in England I was overrun with ladybirds. What can I do to encourage them?

Sloom

This word arrived out of nowhere; I came across it online. As a verb it means to drift into a light sleep, to doze; it’s the perfect onomatopoeia, resembling the sound it describes. I have been known to sloom in the polytunnel on my blue canvas camping chair; I can relax and close my eyes and let my mind float away.

An alternative meaning of sloom, often used in regard to plants, is to soften and rot gently with the damp.

The Secateurs

And finally, I wrote a Note about my secateurs; an important tool in daily use. I learned that you can send these off to the manufacturer for a service where they’re inspected, repaired, and every part cleaned, to be returned as good as new for the cost of a meal out. I prefer to pay a bit more for a tool that works and lasts, and I’m pleased to think that my Felco secateurs will keep on gardening for as along as I do.

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I hope you enjoyed reading this post. I’ll keep reviewing my week and writing my Friday Note, ‘What I learned this week...’

What have you learned this week? I look forward to chatting in the comments.

Credits, Notes and Links

• Above image is my own.

• Felco servicing UK link. (I have no affiliation with Felco, I’m just happy to share what I learned!)

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A favourite spot for a pot of tea.