Two Feet of Concrete and a Surprise Visitor

 Right then, let me start with a confession. When I was younger, I used to think the hard part of any job was the bit you could see. The digging, the lifting, the sawing. It's only with a few more years under my belt (sixty of them, as you'll know if you've read my little bio) that I've learned the hard part is always the bit somebody else did thirty years ago, buried where you can't see it, and gone by the time you need to ask them what on earth they were thinking.

That's more or less how my week went. And it started, as most of my weeks seem to now, with ivy.

The Ivy Had Its Say

If you've been following along, you'll know I've been cutting the ivy back at the bottom of the garden to make room for the new big shed. Well, this week the last piece of the puzzle had to go: the root ball. The very spot where the whole lot began, decades back, turns out to be sitting slap bang where the shed is going. I did have a good look at it, and a little think, and a bit of a walk round it with a cup of tea, as you do. But there was no way round it. Shed in one place, ivy in the other, and the shed had already been paid for.

I'll say it again, because I know a few of you wrote in last time: I don't enjoy pulling out a plant that's been feeding the birds and bees for thirty years. But it's ivy. It's about the toughest thing God ever put in a garden, and it'll be back somewhere else before I've washed the mattock.

What I wasn't expecting was what it had been hiding. With the ivy gone, the fence behind it was laid bare, and it was not a pretty sight. Broken posts. Split panels. A good few boards hanging on out of pure habit and nothing else. For years that ivy had been quietly holding the whole lot up, like an old friend propping up a mate at closing time. Take it away and the whole thing just sort of sighed and gave up.

So the plan is a bit of a patch-up for now, and a proper replacement next year. I'm not going to pretend that's my favourite kind of plan, but there's a limit to how much you can bite off in October, and I've learned the hard way that a tired job done in a hurry costs you twice.

Concrete Thoughts With Sam

Before the fence, though, there was another job that I'd been rather pleased about. Sam and I laid some concrete this week on the old mini greenhouse footing, the one that's been sat there since before we moved in, thirty years ago. Nobody's had a greenhouse on it in all that time. It's just been a patch of cracked slab that the weeds have rather enjoyed.

The new shed's going to finish right alongside it, so the plan is to level it up and pop an old storage box there, tucked in neatly where the end of the shed lands. It's one of those jobs that doesn't sound like much, but it means the box gets out of the shade of the ivy, out of the wet, and the whole corner finally looks like somebody planned it. Which, to be fair, is a bit of a first for this garden.

Sam did the barrowing, I did the levelling, and we only had one small disagreement over whether it was flat. It was not flat. I was right. I'll allow that to stand without further comment, because he's probably reading this.

The Wood Arrives at the Crack of Dawn

Thursday morning, and I'm barely through the door from work, kettle not even on, when there's a rumbling outside and a lorry pulls up. The wood order. At the crack of dawn. I'm sure the driver was a lovely chap, but I was in no state to appreciate it, standing on the drive in my work boots with my eyes half shut, trying to look like a man who'd planned all this.

It's a fine pile of timber though, and I'll admit I stood and admired it longer than a grown man should. New posts, new boards, the lot. There's something about a stack of fresh wood that makes you feel like anything's possible. That feeling lasted until Friday.

Friday: Two Feet of Concrete

Now, this is the bit I've been looking forward to telling you about.

Friday was post day. Two new posts to go in, and I thought I'd have the pair of them in by dinnertime. Cheerful thought, that was.

The original posts were put in thirty years ago by me and my father-in-law. Young, strong, daft as a brush, and absolutely determined that these fences would outlive us both. And honestly? They very nearly did. The posts rotted, but the concrete around them is going nowhere, ever.

I started digging. Then I kept digging. Then I dug a bit more, and then I leaned on the spade and just looked down the hole in disbelief. I had over two feet of concrete to get out before I could even think about setting the first new post. Two feet! I'd completely forgotten how deep we'd gone. I can only think that between us, at the time, we reckoned the fence was going to have to withstand a hurricane, or possibly an invasion.

I'll be honest, it was a proper job. Bar, sledge hammer, a lot of language I won't repeat on a family blog, and a fair few stops to sit on the wheelbarrow and wonder whether I was getting too old for this sort of caper. I wasn't, as it turns out, but it was a close-run thing by about the second hour.

Sara to the Rescue

Once the hole was finally clear, in came the cavalry. Sara came out to help me with the postcrete and the alignment. I'll be honest, its not something i could have done by myself, with a spirit level, a lot of squinting and a fair bit of muttering. Instead I had a wife with a keen eye, a steady hand and no patience at all for my "that'll do" attitude.

"It's leaning," she said.

"It's not leaning."

"Simon. It's leaning."

It was leaning. Of course it was leaning. She held the post, I checked the level, we nudged it, and we nudged it again, and then we did it a third time for luck. And do you know what? Those posts are now rock solid. You could hang a tractor off them. I gave one a good shove once the postcrete had been in a while, partly to check and partly because I couldn't help myself, and it didn't so much as twitch. Well worth the effort, every bit of it, and I'll admit I couldn't have made such a good job of it without her.

Fern watched most of this from the kitchen window with a cup of tea, offering the occasional comment that I won't repeat, and I'd like it on record that she did not once offer to hold anything. But she did bring me a brew at the end of it, so she's forgiven.

Clearing Ground and Counting Pumpkins

Over on the allotments, we've been busy this week clearing ground again. That time of year, I'm afraid. The old bedding's coming up, and the pumpkin and squash plants have been taken out, which means gathering in all the fruit.

And what a haul. Considering the weather we've had this year, I'm very pleased indeed. We brought home 30 pumpkins and 14 butternut squash, in all sorts of sizes and shapes. Some of them are lovely and round and perfect, and some look like they've been through a fight, and a few of the butternuts have taken on shapes that Sam says look like "bowling pins that have given up". But they're all ours, and they all came off the plot without a drop of anything nasty on them.

We loaded them up in the wheel barrow, and the house now looks like a pumpkin patch. There are squashes and pumpkins in the porch and greenhouses.We have given half a dozen away already.

A Tip Worth Having: Cure Them Before You Store Them

Here's something I learned the hard way, and it cost me a good few pumpkins before the penny dropped. Don't just carry your squashes home and shove them in a cupboard. Give them time to cure first.

Leave them somewhere warm, dry and sunny for a week or two, a sunny windowsill, a porch, a greenhouse bench if you've got the room, so the skins can harden up properly. A hard skin is what keeps the rot out through the winter. Always leave a good length of stalk on them, because once the stalk's off, that's an open door for rot to wander in. And never, ever carry a pumpkin by its stalk, however handy it looks. I've snapped more than one that way, and a pumpkin with no stalk won't last till Christmas. Once they've cured, store them somewhere cool and dry, and check them every now and then. Butternuts will keep happily for months, and the pumpkins usually do well too if you've treated them kindly.

It's a very simple thing, but I learned it by losing a whole crop one year to mould, and I've never forgotten it.

Lettuce, With Iris

While Sam was at work this week, Iris and I got some lettuce planted out for the next couple of weeks. In went the Little Gem, the Arctic King and the All Year Round. It's a lovely job, planting lettuce, a nice gentle one for a mild afternoon, with a bit of chat and no hurry.

We've got them netted, as you have to at this time of year. The pigeons will soon be finding life harder, as the weather turns and the easy pickings dry up, and a bed of tender young lettuce looks to a pigeon like a free buffet. You'd think they'd have the manners to wait till it's grown, but no. So the nets go on straight away, tucked down tight at the edges so nothing can wriggle underneath. Iris is very good at that bit, I'll give her that. She's got a real eye for a gap.

A Visitor in the Lights

Now, I've saved the best bit for last, and it's got nothing to do with gardening at all.

On Thursday night, no, sorry, early hours of Friday morning, I was cycling home from work on the bike, minding my own business and thinking about my bed, when something stepped out into the light from my bike lamp. It was a muntjac deer.

I'm not going to pretend I was calm about it. I very nearly fell off the bike. A little thing it was, no bigger than a large dog, standing there in the beam looking at me with enormous dark eyes as if I was the strange one out at that time of night, and in fairness it had a point. Then it was gone, quick as you like, into the dark.

I'd heard there were a few of them about in our area, but in sixty years, I have never once seen one. Sixty years! And there it was, on the road home, on a night I almost didn't come that way. To say I was surprised is an understatement. It was only a few seconds, as fleeting as anything, but what a treat it was. I'm still smiling about it. It's the sort of thing that makes you glad you're out and about at odd hours, even if my bed would've disagreed.

I told Sara about it as soon as I got in, which was probably not the best idea at that hour, but she was very gracious about it.

A Recipe for All Those Pumpkins

With thirty pumpkins sat in the house, I've got to do something with them. Now, I've said before that I'm entirely self-taught when it comes to baking. Years of trial and error, and a fair few doorstop loaves along the way. I bake bread for the family every single Saturday without fail, and this week, with the pumpkins taking over the kitchen, it seemed rude not to put one in.

Simon's Pumpkin Bread Rolls

Makes about 10 rolls

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g fast-action dried yeast
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 25g softened butter
• 200g roasted pumpkin purée, cooled
• Around 130ml warm water (you may need a little more or less)
• A handful of pumpkin seeds for the top

First, the pumpkin. Cut a chunk of pumpkin into wedges, scoop out the seeds, and roast it in a hot oven at 200°C (180°C fan) until it's soft and just starting to catch at the edges, about 35 to 40 minutes. Scoop the flesh out of the skin and mash it smooth. Leave it to cool completely before you use it, or it'll give your yeast a nasty shock.

Then the dough. Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Rub in the butter, then add the pumpkin purée and enough warm water to bring it together into a soft dough. Pumpkin's a wet one, so go steady with the water. You want it soft but not sticky. Knead for eight to ten minutes until smooth and stretchy, then pop it in an oiled bowl, cover, and leave somewhere warm for about an hour, until it's doubled.

Shape and bake. Knock the dough back and divide it into about ten pieces. Roll each into a smooth ball and place on a lined baking tray, a little space apart. Cover loosely and leave to prove for another 30 to 40 minutes, until puffy. Brush with a little milk, scatter on the pumpkin seeds, and bake at 190°C (170°C fan) for 18 to 20 minutes until golden and they sound hollow when you tap the bottom.

They come out a lovely warm colour, soft and a touch sweet, and they're grand with soup or just with butter while they're still warm. Iris says they're the best thing I've ever baked. I think she says that about everything, but I'll take it.

That's the Week

So that's the week in a nutshell: ivy root ball out, old fence revealed in all its broken glory, a bit of concrete laid with Sam, two posts set solid with two feet of ancient concrete removed first, thirty pumpkins and fourteen butternuts brought home, lettuce netted against the pigeons, and one very surprised man on a bike who finally saw a muntjac after sixty years of trying.

Has anyone else ever dug out a post that was set by a previous generation and been horrified by how deep they went? Or seen a muntjac of your own? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.