What a pile of manure
I need to apologise for not posting for so many months. I have tried to post but have found it impossible. I find I have not been able to post about garden topics and ignore all the terrible things happening in the world.
I have always tried to ensure that any information I give is accurate, but accuracy and ethics, along with responsibility and accountability seem worthless today. I have written and rewritten this introduction so many times and always deleted the post. After all, this is supposed to be a gardening blog. But it has to reflect my thoughts to some extent. And I do not want to offend anyone. I have always tried to stick to my principles, even though, on reflection, it has probably not done me much good.
But I cannot ignore the glorification of avarice that is celebrated today. How can the massacre of Palestinians be acceptable? How can the war in Ukraine be blamed on Ukraine? How can any of Trump’s policies be acceptable? How can his accomplices sleep at night? What can I do?
Skip down the page if you are fed up already – garden content follows.
In response to Trump’s tariffs I can’t do much but I will do what little I can. I will boycott American products where possible, and Israeli too. We don’t buy much American food in Europe because we don’t want it. When you have vintage cheddar why would you want cheese in an aerosol? I will boycott McD’s, Coke and Starbucks and Reeses and even Cadburys – because it is now American. I can’t do much but I can try to avoid buying American products and as Trump only cares about money maybe that is the best thing I can do. I appreciate that the local eggs I buy are probably fed with layers’ pellets that contain American GM maize and I appreciate the complexity of the food chain. None of this is simple.
Because I am not clinically insane I cannot pretend to understand Trump’s motives for tariffs but if the reason is truly the imbalance in trade between the USA and China (in that instance) he needs to think how it happened. So that (often American) companies (and in Europe) could make more profit they moved production to China (and other countries with lower costs of production, for various reasons). It meant that these companies and retailers could make more profit – pure and simple. China just provided the means by which greedy companies and their greedier accountants and shareholders could boost profit, with no regard for anything but money. And now ‘the west’ blames China for the lack of manufacturing jobs in their own countries. Oh the irony. China may have the ‘west’ by the balls but it was the ‘west’ that took their own pants down in the first place.
I have been to America several times and met many lovely Americans and seen remarkable sights. But I will never go again. And I am sure that the bonkers Elon Musk will have ‘trawled’ this post and I will not be allowed to go anyway now. Well I don’t care. I don’t want to give a cent more than I have to to a country that is so negative about immigrants – a country that persecuted the native population and is almost wholly run by people who are immigrants. A country that is summed up by the foul administration represented by a ‘christian’ ‘US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’ who sums it up with her comment ‘We don’t give a crap about your opinion and your reporting’ – ‘Why don’t you go back to your country’. I was brought up as a Christian but am not so now but I know enough to know that these disgusting people do not have any christian values. Trump believes he was ‘saved by God’ when that incompetent fool missed his huge, glowing orange head. My Christian mother also had an adage – ‘the devil looks after his own.’ Maybe he has.
I know I can’t do anything to stop Trump’s far right ideology of greed or stop him and his mate Benjamin Netanyahu from ethnic cleansing and building a ‘casino resort’ where Palestinians once lived or from murdering aid workers, or from despoiling wildlife areas in the USA for monetary gain, or from stealing Ukrainian mineral wealth from under his ‘friend’ Putin’s nose. I am proud that Ireland has spoken up against the killing of Palestinians as much as it dare. I hope that the people of the UK protest when Trump has his ‘Fest’ during his visit in September. Now is the time for Europe to get together and make America accountable for the instability it is causing. The dominance of America may be over now that it has betrayed friendly nations. It may be replaced by China. It is not something I relish. But the veil of respectability that the USA, in common with so many past Empires in the pursuit of wealth and power, has successfully hidden behind for so long, has been ripped away and the face we now see is very ugly.
But enough.
So what have I been doing in the garden for the past six months. Well it was a wet AND and cold winter. But above all it was windy. Our annual holiday was cancelled because of the storm at the end of January. Losses in the garden through cold were few but after a lovely week last week we have had heavy rain. Ironically the clouds parted late one night, just a few hours too early and we had about an hour of sharp frost just before dawn. It did a fair bit of harm, especially to the kiwi berries which, for the first time were covered in flower buds. No more. All the new growth is now dead.
I was lucky that a friend, who has horses, was kind enough to deliver four trailer-loads of manure in February. Spreading it was a good work out and, although a bit fresh, any organic matter is welcome to try to improve the geology in which I try to garden.
I spread lots under the apples and lots was dug into the ‘bed of death’ where little survives. Now planted with cornus and salix as well as the (so far) indestructible sorbaria ‘Sem’, maybe I will be able to give it a new name soon.
I also enlarged and made some new beds. As predicted, these immediately filled with water and the beds all have moats rather than edges.
I have planted a lot of shrubs, some common, some odd. Among the most exciting, to extend my range of ‘edibles’ was Cornus mas ‘Kazanlak’, a Bulgarian cv that is supposed to have larger and better fruit than average. Of course this cornus is valued for the early, yellow flowers. And it did bloom, but not one flower set a fruit. There is always next year.
I also planted an ‘Aprikyra’ which is a hybrid of an apricot and a cherry. It has grown and has four flowers. I added an Asian pear to the three other pears in the garden. It is alive. And the apricot I planted – is dead.
The one week of sunshine we had was kind to the tulips. They look awful now after days of wind and rain. But they were a delight, despite the fact that they were not exactly what I ordered.
And in the other raised beds, other tulips, planted four years ago, did their thing magnificently. Tulipa orphanidea ‘Lizzy’ was just amazing.
And Tulipa saxatilis was as cheerful and tasteless as it is possible for a flower to be. And I loved it.
I experimented with a wire cone of muscari again. It worked but I ruined it by planting three different kinds and they did not all bloom at once. I should have stuck to 150 of the same kind but, as I intend to replant them once dried out, I baulk at buying all the same kind. But it did spoil the effect a bit.
Still, it made me moderately happy.
Other additions to the garden have been more of the ‘Feathered Friends’ ajugas. I have a great fondness for ajuga even though it rarely makes good ground cover, dying out after a few years in search of pastures new, and often succumbing to mildew, especially noticeable on the purple-leaved kinds. This series offers some new foliage colours and they vary in leaf size. I bought the plants in late summer and was able to pull them apart and grow on at least a dozen of each to plant out.
‘Cordial Canary’ is a sweetie. The leaves are small and the habit compact. On the official website there is not much differentiation made about plant size among the cvs but they are very varied.
My other new one is ‘Tropical Toucan’, also in yellow with blue flowers, but it has much larger leaves and looks to have ‘land-grabbing’ intentions with long stolons. It makes me smile.
Both are said to be unlikely to ‘burn’ in hot sun, which will be useful. There are more on the way and this year we have ‘Rosy Robin’ and
‘Pink Pelican’
These two are not my photos but from gardensolutionsplants.com – and do not really show much difference between the two. But I am sure I will buy both if I see them for sale.
The idea of naming the series after birds is cute but why ‘robin’ for a pink flower (I know Australia has pink robins) ? Could be ‘Cheerful chaffinch’ or ‘Rosy Redpoll’.
The Biking Gardener 
Oh, I needed to skip ahead. It would have been too difficult otherwise. As you mentioned, this is about gardening. Even with all else that is going on, we can still enjoy our gardens. You have much to enjoy there.
Fair enough. Thank you for your comment.
Tony, our paths have crossed online many times and I will continue to hold you in the highest regard. Yes, we are very upset by developments in the USA, most particularly at the breakdown of an entire systems such that the democratic process appears to have been pushed aside, but we continue to value the many wonderful people we know from your country.
Such explanation is unnecessary.
You are absolutely right,and I offer my deepest apologies for what my government is doing.Know that we are fighting back-both through the courts,a few brave congressmen,and with protests.More Americans oppose this stuff than support it.If only they’d bothered to vote.The rapidity of the collapse of opposition(universities,law firms,Congress,businesses)has been terrifying,but people are organizing .His approval is plummeting and we have a LONG fight ahead.Peter Thiel backs JD Vance,and they are both certifiable.All the tech bros have gone to the dark side.Your consumer boycott is smart-truly all these fools care about is money.Again-know that the majority of Americans realize we are in a constitutional crisis,and value our allies.I have missed your gardening posts and hope you can find the heart to continue.Vegetable gardening is surging here.We know the tariffs and brutalization of the immigrant farm workers will make fresh food scarce.This is all so evil.
I feel terrible at suggesting that all Americans are to blame for this state of affairs which is actually worldwide. I think that Brexit and Boris Johnson who set the precedent for lying through his teeth and getting away with it were the start of the problem. Let us hope that some sanity returns soon. Thank you for your comments, now I have started again I will post more. I am doing a talk on veg growing this week back in the UK and I am actually growing more veg this year though the slugs and snails are already proving a battle! I will report on how I get on. Have a good gardening season
It is the fact that the system of government in the USA appears to lack the safeguards to prevent one person exercising authoritarian power which is most appalling to me. It seems to me to be an undemocratic state of affairs. I can understand your feelings of terror that all is turmoil at present with many of the values of the American people cast aside. You have my best wishes.
Your introductory comments reflect my thoughts very accurately and I share your despondency very closely. I had a conversation with a person of my own age recently on this topic. As I was born in the early 1950s I was reared in a community for whom WW11 was in very clear experience and memory and we grew up reacting to any German voice or accent as that of the “bad men”, the evil people, the voice of those who had murdered millions, who had destroyed Europe, who had impoverished our lives. We both feared and hated the Germans and that attitude lasted for decades. I suggested to my companion that we have that same sense of revulsion nowadays when we hear an American accent – and he agreed! Of course, of course, I am old enough now to realise that this is a huge generalisation and a very unfair comment on a great many Americans. We were in Paris last week and met a number of Americans and chatted with a few. As should be expected, they were all pleasant people – I suppose nobody wished to spoil their holidays with a conversation on politics – which could become unpleasant in present days. On the other hand, I have been surprised and taken aback by comments made on social media by people I have known through gardening forums for many years. Overall I find it a very upsetting situation – and I have only spoken of the American situation! Trust has been broken; confidence has been lost and America is no longer a benign presence in the world. Re gardening: We returned to a sodden garden – the lawnmower left muddy tracks after a cut yesterday but growth is amazing and the bed are filling up so very nicely. By the way, I grow a nice Ajuga – A. reptans ‘Caitlin’s Giant’ which I find an excellent plant, easy to spread, reliable, long-lived (25 years with us) and of a size to make an impact with flower spikes of approximately 30cm.
Thank you for your comments. I feel alone and out of step with the world. But the few comments I have received suggest that not all the world has gone mad. We actually ventured to Dublin a few weeks ago (to see War of the Worlds) and curiously I did feel the same about hearing american accents. That is what is so evil about all this – we are all on edge and distrust everyone. But that is playing into what these dictators want. And yes I have no problems with most American people. I have been to the West and North west a few times and the people are lovely. And yes, growth at the moment is amazing. The mad thing about that short frost we had the other day (it only lasted an hour) was that although it burned the actinidia, pieris and potatoes the tomato seedlings (I changed the soil in the polytunnel) that are sprouting in the veg beds outside, are all untouched. Gardening is full of surprises!
Thank you for coming back Geoff.
I’ve really missed you over the last few months.
Your writings are a calming distraction in these worrying times.
More please!
Thank you David. I am up and running again and with so much to do in the garden there is plenty of distraction.
Wow, you have been busy in your garden, nice job. I have planted Yacon and Oca for the first time this past two weeks, as potatoes have been nothing but trouble for me in the past. Blight being the main issue, much too wet here in County Meath. Have you planted either Yacon or Oca?
Re your introductory comments, I think your health will benefit from not consuming any of the American factory generated products. And I agree the guy in charge is not of this planet but we will all suffer in time so I try not to think about it too much and when threatened by dark thoughts of the future take refuge in my garden.
I have grown both of those – type them into the search bar
Oca is here https://thebikinggardener.com/2015/02/19/oca-update-the-new-crop/
Of the two, I prefer yacon but it can be tricky to overwinter.
Thank you for your other comments – I agree! and with this wonderful weather the garden is a great refuge and it is perfect for weeding!