In the Suffolk vernacular, the days have been daggy just lately. A “daggy morning” in Suffolk dialect describes a damp, misty, or dewy morning. This stems from old Norse influences (similar to the modern Swedish word dagg for dew) brought over by early settlers.
There has been no precipitation to speak of in the past week, but the air has been laden with moisture in the mist and fog that has hung around like a bad smell. This dagginess has resulted in soil that is just tacky enough to accumulate on your wellies to form muddy 70’s Glam Rock era platform soles. Funnily enough one of the most popular groups of that period was Mud. My dad hated my platform shoes, pardon the inappropriate and anachronistic language, but he used to call them my spastic boots. He also told me that only poofs went to drama school when I told him that I was considering applying for a place. He was a bit of a dinosaur, but he wasn’t all bad.
The autumn colours of the trees and hedges are at their best right now, and the heavily beaded spiders webs suspended above the mushroomy meadow grass at first light create that special atmosphere only present at this time of the season. Halloween and Bonfire night, in my memory, were dank and musty, with smoke from the fire hanging heavily, struggling to penetrate the shroud of low lying mist through which you might momentarily spy some twinkling stars as the screaming rockets headed in their direction following release from their milk bottle launch pads.
This morning I saw a small flock of Redwings and this afternoon a large flock of Fieldfares. It is always a treat to welcome these winter visitors from Scandinavia and beyond. Very often you will see them in mixed flocks. The Canada geese that I mentioned last week have continued their daily ritual of noisily flying over at low altitude from west to east at dawn and making the return journey each dusk.
As hoped for, the soil dried out enough by Wednesday for me to plant garlic outside. I haven’t done that many – only about 400 cloves, but it will be nice to have an early crop of new season bulbs. I think that I will plant a couple of rows in the polytunnel to get an even earlier harvest for when prices are high due to lack of availability. Also as hoped for, the Pak Choi looks like being ready to cut for this week’s orders. There will be broccoli, cauliflowers, Savoy cabbages and Cavolo Nero. Parsnips, swede, beetroot, leeks, carrots, sweet potatoes and red cabbage are all up for grabs. You will also see that there are some smallish green peppers available, because when I inspected the plants last week I discovered that there were more there than I thought there were.
It was a very emotional day for poor old John the fishmonger at the market yesterday. I think that he found it all a bit overwhelming. Customers and colleagues showered him with good wishes and gifts, with one of the stallholders presenting him with a fantastic painting of him behind his counter that she has been working on for weeks. Like me he has done 20 years at Wyken and so it will be a huge change for him not to be turning out every Saturday and serving his adoring public, but he is right to put his health and wellbeing first, he has earned his time in that rocking chair on the porch. He will be at the market on Saturday in a supervisory role, handing over the reins to Alex who is taking the business on, so it will be your last chance to bid him farewell….unless he does a Sinatra and makes a comeback.
I’ve had a full-on day working in my garden at home, so I was late starting this. I am going to call it a day here to have some R&R.
Have a good week and enjoy the splendour of autumn.
Phil