Bounty Anxiety

No, nothing to do with the popular coconut-based chocolate bar*, but a demonstration of how one can have too much of a good thing.

Early cropping has started in the Hollow Garden, with young broad beans and kohlrabi on the go and peas just around the corner. The early strawberries are yielding a frankly embarrassing 750g (just over 1½lb) per day, and the early raspberries are almost ripe despite a mystery affliction striking two out of five plants (investigations are ongoing). Rhubarb is still ticking along, and the first early spuds are ready to lift. So what could possibly be wrong?

Easy. We're going away for a bit, leaving the Hollow in the care of a house-sitter.

Let's call her Tashy. Tashy's a bright and personable sort. She's happy to feed our fish and boot the cats out of the bedroom (or should that be the other way round). What she's not prepared to do is open the tunnel first thing, spot water and watch for pests, pick strawberries, raspberries, peas and beans daily, let the chickens out and feed them, and generally watch everything for the first signs of trouble – a must in an organic garden.

For all this (and a dozen other things) we have to fall back on the benevolence of our neighbours who, for all their loveliness and good intentions, are collectively a bit random when it comes to the self-sufficiency lark. I've sent advance gifts of strawberries which went down well despite me failing to realise it was 10pm at night (such is the life of one who gardens until it is too dark to see and thinks nothing of the gathering murk), so it's fingers crossed time. Last time we returned to find a sizeable colony of wasps ferrying raspberry pulp from the fruit cage to their nest, meaning that fruit picking had to be done after 7pm when only the drunk ones were left – a bit like trying to clean up after a student party, except with all the pissed students armed with tazers.

When the garden's in full productive swing it can get a bit overwhelming - but at least our gardensitters won't have to process anything; that's a step too far. We might go without peas this year, but it's hardly the end of the world. Raspberries, on the other hand...



*Although I could easily have developed a neurosis based on Bounty Bars rooted in childhood, after my mother sneezed while eating one. This is not something anyone should ever have to see, and suffice it to say that we had to redecorate the kitchen. How I survived my childhood is a mystery to me.