Category: Allotment

By mid March spring pins its promise to the post. Winter may have been the wettest and wildest on record and February may have shorn each new-born’s fleece immediately upon arrival, but by mid March there should be at least one stand-out day whence spring’s true intent is proclaimed.
Through living room windows the sun may shine warm, yet a dash into a shaded back garden to save the washing from a sudden downpour and your fingers let you know that there is a still a lingering sting of winter about.
But it is March nonetheless, and the gardening year finally kicks off in earnest. The interior sills of the house which helped support the early tomato and aubergine seedlings suddenly prove wholly inadequate for the volume of trays and pots now to be sown, so everything is gingerly moved to the polytunnel for hardening off and every wind protected south facing sun trap around the allotment and garden is quickly filled with pots of potential summer promise.
The seed catalogues have been scoured and the year’s stock ordered. The latest gardening and weather Apps have been downloaded and installed; blog sites have been trawled for nuggets of wisdom, and after the long winter hibernation you’ve once again struck up the annual rapport and reacquainted yourself with the personnel of the local gardening centre. The pots and trays are clean and ready to go, the bags of compost have been moved into a sunny patch to warm them, and where in January and February many an idle hour was spent planning How to work your allotment from the comfort of your armchair, now that March is arrived you’ve simply got to get out and actually work in the allotment and garden.

Gardening activities aside, March is still one of the busiest months of the year. It always has been. In ancient Rome this month marked the beginning of the New Year; the previous period of over 90 day remaining unnamed as it was winter; and ancient Rome simply didn’t do winter. With the improvement in weather conditions March heralded the beginning of the Roman agricultural growing season, the bettering weather also improved the travel and access routes to other places and as such March also marked the beginning of the War season. It was filled politics, Caesars and brutes, with soothsayers and backstabbers; a brute force of backstabbers.

It is said March ‘comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb‘; it begins with a leek and ends with the clan; it seems every other day is a daffodil day and then there’s Mothers’ Day, a Children’s Day, a Women’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, the National holiday, an equinox, a guaranteed 21 days of lent, at least 10 days of Seachtain na Gaeilge, 4 days of Cheltenham, a National plant a tree day, an occasional Good Friday and Easter Sunday (and of late a Dyngus Monday) International ear-muff day, Intergalactic close encounters day, Transgender Awareness raising day and International Social Worker Appreciation day…Phew! There is also the last day of meteorological winter and the 1st days of astronomical summer to contend with; and, if you happen to be Irish, there’s the have-to-get-your-1st-early-spuds-sown-by day. Yes, there’s a lot to fit into the 34 days of March, and though the ghosts of Romulus and Remus are oft chilled by the airs of the span named in honour of their progenitor, there are days in March when, like yesterday, there is just a hint of spring in the air, 12 degrees centigrade and no night frosts forecast for the next couple of nights; and from a gardening perspective this is about as good as it gets for early spring, so it’s time to get grubby.

A little known fact is that Saint Fiacre, a 7th century hermit originally from just down the road in County Kilkenny is the patron saint of all gardeners and vegetable growers. A lesser known fact would be that he is also the patron saint of all those suffering from venereal diseases, and that his feast day is celebrated on 1st September. This is just one of the many harvest festivals associated with the bounty of the seasons, the soil, and the earth. And there are many traditional harvest day celebrations right across the globe from the Chinese Rice Moon festival on to Lohri and Holi in the far east; to Lammas and Horkey closer to home, including St Fiacre’s day and through to our own Samhain while not forgetting Thanksgiving in USA.
And yet for all the days through the year set aside to celebrate and appreciate just about every human activity, achievement and organisation, you may not be aware that there is no one day through the calendar year dedicated to celebrating those who work in or on the garden; no dedicated gardeners or gardening day. No; not one single day set aside on the calendar to acknowledge the effort of all those seed sowing and green-fingered individuals who set out each spring to make our summers wonderful and to make every harvest possible.
There are many days throughout each year set aside for the great flower shows and gardening festivals, like Chelsea, Chatsworth, Malvern, Tangshan and even our own Bloom, and these in essence, where they are not business driven extravaganzas are celebrations of the flora world itself. But there is no one day singularly devoted to recognizing, celebrating and endorsing all those amateur botanists and urban farmers, all those groundsmen, greenskeepers and landscapers, the nurserymen, seedswomen, professional horticulturalists and suburban gardeners, all the rooftop and balcony constrained potterer-abouters, the window-sill cultivators, and all the community gardeners, con-acre smallholders and lifelong allotmenteers who work tirelessly at greening our world.

And so I now propose that what we need to do is set aside one day in the year to celebrate the effort of all those who garden! To celebrate the gardeners in their gardens, whatever form their gardens may take. And I propose that we should acknowledge this effort right here at the start of things, at the beginning of the gardening year (OK, so I know I’m scripting from a northern hemisphere perspective but we’ll have to start somewhere). And I can think of no better time to have such a celebration than right here in the midst of all that March mayhem whilst every gardener is busy getting his and her hands soiled and abstractedly lost in the actual dirty business of gardening.
It shall be designated International Greenfingers Day by way of acknowledging all those fantastic and differing classifications of sowers and growers outlined above. And once this seed is sown careful nurturing should bring it to fruition. It will take many years, but as gardeners we are familiar with the waiting process.
Looking to March’s packed agenda, and with consideration given to all things meteorological and astronomical including a nod to the hurdles and the wearing of the green and conscious to leave a little wriggle room for the Twins to settle their score with the Ram, I propose that International Greenfingers Day be celebrated on the 33rd day of March, aka 2nd April.

And so it should be, a new day of Celebration is dawned; International Greenfingers Day will be celebrated for the very first time on Saturday 2nd April 2016: and I propose it be celebrated on the 1st Saturday of April each year thence, save whence that day falls on the the Fool’s errand 1st April, when it should then be celebrated on the second Saturday of April:  nothing like a moveable feast to work up an appetite.

And how as gardeners should we celebrate?
Sow up a pot, plant something in your garden or plot, and do it on this day. Mark the occasion…keep a record, take a selfie of the sowing ceremony if you must; buy someone a very small pack of seed and have them sow it on this day; help to get someone else to sow and grow their own, or for the gardener in your life buy them some small pack of seed and ask for a share of the bounty, be it a poesy of bloom or some stock for the pot once it comes to fruition in the summer or autumn…nothing extravagant; remember
Gardeners tend the toil, nature makes the show…

“From the smallest seed the mightiest tree doth grow.” This here is a seed…

let us all cultivate it.