‘I’m learning what works in our heavy, Holderness clay’

Salt Of The Earth, a gardening column by Sam Hawcroft

When I moved from Hull to Holderness a few years ago, I went from postage-stamp back yard to tennis-court lawn overnight.

Living on the wrong side of Hull (well, it is if you’re commuting out of the city on a regular basis) gets you a whole lot more land – and sky – for your money and, though it was a bit of a snap decision to move out here, I’ve not regretted it for a minute.

We’d always aimed to come out here eventually, but then we spotted a house we liked in the property guide and decided to just go for it. Yeah, we’re mortgaged up to our eyeballs for many years to come, but, well, life’s too short, and all that.

I’d always wanted to be among nature and in my old backyard I grew what I could in pots and even built a pond. I’m probably responsible for introducing frogs to the Dukeries.

But I’d never mowed a lawn in my life and the garden we inherited used to belong to a young family for whom gardening understandably came pretty low down on their list of priorities, so large areas of it were riddled with weeds. There were hedges, shrubs and trees galore.

We soon realised we’d need to stock up on power tools.

Fast-forward nearly five years and I wouldn’t say I’ve transformed the garden (in an ideal world, I’d like to get a landscaper in to completely rethink the design, but I haven’t got enough money for that, nor have I got a sob story compelling enough for Titchmarsh and his crew).

Slowly but surely, I’m getting around the space, planting up herbaceous borders and learning what works and what doesn’t in our heavy Holderness clay. Bits of it still look a complete mess, but it’s not a race – and a garden is never finished, anyway; it’s constantly in flux with the changing of the seasons.

I’ve got a veg patch and a greenhouse, so I’ve enjoyed experimenting with growing produce. I think I’ve nailed tomatoes in the past year or so, after learning about ‘ring culture’ from my next-door neighbour.

Sam in her greenhouse. Picture by Neil Holmes Commercial Photography

No, it’s not something out of The Hobbit; it’s the growing of plants in bottomless pots, so they develop two root systems – one in the pot and one going down into the soil (this won’t work if your greenhouse is on hard standing, obviously). I find that, this way, if I forget to water them for a day or so, it’s not as disastrous as if they’re in grow bags or ordinary pots.

The other thing I always grow are salad leaves. The first rule of veg growing is grow what you like to eat – and I find that spinach, lettuce, chard, etc are really easy to grow and harvest.

This year I’m also growing butternut squash, kale and brussels sprouts, and I’ve put pop-up nets over the latter to thwart the dastardly cabbage white caterpillars. The nets are like those tents that people leave behind at Glastonbury because they’re super-easy to put up, but impossible to get back into the bag, especially when you’re spectacularly hungover.

So, the past few years have been a bit of a steep learning curve – I’ve become a Gardener’s World addict and hang on Monty Don’s every word. Two of those words I particularly liked were, “Do less”.

What he means is, don’t be too tidy, and you’ll be helping nature in more ways than you may imagine. Every pile of logs, heap of grass or overgrown patch can become a home for countless insects, many of which can in turn help you in the garden.

Carefully potted. Picture by Neil Holmes Commercial Photography

Yes, some are pests – but put down the spray gun, please. Eliminate them and you can upset the entire food chain. So the slugs ate your green beans. Worse things happen at sea. It happened to me the other day so I just went to the garden centre and bought some more for £1.50, along with some organic wool slug pellets.

I’ve also learned more about how to be a more environmentally friendly gardener, too; I think more people are becoming aware that they have a role to play and that’s a trend reflected in the way people are gardening now.

I would hope fewer people are like one of my previous neighbours who used to rip out and throw away all of his spring bedding the minute the clock struck June; there was nary a blade of grass out of place anywhere and it was clinical, rather than joyous.

While I do go out and weed the borders when I can, I’ve left patches of nettles (food of choice for peacock butterfly larvae) and messy bits here and there. Come the apocalypse, the earth will be colonised by nettles as well as that sodding sticky stuff (also called cleavers, bedstraw, goosegrass and, in my garden, names of a more Anglo-Saxon variety).

On a recent visit to the garden centre I tried to find peat-free compost, but I couldn’t see any. The next time I went, I realised it had been there but I’d completely overlooked it. There were no big signs saying “Peat-free compost here” and even on the packet itself, its eco-friendly credentials are written fairly small.

‘PEAT-FREE COMPOST SHOULD HAVE BETTER LABELLING’: Sam Hawcroft

I think they’re missing a trick here; the clamour to ban peat-based compost is growing ever louder and more gardeners want to do their bit – so garden centres should listen to this demand.

The Government has said it will ban the sale of peat compost by 2024, but this is three years away and we’re not doing enough now to stop the destruction of these fragile areas, which prevent global warming by storing carbon – three times more carbon than our forests.

We need to make buying peat-based compost as unacceptable as plastic pollution, which the industry is making slightly better headway with.

I’ll admit this is a cause I’ve only recently become aware of; I guess I rather naively hadn’t realised that if it doesn’t say so on the packet, it’s not peat-free.

There are viable alternatives; Monty Don hasn’t used peat compost for years, and he seems to be doing OK, though it could be argued that he can afford to make the change – peat-free is generally more expensive as it requires more processing. And then there’s the minefield of trying not to buy plants that have been grown in peat composts.

As I see it, we’re destroying our precious natural habitats just so Bernard’s begonias look beautiful. That’s madness – and it’s up to us to stop it.