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Right now the future of supermarket food has a shelf life possibly shorter than the time it takes to say Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi. It’s a good job we’ve carefully preserved lots of the extraordinary wealth of recent years and been very decent to all the people about to inherit a lot of the remaining oil. Oh dear. Coming to think of it, you’d be hard-pressed to think of one good reason why the present way of life, and that way of obtaining food, might last another thirty days, let alone thirty years.

 

Small-scale farming may have been around a hundred times longer than Tescos, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy option, especially if you’ve prepared yourself for the rigours of rediscovered peasanthood with a sociology degree and twenty years languishing behind a desk doing something, well, important.

 

It wasn’t meant to be like this. In the days before industry ruined everything, you would have had access to a set of skills appropriate to a land-based existence and some ground carefully cultivated over generations (along with bad sanitation and the occasional plague of boils).

 

Instead we’ve got a book or two by Monty Don and a scrappy acre or two that nobody else wanted. Well, even a bad start is better than no start at all. Hopefully you’ve not wasted money on a rotavator and instead have a team of pigs turning the soil for you, hens scratching at the turf and goats trimming the hedges. That way you won’t have to do all the work yourself or get deafened by a machine which propagates weeds and turns your soil into worthless slurry.

 

It’s still going to be hard work. I’ve been doing this for three years now and my “garden” still bears a striking resemblance to a field. To convert a few acres into food from scratch is a full time occupation with wages paid in fresh air, exercise, excellent food and back ache. Which, when all said and done, is a lot better than working for a living.

 

As the growing season commences this column will change from generalised waffle and concentrate thoughts upon tasks specific to each month. But there are a few final things worthy of consideration by anyone who doesn’t fancy fighting for the last tin of tomates entières in Leclerc next year.

 

 

Drastic plastic

 

It might not be consistent with the best traditions of organic cultivation to staple miles of black plastic to your land. But since watching my first year’s work get consumed by weeds, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing… Any system that isn’t overtly toxic, and is reusable, and destroys weeds, and generally keeps things under control while you’re watching Bargain Hunt, has to merit serious thought.

 

I’m talking about that woven plastic sheet you see stretched over bankings outside neo-Breton residences. You can buy it in various widths and lengths and once you’ve got it nailed to the ground somehow that’s one piece of land you’re not going to have to weed, water or weedkill for as long as you choose.

 

Leave it down for a year and the turf and weeds will have gone and the soil is ready for a bit of forking and planting. Simple.

 

Well not really that simple. Even the giant staples the garden centres sell for the purpose might not be enough to keep the stuff joined to the earth during a proper Breton storm. A few lumps of proper Breton granite placed along its length will, though. Affixing plastic to a field is only slightly more interesting than learning the passé composé of avoir (whatever that is). It’s also nothing to do with gardening at all and the outcome looks bloody awful.

 

This doesn’t matter. It works. Armed with a Stanley knife, you can also plant potatoes straight through it. And brassicas, sweetcorn, artichokes, fruit trees and bushes, too… no weed competition or drought damage either. And after a few years you can take all that plastic away, pretend it never happened, and be all smug like a TV gardener but without the minions.

 

You might want an azada 

 

Let’s suppose your piggies have done their job and turned over a nice big area of ground. You’ve moved them on to pastures new, or to the freezer in bits, and want to use that clear earth for growing something else.

 

Given the weak nature of the soil around here, the priority has to be to throw a load of fertility in there. Muck spreading is the only thing that wonderful piggy won’t do for you, confining its outside toilet to a neat patch.

 

In my opinion the best receptacle for that gift your animals just keep on giving is the trench. Most vegetable gardeners will be familiar with the concept of a bean trench. Why not extend this logic to every other rich ground-loving vegetable i.e. most of them?

 

One good reason might be that a trench is a laborious thing to dig with a spade. Not with an azada it’s not. This mattock-like tool is swung overhead and excavates a trench with relative ease, the impact being taken by your forearms and not your back (see below). The azada’s blade cuts back slices of even the toughest clay soil and progress down the trench can be surprisingly quick.

 

All that remains to do is fork over the bottom of the trench, chuck in manure, compost and any other good stuff you can get your hands on and back fill the soil. Voila.

 

Other bits and pieces

 

You’ll need the best hoe and the best fork you can afford. A decent wheelbarrow and trowel would be nice too. And that’s it. I reckon you can get all this, and anything else I’ve suggested buying in previous articles for less than the price of a decent second-hand ride on mower or a lifetime’s supply of glyphosate.

 

I confess that even with my conscript animal army I still use a strimmer and a mower but that’s mainly to keep things tidy for the gite guests. Otherwise I’d happily settle for more home-grown hay.

 

While we’re on the subject of financial outlay, it’s probably wise to start saving now for next winter’s fruit tree. There are no sensible economies when it comes to a properly grafted, bare-rooted fruit tree. There are some excellent suppliers online (Pépinières Darnaud are second-to-none) and an investment as good as a fruit tree is worth at least an arm and a leg up-front.

 

 

Back to basics

 

The only other essential bit of kit is standard issue among vertebrates. Your back is the only thing to seriously worry about as you transition from couch potato to growing potatoes. At the risk of stating the obvious, you only have one – repairs are difficult and sensible maintenance essential. None of this, and lots more besides, happens at all easily if you wreck your back. Best look after it.

 

 

Things to do in March        

 

According to one authority, the hour change at the end of this month presents the possibility of over two hundred extra hours in the garden. Yippee. I’m tired out with the ones already on offer! But the return of light and warmth (well you never know) represents the perfect antidote to the grind that is late winter. It may take until the 21st to be spring proper in my book, but let’s hope nature didn’t get the memo.

 

During most months of the year sorting out which seeds to sow usually involves taking some seed packets out of a big box and sorting them into that month’s little box. But in March you take out the seeds you’re not going to sow and put them in the little box. It’s still too early for French beans, sweet corn and winter squash, but most other things vegetable and edible can take a bow this month.

 

A big watershed is reached with the start of the direct sowing season. Tentatively at first, seeds get sown directly into soil; not fancy seed compost, but outside in the ground as nature intended. Early varieties of beetroot, parsnips, spinach, carrots, kohl rabi, turnips and leaf beet are all worth a shot before the end of the month. Similarly en plein air is the mass potato planting: and it doesn’t get more important than that.

 

In the rush it’s important not to forget herbs. The best ones are dead easy to grow from seed and now’s the time to get cracking with parsley, basil, sage, chives, coriander and thyme. For the ones not used in industrial quantities, it’s probably still best to keep them in pots by the kitchen window, just like we used to do on Acacia Avenue. 

 

It’s also planting out time for the October-sown stalwarts which have been waiting patiently in pots. Cauliflowers, collards and kales will colonise lots of bed space (albeit looking a bit scrawny at first in the big field). And that, for me, that is the big flavour of this month: the occupation of winter’s bare soil before nature has her wicked way and clothes the lot in a thicket of weeds.

 

Happy sowing!   

 

 

More about Max Akroyd

 

About eight years ago Max Akroyd gave up the boardroom, sports cars and the rest to look 

after his first child and his fiveallotments. Five years later he moved with his wife and family 

to Brittany. He now has five children, various farm animals and six acres to look after... 

You can catch up with day-to-day developments on his smallholding at the Rural Idiocy? blog. 

 

Max and his family also welcome guest to their Gite; Kerveguen

 

 

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