Scarecrows are Us

Especially for those of you who have been enjoying the posts on country life in Dorset I have managed to persuade the lovely Maddie Grigg from The World from my Window to guest blog and this is what she wrote:

Behold the humble scarecrow.

In The Enchanted Village, various weird and wonderful figures come out once a year to compete in our annual scarecrow competition.

We’ve had monks and kings, cartoon characters, clowns and corgis. We’ve had cowboys and Indians, Cavaliers and Roundheads. We’ve had all sorts.

And occasionally, some stay in situ, scaring off the birds and becoming a permanent fixture until they rot away into oblivion. This one was on our allotments for some time.

Our scarecrow competition is a relatively new fixture on the village calendar. However, the keeper of our village history, the late Leonard Studley, who was born in 1909, tells us in his book, My Story, (ISBN 0 9514849 0 7) it’s nothing new:

As soon as the corn was sown in spring (or autumn) my father would construct a ‘mommett’ to keep the rooks off. Mother would have to supply a hat, preferably a straw one, ladies or gents didn’t matter, an old jacket, and if it was to be a posh ‘mommett’ a shirt, and a linen flour bag which would be stuffed with hay or straw to form a head.

The eyes, nose and mouth would be put in using the wet cork of the ink jar. He would then cut two sticks about 6ft long, one would have to be sharpened at the bottom end to enable it to be driven into the ground, the other would be tied across it to form the arms, and the clothes would be draped over the form.

Sometimes his nakedness would be hidden under a pair of trousers, sometimes not.

Leonard Studley says in the ‘earlier days’, boys were employed to scare off the birds and were known as bird starvers. This is the bird-scarers’ song his grandmother told him:

Heigh Ho Old Jack and Jennie Crow,
Let’s lie down and have a rest.
‘Spose my master was to come,
Thee must fly and I must run.

Sow four grains in a row,
One fer the rook, one fer the crow,
One fer to rot and one fer to grow.

It’s lucky for our children the practice has fallen into disuse. Or, if you’re inundated with birds on your patch of ground, maybe it’s something worth reviving…

That’s about it

Love Maddie x

Jubilee allotments!

All lanes lead to the Enchanted Village. As Ms Tagalong begins her fifth month in the old country she is gradually feeling that she is being allowed back into her former life. Villagers don't suffer 'strangers' gladly and it takes time to ease one's way into the antics and goings on of this very special place. 

All thoughts of local produce and gardening had taken second place to the fervour and fevered run-up to the Diamond Jubilee weekend.

Ms Tagalong felt very honoured to attend a local book club evening this week where the highly-spirited conversation about 'Made in Britain,' developed into conversations about allotments and stuffed corgis.

Unlike most other villages, allotments here seem to be available but not readily allotted (excuse the pun).

'Well, when I asked I was told there were none available,' one disgruntled member commented while another recounted how difficult it was to garden on the steeply-sloping site and yet another that they be sold as a building site and a more suitable location found.

'I just couldn't find a stuffed corgi anywhere,' floated down from the end of the table as Ms Tagalong's ears pricked up. A plethora of royal scarecrows with accompanying corgis had caused this unprecedented dearth.

But back to allotments and the Jubilee. Did you know that produce from allotments is not allowed to be sold commercially (cover your ears NNUTS) and that of course organic status cannot be certified due to possible drift from other plots?

That said, the allotments dressed themselves up in tidy rows and flags; one of the vacant plots became the venue for the lighting of the Queen's Beacon. ' Good job the nation's security doesn't depend on it', muttered a bystander and later for the startling firework display. Certainly startled one or two of the youngsters as a catherine wheel look-alike careened down the furrowed rows before exploding around them.

With stars in their eyes the villagers made their way back to the square checking that the allotment stall had sold all their produce and seedlings. For charity not profit of course!  

Flourish Community Garden

Surveying the garden from the activities shed

“It's not truly a community garden but a garden run by me for the community,' Kate Turner said as she enthusiastically told me all about Flourish, the community garden in Frimley Lodge Park near Camberley, Surrey. Ms Tagalong had stumbled across this garden whilst strolling along the Basingstoke canal with Mr Ideasman and having waited a while to speak to Kate, the instigator, was glad she did.

Kate has been working on this garden for just under a year and despite talking herself down has achieved wonders with a condemned playground in the council-run park.

As in Australia grants are hard to come by but she is funded for 15 hours a week with a local grant and the kindly Marks & Spencer helped set up the garden supplying raised beds, a large shed and other resources.

Kate's background in horticulture as a researcher for BBC Gardener's World and a stint as Head Gardener at a public school has left her passionate to work with both adults and children with special needs. With this in mind the raised beds are wheelchair friendly, of differing heights for young and old. 

Basingstoke Canal

But Kate has found she has generated funding by teaching Army wives, many of whom live in the area, how to begin gardening, how to grow in temporary containers, to grow portable things to accompany them as they move around.

Her biggest success was a Valentine's workshop and an Easter Hunt which generated a huge response with families queueing outside the gates before opening time! An idea for THCG to take on board.

Kate was slightly despondent that her 'Grow your own salad bowl' course didn't seem to be taking off but she said publicity hadn't been the best and the council 'had got things wrong and it had been quite tough.' It had been tough too in the garden with foxes scrabbling in beds, magpies teaching their babies to thieve the new seedlings and other small failures. This said, her successes have far outweighed the perceived failures.

Seedlings planted by local children

Ms Tagalong's head was spinning to hear all the ideas Kate wanted to do and had incorporated into her garden, a watercolour group, photography group, willow workshop, pumpking carving, Christmas wreath workshop and pre-school mini-beast trail.

With a 7 year waiting list for allotments in the area this kind of community garden makes sense and like THCG Kate has found that many families want to be involved, to have a social outlet and a place in which to play and nurture.

How lucky for Ms Tagalong to have met such a motivated young woman with ideas to share and knowledge to give.

Market day in Calitri

Ms Tagalong had vowed to be up early to see the market in its glory but a dinner that didn't finish until midnight the night before put paid to her good intentions.

 Bleary-eyed and still yawning at half-past nine when most self-respecting Calitrians had already filled their bags with fresh produce, Ms Tagalong's entourage wandered up and down the stalls sampling this and that.

 The little princess had elected to stay home sitting in the sun on his balcony reading a book but Ms Pollo Piccolo guided the troupe wheeling and dealing until a veritable feast had been gathered. Mr Ideasman collected a wee coffee pot which he is sure will replicate the magnificent coffee he had whilst there and Ms Tagalong collected vegetables for the repast that night.

 A large lemon was thrown in as a complementary enticement to buy from the seller next time! Jars of stuffed baby peppers, jars of olives, jars of artichoke hearts, jars of sun-dried tomatoes lined up like a stall at the fair.

Ms Tagalong elected to prepare and cook the fresh globe artichokes. A fiddly performance but well worth the effort. Next on the menu was a pasta concoction with mixed funghi, sun-dried tomatoes and parsley just shouting out its flavour. Grilled eggplant finished the meal off. Ms Tagalong had bought a tub of pistachio ice-cream for Mr Ideasman, well it had been for him until everyone dipped in eagerly with their spoons.

Such a successful day in the market.   

Gardening - Calitri style

Strips of terraced housing layered into the steep hillside with cave cellars hewn out of the rock give little space for gardens.

Ms Tagalong spies pots stuffed with geraniums, mint and tomato seedlings on the numerous steps she has to climb. Mmm ripened-on-the-vine tomatoes to go with the firm, pear-shaped local cacciocavello cheese, cured in a cave hung from the beams for 6/7 months in 90% humidity at around 13 degrees.

Sitting on the balcony she looks with wonder at the allotments tumbling down the opposite hill. Keen for a closer look she and Mr Ideasman took a wander and spied wild borage, olive trees and lettuces. Too early in the year for much else. Ms Tagalong spent a few minutes looking at the chooks. They clucked around the stony ground guarded by sleepy dogs curled neatly on top of their kennels. Just imagine Snowy doing the guarding!

Walking back to town an elderly gardener paused as he harvested some early artichokes, purple and crisp in their freshness.

'Bellisima', said Ms Tagalong. Pretty much the extent of her Italian (hopefully he didn't think she was referring to him) she gesticulated wildly at the camera. He nodded and grinned. Ah, Italian gardeners.

Golden Girls

Ms Tagalong and Ms Mova were sat quietly in the garden last year chewing the fat, or possibly imbibing the wine, and bemoaning the dearth of golden orb spiders. A few years ago the gardens on Kings Road were gleaming in the early morning sunshine, dazzling the eyes with the diligence of the nightly toiling arachnids.



Well, Ms Tagalong has found out what has happened to them all.



Several years ago, well actually eight, the 1.2 million Madagascar Golden Orb spiders needed to create an ambitious work of art must have put out an SOS and asked for volunteers to immigrate to Madagascar to be part of this project.



Yes, the golden spider silk was carefully harvested and spun onto wooden bobbins. Talk about a labour of love. Simon Peers designed garments and Nicholas Godley, a designer-entrepreneur found the money. It has been done before, believe it or not, but over a century ago and as it took the silk from 23,000 spiders to weave 25 grammes of silk alone, and there are 1.5kg of silk in the shimmering cape it's not surprising that there are no plans afoot to put this silk into commercial production.





So if you do see some golden orbs this year, be thankful they have returned from their strenuous activities and guard them from someone like Mr Ideasman who could invent a silk extraction contraption so that Tighes Hill silk could become a world attraction!

Guerilla Gardening - Dorset style

How excited was Ms Tagalong to see these packets of seeds carelessly strewn around the kitchen counter of someone who of course will remain nameless due to the sensitive nature of this revelation.

Far be it for Ms Tagalong to inadvertently cause the imprisonment of one of her true friends for the cause. But oh, did it bring back fond memories of the guerilla nature of the start of Tighes Hill Garden.

You can do it, take over some space, call it your own, start planting and there you are two and a half years later a wonderful community space with films, pizza nights and regular Friday night cocktails.

This is of course not the intention of the Dorset wildflower seeds but on reading the packet the description could be of our wonderful garden community.

A growing group of revolutionaries that work in the darker places of society striving to make a positive difference in their communities. Chalk and cheese? Check them out!

The very first working bee!

'You've come a long way, baby,' comes to my mind although of course the phrase to some of us recalls some radical feminist advertising. Well, if you call selling noxious weed to women radical. Some others may think the link is with Fat Boy Slim – but no, Ms Tagalong just wanted to let Ms Mova know and the many others who are labouring intensely how wonderful you are and to keep that guerilla spirit alive! Let it be known there are others out there in the world who are making in their own small way a change to the way we live!