They arrived today in a large bag along with some coconut coir. To be clear these are composting worms. Apparently ordinary garden worms aren’t so hungry and therefore take longer to make compost. As ‘project retirement’ moves on apace we are having raised beds and a general garden tidy up. Brexit Britain and all that  we took the decision to grow some veg and keep our cost down resulting in some heavy duty garden work being undertaken.

There is now a 10 foot long a metre wide (yes, I’m mixing my measurements) and tucked into the corner is a little composting pod from Subpod (no they’re not paying me). Its a buried, worm based, composting system which is supposed to be less smelly and more efficient than a normal compost heap. The brick sized lump of coconut soaked in water and crumbled into the box topped with a yummy layer of cardboard and a banana skin then in go the worms all tucked up under a biodegradable blanket. Lid closed and, I am told, it can now be ignored for a week.

There’s something comforting about the idea of having the ability to grow food. I know its already a wonderful thing to have an outdoor space as the past two years have proved. There’s also a memory wrapped up in there. Both my grandfathers worked on the land. One raised turf for bowling greens and sheep for the table, the other grew dahlias and chrysanthemums for market. I spent many summer afternoons helping to round up sheep, tote bales of hay or sitting on a Victorian garden bench with my grandma bashing the stems of the flowers so they could be put in water before shipping.

I knew it was spring as a child because the rotovator man would come. My grandparents lived next door and the coming of the rotovator man meant grandad was preparing the soil for the spring planting. why own a machine that would sit in the shed for all but one day a year. The vegetable garden sat in what had been the base of a commercial greenhouse and would provide enough veg for my grandparents, auntie and uncle and our family too. if they had lost me in the summer months I’d be stealing peas straight from the plant. There were other greenhouses (glasshouses for my American cousins) with tomatoes and flowers for commercial sale. it wasn’t a bad way to grow up. We even had a Jersey cow for fresh milk. I can see my grandad now, cap turned backwards milking her and my grandma hand churning butter on the kitchen table.

I moved to the city to study. My once tidy vegetable patch (I had my own little area to manage) became a fish pond for my parents. Gardening seemed fruitless task (pardon the pun). Funny how the wheel turns.