Monday
Chiswick
Dearest,
As we are very slack in the office – in the old ‘D.P.’ days we’d now be playing snooker at the club! – I thought I’d make a start on your letter about the plot. First of all, you’d better get someone on Russell’s plot as soon as possible or you may find that if the spring gets too far advanced no-one will tackle it. The top part, by the rhubarb, will do better once all the brambles are cleared away. I don’t like your choice of site for the tomatoes. Will they get as much sun running ACROSS the plot as they would running up and down it? I have my doubts. Remember they did quite well when I had them going up and down the plot by Mason’s. I’m wondering, too, if the site of the present manure heap isn’t too shaded for marrows. For quite a long part of the day they are shaded by the poplars, which means that once the fruit is formed the ground might be TOO damp if there is a rather wet spell. You might get better results in the open even if it means using some of the manure. Anyway, you can think on these points when you are making your final decision about what to grow and where. Another thing you want to do is carry the centre path right to the bank where the raspberries are and put another path at right-angles to it, running parallel that is, with the bank. You will find a bramble there which needs digging out.
I’m enclosing a plan with a few suggestions. As you will see, I suggest that you take up one of the crowns of rhubarb and split it into three or four new ones which, if you let them grow and die off this year, will give you a really good supply next year. The remaining three should give you plenty for this summer. Use the end of the present onion bed, or the continuation of the rhubarb bed (perhaps the latter is really the best) for your marrows and prepare the bed as soon as you can so that anything you do put there, old leaves etc, will be rotting down. Do you think you’ll be able to get a bit more manure? Get all you can and keep Michael up to scratch on that point. Your greens should do well this year because they and the onions will be almost the only things needing manure and you won’t have the spuds taking such a lot.
According to a list at Kew, broccoli and sprouts are the best vitamin-bearing vegetables so it might be well to do away with summer cabbage, or put only one score in, and concentrate as much as possible on them and cauliflower and savoys. The cauliflower may do better with more food in the ground. Scarlet runners are only a suggestion for you. The great snag is the stakes. Where you had peas last year should be ideal for parsnips, but I’d put some naphthalene on first and get your seed in early this year. They seem to take a long time to germinate and an early dry spell will set them right back. Are you getting loganberries from Milly? If so, I suggest that you clear one or two little spots on the front of the raspberry bank and then try to stake them up. If you put them on the open ground of the plot you’ll never keep them under control. They run all over the place. I’d put globe roots – beetroot, whitestone turnip and redtop turnip – in both sides of the garden this year, with emphasis on the redtop which will keep and store for the winter as a change or to go with carrots. As an experiment, why not try a few different plants – brassicas and roots of all kinds – on the site of the present manure heap when it is cleared, just to see what plants do really well on old manured ground? Remember if you do try this to keep the taller stuff near Mason’s side so at to give the front ones a chance of sun.
All these things are just suggestions for you because you must decide what you want to do for yourself. I know it’s easy to give other people advice on this subject, but all the same I wish I could get a fortnight’s work in on that plot for you. I’d get in quite a bit of digging there – and elsewhere! But seriously, you want to spend what little time you have in the garden and plot preparing for your earliest stuff first and, if you can manage it, I’d get some of those mothballs crushed or get ready-powdered naphthalene and give as much of the plot as possible a dressing of it as soon as you can. It might do a lot to ward off some of the pests that are hibernating.
Now to your letter. I’m glad the “boodle” from Jane has arrived. You may find that very useful later on. Have you sent a cable or an airgraph in reply? Let me know by return because, if you haven’t, then I must immediately because of the evident delay in transit. They’ll be wondering what happened. The old oak chest is looking a bit healthier now but we’ll probably need it all!
Say “thank you” to Michael for his drawing and tell him I think he’s a clever lad, although I must confess I’m not certain whether the big object with two chimneys is intended to be – Littlewoods or a cruiser! I think he writes amazingly well, don’t you?
Your letter was quite one of the nicest you have written – so homey with its wide range of subjects that it was almost like sitting talking to you for an hour or so by the fireside, which is the atmosphere letters should produce, isn’t it? I was interested in all you had to say on the barred subject but am not going into that further just now. Nor do I think I can usefully add anything in regard to the allowance/allotment business. I think you know best on this score and at the time I mentioned I had a feeling myself that it might be well to leave the whole matter alone as we have done so well, but I believe there was an undertaking given in the House, at the time, that this would not happen.
Thanks for the local gossip, love. I enjoyed it but was sorry to hear that Batty’s have given it up. Tell Mrs Batty so, if you see her. What are they going to do? I can’t imagine him in any other job, can you? How will you fare with the new bloke and what are the chances of muck?
I liked your story of the canal because I can see Michael taking after me in that respect. Not only did I lure a very willing young woman there on certain occasions, but as a kid I spent half my holidays there. The “cut”, as we always called it, was a great place to me and you may remember that I finally discovered I could swim only when I fell in! Once Michael starts school, he’ll be haunting the place too, I expect. Which has just called to mind the fact that when I was up at the golf course I meant to see if I could get some frogspawn for the children. Could you get a bit from one of the little brooks and keep it in a jar for them? They’d be tickled pink, you know. One of my secret pleasures had been hoping to be able to introduce them to tadpoles, jacksharps and newts. In another month or so the male newts will be wearing those gorgeous crests of theirs. They do look lovely in mating season.
You are a good soul to go to so much trouble to see Michael gets fresh air these days and I’m doubly glad because it takes you out, too. Do you feel better for it?
All things being considered, I think the snaps are not too bad at all. The reason why Wendy has come off best is that I had used two films on Michael indoors. He did well to sit for a time exposure, didn’t he? With a fast lens one of those would have been very good. Did Dave (a) give you only one set; (b) say if we could have any repeats; (c) return the negatives?
Now, angel, I must fly to the post or you will never receive this. I do love you, angel. Do take good care of yourself and I’m so pleased to hear that your cold is on the mend. I’ll be interested to know – banned subject altogether apart and not even being considered – whether you have got over your succession of late nights and if your sexual exercise has done you any good. Do you feel physically and mentally better for it?
Pet, I must go. Yesterday I really did get to the zoo at last, but I’ll tell the children about it as soon as I can find time. Give them my love. I hope they are behaving well. All my love to you, Stelly-well.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. Let me know which, if any, of the snaps you want back.
Feb 221943