They Say

That John Mathew of Charlton Horethorne has become a vegetarian and may even become a vegan.

That two donkeys are the latest members of Barb Moody's menagerie in Chiselborough, fortunately they don’t need too much to eat!

That a ‘chocka blockage’ in Castle Cary resulted in an eminently quaffable Redcurrant Rosé for North Cadbury’s Dave Hoddinott - courtesy of Pippo’s Winery

That the Rump and Sirloin Steaks proved to be extremely popular ‘Mains’ during the Marks & Spencer Valentine Dine-In offer, as anyone trying to purchase steaks on February 14th found out.

Answers To Pop Music Quiz

on page 22

1. Pointer Sisters

2. Osmonds

3. Jacksons/Jackson 5

4. Walker Brothers

5. Kings of Leon

6. Hanson

7. Beach Boys

8. Bee Gees

9. Tavares

10. The Corrs

All of the bands consisted either exclusively or mainly siblings. The odd one out is The Walker Brothers. They were not related and neither were any born with the surname Walker, being Noel Scott Engel (Scott Walker)

John Joseph Maus (John Walker) and Gary Leeds (Gary Walker)

That a Cafeta is a special piece of surgical equipment, recently invented by East Coker’s Kim Rendall, for those patients wishing to enjoy a cup of coffee with their treatment.

That Mark Birchell of Bradford Abbas has travelled the world - just so that he can boast he's hit a flopper (at last).

That in Chiselborough the village duck pond, complete with shark, was a source of much amusement recently.

That after the so-called ‘amendments’ to the writings of Roald Dahl, surely one of the greatest children’s storytellers of our time, how long before the works of other great authors are ‘amended’ to fit in with today's woke culture.

Vinny loves a beer garden

Luca's Garden

with Bridget Sudworth

NOTHING GIVES more pleasure on a sunny afternoon in late winter than clearing out the greenhouse and getting started with the seed trays. All the plants that have been wintering over in the shelter of the greenhouse are showing signs of life and there is an inevitable sense of optimism that comes with the start of a new season.

An unexpected clutch of agapanthus seeds have emerged from dried seed heads previously forgotten about which will now have to be planted if only out of curiosity; RHS guide lines tell me there may even be blooms in two years if they germinate. Having thought they constituted merely a black lining to the seed case, on close inspection the seed consists partly of a black wing obviously to aid dispersal with the tiny seed being a hard little lump at one end so they must be real and not just some garden flotsam! Time will reveal all - or nothing! The broad beans are all in now, planted as usual in the dirty looking old polystyrene boxes that were gleaned from the green grocer many years ago. They are started in the greenhouse which gives some protection if the weather decides that Spring is not quite on the way and are only planted out when big enough to be unattractive to small rodents..

Thankfully, we have had a proper winter this year with multiple frosts and suitably low temperatures that will serve well for the fruit trees but the milder days are encouraging growth everywhere - not least the clematis which is sending out huge fat buds. The showy bulbs in pots are all in bloom and a fat bumble bee was sipping nectar from the Wintersweet bloomseven a butterfly flew across the garden this afternoon though too far away for identification. Curiously, it is notably dry at the moment so the hose pipe has been commandeered from the store to water some of the transplants.

Serendipity served me well when splitting up 4 pots of totally bound-up agapanthus (from which came the resulting seeds) - they were packed so tight that they had to be sliced into several more units than anticipated. I was at first perplexed about where to plant them then realized that with the roses all moved into afternoon shaded beds, the hotspot in the herbaceous border was vacant (and with a hole already dug by my four-legged helper to make the first den of the year) and perfect for the African lily who wouldn't grumble should we have another summer like last year. With their straplike leaves and love of hot sun, they will cope with high temps if they, both the weather and the blooms, come again this year.

Talking of strap leaves, Luca loves the green ribbed sedge plants (carex binervis) that line the track through our local hilltop wood; there must be something about the leaf structure that retains the peemails left by other dogs! Carex is frankly a flipping nuisance round here growing in abundance but there are parts of the country where it doesn’t hug the lane sides and spring up annoyingly in the flower beds which must be a relief thoughno doubt there will be other things!

As well as the coatings of mosses on the tree trunks, there are also deposits of lichen growth which forced the question, partly as a result of my article last month, namely what is the difference between moss and lichen? The answer is simple for those who didn’t already knowmoss is a plant with leaves though no roots whereas lichen, though behaving as a single organism is actually a combination of fungi and algae where the algae component photosynthesises and the fungal element grows hyphae into the algae to absorb nutrient - a perfect example of symbiosis. The interesting thing about the lichen is that it’s a wonderful environmental indicator being very sensitive to air pollution. I recall seeing some amazing lichen growth in the Knoydart peninsula, Scotland (only accessible by boat or by walking) and on the Isles of Rum and Eigg. Scotland is quite incredible for amazing plant growth in remote places (of which there are so many) and in Knoydart particularly, the sundews growing along the moorland tracks are breathtaking to observe but that’s another story.

It is still quite heartening to see lichen growth round here in various places - the further away from urbanization, the better. Painting your garden containers with a weak solution of yoghurt can aid colonisation of algae, lichens and mosses all of which will add character to the garden.

Don’t forget to prune the climbers before it’s too late - if we get a warm spell the growth will be exponential!

There have been a number of programmes on the telly recently highlighting the restoration of badly damaged lands like the Loess Plateau in China where there was enormous poverty and hardship due to massive soil erosion resulting from over exploitation. With the damage being reversed, there has been a remarkable replacement of green growth serving as a reminder that when left to get on with things and not interfered with, Mother Nature can heal herself and of course us at the same time. So however small your garden, there will be amazing things happening as the new season gets underway.

An unexpected surprise occurred with the removal of a jar containing an amaryllis that had grown blind this year. On its way to the compost heap, I paused it with a brief stay on the window sill as the arching green leaves were very graceful to look at and it seemed worthwhile to enjoy it for a few days more.

One morning it looked like the accompanying photograph!! Obviously the fungi spores were lying in wait in the compost and somehow the time and conditions were suddenly right. We did not eat them!

Happy planting and watch out for unexpected plants popping up!

Local wildlife, wind and birds are very good at depositing stuff where it’s least expected!

Mowing into the future

Ben Johnson Garden Machinery at Shaftesbury now has the NEW Segway Navimow in stock. It’s the truly automated robotic mower that uses a virtual boundary, eliminating the need for complicated perimeter wiring. The series has four models available that will cover a range from 500sqm to 3000sqm with an attractive price range from £1299 - £2299. The Navimow is easy to operate and manage, giving you more time to do the things you love.

It has Vision Fence as an optional extra which enables your Navimow to detect various objects and mow even more intelligently, even if the satellite loses signal. Check it out on www.ben johnsonmowers.com or pop to see Ben in store for a chat.

Read online at: www.thevisitormagazine.co.uk

Qualified

All Aspects Of Tree Care And Dangerous Tree Removal Tree Planting

Utilise the generous grants now available to restock neglected woodland or areas of wasteground PHONE: NORTH CADBURY 440660

The price of parking

THE COST OF car-parking in Yeovil was a controversial issue in the Spring of 1993. ‘The mandarins at Clarke Hall have been conducting their two-yearly review of charges,’ the March Visitor reported, ‘and in their report to the Area South Committee they prepared the ground for the increased charges they would like to impose’.

These amounted to a 33% rise from 15p to 20p per hour in many car parks and the introduction of charges of 30p and 40p per day in what had, until then, ‘been free car parks much favoured by those who work in Yeovil’.

The reporter pointed out that ‘to many people this is serious money, £78 to £104 in a full year’, adding that ‘if the charges raise the extra £27,000 a year that the council expects, that could conceivably be £27,000 out of the town centre’s economy’.

Recycling memories

Recycling was in its infancy 30 years ago and the March 1993 Visitor urged ‘those not yet in the habit of recycling’ to ‘start making use of the many mini recycling centres recently set up by the local council. Each centre consists of at least four green recycling banks – one each for clear, brown and green glass and one for cans’ as well as ‘a blue igloo bank for paper’.

It added that the council had ‘recently introduced Bertie Bottle Boxes, used to recycle plastic such as washing-up liquid bottles, margarine tubs, drinks bottles etc’ which is being used to make such things as flower pots. The Bertie Boxes had been installed in ten car parks across South Somerset and were already collecting an average of two tonne of plastic per month.

A juicy scare

In early 1993 the country was in the midst of yet another ‘food scare’, this one concerning the risks involved in the consumption of apple juice. In an attempt to put readers’ minds at rest the March Visitor reported that ‘your five-year-old would have to drink 2.5 litres a day and an adult would have to drink around 120 litres a day to be at risk’.

Although this information had been given clearly to the mass media, ‘the television chaps preferred to focus on the scare side’. The reporter admitted to becoming greatly worried by the usual response to food scares ‘as we are increasingly sterilising our food’ and it is slowly becoming tasteless. ‘If we make our food sterile. how will our bodies maintain an efficient immune system?’, he asked.

Billiards in the bar

The ‘Beer and Skittles’ column in the March 1993 issue bemoaned that ‘whilst snooker tables are virtually unknown in pubs, the dreaded pool tables are now the main space-waster in many of our establishments’.

Columnist P A Baxter added that pool ‘has also brought about the almost total demise of a most excellent game, bar billiards’ and that ‘this perfect pub game – the right mix of interest, skill and fun – is now quite a rarity, my last sighting being at the Royal George in West Coker’. Apparently the game originated in Belgium and did not spread to England until the 1930s after a Frenchman had invented a reliable coin-operated mechanism through which players paid for their game.

Newsworthy accolade

Newspaper sales have plummeted in recent years but 30 years ago local papers were much valued by local residents.

So much so that in February 1993 the Chard 2000 organisation presented an accolade award to Chard & Ilminster News editor Alison Hulls and her reporters Toby, Zena and Zetta for ‘quality of journalism and interest in the local community’.

The March Visitor noted that ‘unlike many papers, the Chard & Ilminster News credits its readers with a modicum of intelligence; it assumes they want to know in some detail what is going on in their area.

What other local paper can you name that would devote two complete pages in two consecutive issues to in-depth reports of a local plan inquiry?’

The Visitor saw this as ‘living proof indeed that a local paper can, with the right leadership and well-trained journalists, still give an indispensable service to the local community it exists to serve’.

Roger Richards.