A Parched Spring

The dry weather is set to continue until the end of May. I can’t remember the last time I saw rain — which, in Perthshire, is a sentence I never expected to write. A weakening Atlantic current, some say. Whatever the cause, the urgency of building resilient gardens and food systems feels less abstract by the week.

Most things in the forest garden are holding up. There have been a few interventions, some expansion, and various experiments with weeding, suppression, mulching – and a fair amount of deliberate abandonment. Much abandonment, which is clearly a unavoidable parameter in parts of this. But the woody layer is doing what it’s supposed to do, I hope.

A short walk immediately outside the walled garden reveals the most sculpturally magical spot on Bamff: a mature beech, leaning over an understory of bluebells and Siberian purslane. In the evening, when the sun attempts to press through the dense canopy, the light does something that no photograph has ever quite caught.

The “mediterranean garden” is now into its second year – the old footprint of the heated greenhouse, now home to a collection of woody herbs and a rather exuberant North American black raspberry (yet to fruit). The peach tree (with its apricot graft — still a source of mild disbelief) is healthy, but shows no intention of blossoming this year. The young fig takes another small step forward. Progress here is measured in inches.

One problem is becoming clearer, though. The giant mature sycamores north of the wall lean over this area and drop a considerable amount of leaf litter – which sits wet and heavy around plants that cannot abide it during the winter. The lavenders and rosemary are suffering for it. I’m trying other hardier varieties to see if that helps. But really, the mediterranean garden demands mediterranean conditions, and a soggy mulch of sycamore leaves is about as far from that as Perthshire can offer, even if this area is a sun trap with a huge amount of sun-soaking thermal mass looming over it.

Back inside, the polytunnel is where much of my attention is currently going. It’s been producing since March – which still surprises me – with no winter watering at all. The temperature swings are extraordinary: we went from a range of 0–40°C a week ago to something like 5–50°C now, with the doors closed. Tomato plants went in the ground in late April, which is highly unusual this far north, and possibly unwise. We’ll see.

Outside, the beds are still mostly seedlings in dry earth. Bere barley is unfazed — it never needs much water. And the tatties are bursting through everywhere, in all their variety, which feels like cause for quiet celebration in a spring this strange.