Spring is nearly upon us. Daffodils are smiling sunnily up from the flowerbeds, the weather will start to warm up soon, the blossom buds are starting to appear on the trees. And with this will come the return of gardening. And the return of our vegetable patch.

A few years ago we dug over a corner of the garden to make an allotment space which we thought would be good for the children – they could get involved with growing their own vegetables, learn where the food they eat comes from, enjoy the cycle from seed to plate.  Turning a patch of lawn into an allotment is hard work; digging up the sod, removing all the weeds, digging up endless bricks and rubbish where the builders of the house had dumped the rubble, hacking up large lumps of clay. It was an exhausting and lengthy process. But in the end we had a fresh looking patch of soil into which the children and I could plant seeds and seedlings and lovingly tend them and watch them grow.  Except it didn’t turn out this way – after planting the veggies, watering them a few times, and extricating a few radishes from their soily confines – the kids decided that they were no longer interested and therefore it is now my vegetable patch, not theirs. My own labour of love. The children are happier watching YouTube videos of American children playing with toys whilst loudly declaring that everything is ‘awesome’ or ‘super-awesome’. My attempts at creating an earthy natural experience for them had fallen flat on its face and left me with a labour-intensive allotment to look after all by myself.

The first year our yield was pretty good. I quickly had an abundance of greenery, hosting a variety of vegetables. I produced a hessian sack full of potatoes to store in the garage which lasted some way into the winter.  Radishes were growing in successful rotation, we even grew our own pumpkins to carve for Halloween. It was a success. Sadly the broccoli plants, which were huge, were descended on by caterpillars and had to be destroyed but otherwise it was rewarding. We had people comment on how well everything was growing, as you could see the veg patch from the road. One man even commented to my husband “we hate your wife” which was alarming until he said that he was frustrated that he hadn’t managed much success with his own potato plants and was envious of ours.

And then – and then – it all went downhill, and the last two years have produced very little, mainly just an abundance of courgettes.  And I don’t even like courgettes that much. The potatoes have been small and few (the passing neighbour and his wife would probably like me more now), the pumpkins all died, even the radishes refused to grow. I think it was a combination of the hedges around the patch growing more vigorously and taking the nutrients and moisture from the soil, poor soil quality, and overplanting.  A prisoner of my own initial success, I planted too much in the space in the ensuing years.  We had put compost from the compost bins down, but the soil wasn’t great. So over winter I decided to put horse manure down to enrich the soil.

And this is where the story begins as gardening is boring enough to do, I appreciate that it is even more boring to read about. Apologies. I am at the local stables every week so thought that the procurement of horse poo would be relatively easy and uneventful.  Horses do the poo, I collect the poo, the poo goes on the garden. Easy.  Except it really wasn’t easy at all.

I asked about poo collection at the stables and they said “sure”, I could help myself. If I wanted I could either gather it from the mucking out heap, with lots of straw, or take a wheelbarrow down to the field to gather it directly from the source. So, whilst my eldest daughter had a riding lesson, the youngest and I would head down to the field and collect some manure. I had worked out that I needed 150 litres for the vegetable patch and over a few weeks, filling my 42-litre trug, I could achieve that.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow and a horse-poo-collecting-fork-thing and headed down to the field. The field is a long walk downhill from the stables and as a result it is rather wet underfoot. We had wellies on so that was no problem. Once we reached the field the difficulties began. There is a huge gate that my youngest daughter was too small to hold and she was too small to do anything with the wheelbarrow. So I had to open the gate up wide, with all the horses and Jack the donkey growing interested in us, then push the wheelbarrow through, before closing the gate again. Sounds easy enough? It wasn’t. The horses and Jack decided that the open gate represented a bid for freedom and whilst I manoeuvred the wheelbarrow through, they took the opportunity to try and escape.  My little one got a bit freaked out if they came near her until I showed her how to stroke them. We managed to persuade all the horses and Jack to stay on our side of the fence and went to work collecting poo. The little one loved it: “mummy, I’ve found more poo” and we collected it all up and filled the trug in the wheelbarrow.

Now, poo is heavy, and it also then turned out that we had picked a faulty wheelbarrow. You couldn’t tell when it was empty and light, but one of the stabilisers that held it up on one side was bent and wouldn’t hold the weight of the wheelbarrow upright. Which meant that it kept collapsing, with poo spilling back out across the field, which I then had to collect again with the horse-poo-collecting-fork-thing. At this point the horses then decided to take great interest in our shenanigans and kept putting their faces into the poo in the wheelbarrow, causing it to collapse again.  This game continued for some time (add some Benny Hill music in your head whilst envisaging it if you like). Eventually we were ready to leave and get back up to the stables and which point a conundrum presented itself. I had to open the gate wide and leave it so, in order to push the wonky wheelbarrow through. The horses, now bored with sniffing and trying to consume their own poo, decided to head for the open gate which I couldn’t close due to trying to manoeuvre the wheelbarrow. Which then collapsed again. Spilling forth poo. At which point the donkey grabbed its chance of freedom and legged it through the gate and up onto the pathway.  I managed to get the wheelbarrow through and close the gate so that we were on the right side of it, but Jack the donkey was now on the wrong side of it. Every time I tried to open it the horses tried to follow in Jack’s rebellious footsteps (hoofsteps?).

I am aware of the saying “as stubborn as a mule” but I had no idea how difficult donkeys are – they really do not want to do what you want them to do. The horses had been fairly compliant and let me lead them back into the field but Jack was having none of it. You can add the Benny Hill music again here if you like as I unsuccessfully, and repeatedly, tried to shepherd Jack back to his field. He was having none of it. In the battle of Jack versus myself it was Jack: one, me: nil.  I had to admit defeat and leave him there. Smirking at me.

It turned out that the long uphill pathway back to the stables was steeper and harder than I anticipated with a heavy, wobbly wheelbarrow full of horse poo. It was a sweaty long push back, with my little girl knocking the wheelbarrow over again at one point and poo spilling all over the pathway before I collected it up. Again. Eventually we got back to the stables and the car and voila – 42 litres of hard-won poo for the garden. I confessed to the staff that I had accidentally let Jack escape and they were fine with it … “oh, that’s fine, he can come and go as he pleases”. Hence Jack’s smirk earlier – he knew that he would win the battle.

We still had over 100 litres of poo to collect so our exploits continued over the next couple of weeks. It rained heavily and we nearly lost our wellies in the field. My eldest daughter, who declared that the poo collection looked like fun and wanted to come too, nearly fell face-first in mud and poo when her wellies cemented themselves into the boggy ground. The horses continued to stick their faces into the wheelbarrow, we used the broken wheelbarrow a few more times but became more skilful at keeping it upright. Finally 150 litres of glorious poo was ours and on the vegetable patch.

So, we shall see what this spring brings in terms of vegetive abundance. I am hoping that the poo debacle was worth it, so far way more effort has gone into this patch than it has yielded. Fingers crossed the horse poo will make all the difference and the neighbours can start saying that they hate me again.

A few weeks ago I was at the stables when I noticed a big trug standing next to the school. Upon asking what it was for, the reply came “oh, it’s for someone who wants manure for their garden. They leave the trug with us and we fill it up and then they come and collect it”. Oh, that was an option? Hindsight eh?!