Nettle teatime

Saturday morning: a young playful fox at the gate unsure whether to run away or run towards us. Ears and eyes alert, unthreatened and unconcerned, he trots away when we get too close. It is not yet 6am, and Henri, Howard and I are here to stir a silica spray . The light is still soft, the heat still subdued, the birds wide awake (more than Henri anyway). We stir, we spray, we watch the plot begin the day: the bees, the shiny beetles, the spiders, the cute baby wrens darting under the big leaves. But then it cannot be avoided anymore. It is time for the nettle 'tea' . For the uninitiated, this is one of the two 'herbal' fertilisers we use on the allotment – the other is with comfrey. It is made simply by filling a barrel with armloads of stems and leaves, covering it with water and leaving it for weeks, until it ferments and 'activates'. It is my turn to pour, for which, read: wear heavy rubber gloves, anxiously avoid getting it on skin, shoes and/or clothes and try (spectacularly unsuccessfully) not to retch when pouring it into a waterering can and diluting (we use about three or four parts water to one, though our measurements vary and are more instinctive than accurate. A major tip: crop anything you are planning to eat before spraying, as whatever the tea touches will be largely inedible for a while after. Did I mention it smells very bad, like something has died? A long time ago in the heat. The sensible thing would be to spray in the evening but we cannot always manage that. But, dear reader, the benefits. I return later to work on Mary's plot and it as though our plants have had a vitamin shot (viagra?). The drooping sunflowers of early morning now alert and standing to attention. You can almost hear the beans greedily drinking it in. I admire it from far away and pull more weeds from around Mary's shallots...