Summer in the Welsh Hinterland, August Diary
Tuesday, 6 August 2024
It's been an unusual year for many crops. It started with peas and broad beans being very late due to the poor pollination conditions in spring. Strong wind and heavy rain meant few pollinating insects were on the wing when plants needed them. Apples, pears and especially cherries were badly affected.
I’d sown five varieties of pea in the spring - First Early May, Kelvedon Wonder, Rondo, Ambassador and Hurst’s Greenshaft but now they’re all coming ready for harvest at the same time. (OK there might be a bit of a spread!)
Peas in Flower, Tynyrhelyg 2024
Thursday, 8 August 2024
Three days in Eryri (Snowdonia) with children and grandchildren. Our first rendezvous was at Harlech beach with a strong onshore wind, and the castle looming behind us. When built by the English King Edward 1st in the 11th century the castle stood on the coast, now thanks to longshore drift it's a mile from the sea.
We drove on to the town of Llanberis. Surrounded by the mountains and with an enticing lakeside on Llyn Padarn, the town seemed almost continental in the warm sunshine. In Melyn, an eatery popular with walkers and climbers, we booked a room and dinner for 17. Buffet style but chaotically enjoyable. Then in the garden of ‘The Heights’, my daughters introduced me to the cocktail, Baby Guinness.
We discovered that part of the Dinorwig Slate Quarry is near Llyn Padarn, in the Padarn Country Park, with the National Slate Museum housed in former quarry workshops. There’s lots of machinery and equipment here to be studied and pondered over including a working water wheel, and a restored incline that was used to transport the slate on waggons.
The National Slate Museum
The Water Wheel
At the time of peak production in the mid-nineteenth century, the Dinorwig Quarry produced 80,000 tons of good-quality slate per year. Slate workers tried to form a union in 1865 but permission to hold meetings was denied by the landowners. The North Wales Quarrymen's Union was finally established in 1874 following meetings held on land owned by Lord Newborough. (The current Lord Newborough has converted the Rhug Estate farm to organic production, with a well-known farm shop, café and takeaway prominently sited on the busy A5 near Corwen).
Tuesday, 13 August 2024
After three nights in North Wales, we came home rather exhausted. This would be fair enough for those 10 family members who climbed Snowdon on August 9.
Tuesday, 20 August 2024
We've been picking this week to keep the farm gate stall stocked with lettuce, peas, broad beans, spinach, courgettes, potatoes, marrows, herbs and flowers. Tomorrow, we have a wholesale order for lettuce, peas and marrows.
The wind is blowing hard from the southwest. I fear for the runner bean poles and that the wind might shred soft upright plants like the courgettes, marrows, squash and pumpkins. Later in the evening, I read in Robert Macfarlane’s Underland, an account of the maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands. Then came news of the luxury yacht which sank on August 19 at anchor off Porticello, near Palermo. The sinking was apparently due to a freak hurricane and maelstrom, known as a ‘waterspout’.
I don't believe in coincidences but ...sometimes…
Also, I didn't know until reading Macfarlane's Underland, that in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the voyage starts by descending into an Icelandic volcano and ends when they emerge from the crater of Stromboli.
The volcano’s crater on the island of Stromboli in the Aeolian archipelago
Friday, 30 August 2024
We’ve spent two days in Cardigan. It’s an hour’s drive but the town is thriving with vibrant arts and gastronomy. We stayed in a hotel by the bridge with fine views of the River Teifi, walked to Poppet Sands, and ate well at Yr Hen Printworks. Like Llanberis, Cardigan is a town rich in history. In its heyday Cardigan was a busy port, following only London, Liverpool and Bristol in national importance.
Before coming home we visited the beach at Mwnt with its flocks of red-legged choughs - brân goesgoch in Welsh - that nest on the cliffs, and then to the elderly Italian gardener in Llechryd, wondering if he was still growing tomatoes. Happily, he’s still there and his roadside garden is magnificently prolific with rows of runner beans that dwarf my efforts this year - but his tomatoes have failed. A great shame. Outdoor grown, they’re usually the very best but this growing season has been late and difficult, especially for crops like tomatoes that need warmth and high light levels.
But we have peas. Lots and lots of peas.