TOBY BUCKLAND
Mutinous crew wreck my demonstration, writes Toby
Toby cries mutiny when Charlie fails to climb aboard
I’M always keen to try any novel gardening tool, so having stumbled across a flatner boat at Watchet Boat Museum while holidaying in Somerset I asked them to bring one along to my Harvest Festival at Forde Abbey.
As if you didn’t know, aflatner is a small vessel traditionally used to gather reeds and peat from the Somerset Levels – in short, a boat built for gardening and the perfect place to explain autumn pond care to festival visitors.
With Charlie Dimmock on hand to help, myself to be an expert seaman and in less than ten minutes had managed to locate the oars and was rowing back to where Charlie was studiously ignoring me.
This was heavy weather as the shallows didn’t allow the steadying keel to engage, making the boat impossible to steer and so wobbly the sail un-reefed from the mast.
All was very nearly lost, but like Captain Bligh, Shackleton and Pugwash before me, I prevailed, making land albeit after the pond-care talk had finished.
Although left unsaid some things are still worth saying and now is the time to cut out much of the dead and dying weed from around the edge of your ponds
before it sinks to the bottom and rots.
Rather than bung it straight on the compost, leave the stuff on the banks overnight so wildlife hiding among it has a chance to get back into the water. For most ponds, working from the banks is the sensible and safest choice but for larger ponds invest in a good pair of waders or a boat. If you ask nicely, Charlie might help from the banks...