Plants’ water content is at its lowest around the time of the New Moon, so it is the ideal moment to prune, with the least likelihood that sap will bleed from the cuts. Therefore, on Saturday, a ‘fruit’ day, and in the afternoon (while plants’ energies are drawn in towards the earth), I thinned my blackcurrants and gooseberries, and cut the vines back hard. Then by good chance, rather than design, on the actual day of the New Moon, Simon Hall, a tree surgeon friend came to visit and lop the oak that was brushing our neighbour’s chimney pot and casting shade on our greenhouse. Fantastic timing!

He took out a good half of the boughs, with all the lower, spreading branches cut off close to the trunk. Shaped more like a vase than a mushroom now, the oak still casts an elegant silhouette against the sky. Rather than opting to thin the remaining crown to let in more light, I wanted the branches unblemished by stumps, so every remaining branch is intact from start to finish, and no hideous stumps mar their beauty.

Cutting back hard to the trunk is almost always a good policy when pruning shrubs too, if you want them to retain a ‘natural’ outline. Secateurs, loppers and saws are the tools to use, not shears or hedge trimmers. My all-time gardening bête noir is the ubiquitous ‘blob’ bush, all it’s natural character obliterated by ‘trimming’. Two-inch-thick woody stumps rear up waist high, sprouting bunches of spindly fingers on the ends, that within only months will once more undergo the attentions of the shears. It’s nothing short of cruelty!

Hellebores and snowdrops are beginning to peep and Sam the gander is already anticipating spring, running at the dogs, hissing on the end of his outstretched neck. We’ve learned from past experience to keep the geese separate from other fowl at this time, as Sam’s violent rushes of testosterone have provoked bloody murder. The children take care to avoid him, but he’s never had a go at me yet, and still pecks corn from my palm, albeit with a little too much vigour.

The Wolf Moon

Happy New Year Bloggers! Apologies for the long silence – the month-long high from Siberia forestalled all garden activity at Bertie’s Cottage superfluous to the most basic survival. Apart from strewing fleece, too late I fear, over some of the more tender plants (the six-inch high broad beans look utterly miserable, and I still need to discover if the Mexican agave has made it through -6°c), I only intervened in the garden by watering evergreen plants in pots and six large box bushes that I’d moved in the autumn, hoping slightly warm water would warm their roots enough to give them a drink.

But yesterday at last, south-westerlies blew in a gale of slate-coloured clouds to wipe away the crystalline blue and thaw the frost. Soil began to soften its icy grip round trunks and roots, the goose bath melted to much honking and delight, and along with what felt like the whole natural world, I heaved a huge sigh of relief – it may be wet and windy, but at least it’s sufficiently warm for much of life to resume.

And what about yesterday’s full moon? It’s the ‘Wolf Moon’ according to Medieval tradition, an appropriate label I reckon, as the time is just beginning when wild predators are driven by hunger to prowl into the farmyard. I suppose I should be glad it’s only foxes and badgers that threaten us here, but the recent cold, clear, still nights make it all too easy to imagine packs of wolves stretching up their throats in unison, to howl desolation to the uncaring moon.

And after a month of drought, Saturday and Sunday nights both brought some showers. Can it be a coincidence that once again the full moon was accompanied by rain? According to biodynamics, the moon’s influence works through the element of water, and at this most powerful phase in the waxing-waning cycle, plentiful moisture is essential – certainly, according to my observation over the past year or so, it has consistently rained around the time of full moon. (Not hard in Devon, might I hear you comment?!)