Notes from the Potting Shed

(As dictated, misremembered, and scribbled on napkins by Mr Virgil Twobyfour. Compiled and typed up by Keith, allegedly a grand-nephew or possibly just a neighbour with a printer.)

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Greetings from the Potting Bench.

My name, depending on who you ask, is Virgil Twobyfour. Some say I’m the last proper custodian of the ancient mysteries of the English garden. Others know me as that peculiar old chap in the allotments who talks to slugs and smells faintly of old chutney. Both are probably true. I was once employed in the murkier corners of government work (no further questions, thank you), and now dedicate my time to the cultivation of vegetables with character, the pursuit of spiritual imponderables, coaxing rude-shaped vegetables out of the earth, recording supernatural fluctuations in compost bins, trying to keep the robins from interfering with the ley lines, and the issuing of uninvited advice to strangers in the village shop queue.

I’ve lived through too many decades, several suspiciously quiet invasions, and at least three calendrical corrections. The precise details are unimportant. I live somewhere rural and unmarked. If you’ve passed a crooked signpost, a toppled scarecrow, and a hedge that laughs quietly when it thinks you’re not listening, you’re close.

This blog, Notes from the Potting Bench, exists because Keith - who claims to be my nephew, though we’ve never found the paperwork - insists the internet is the best place for this sort of thing. He manages the technicals. He takes dictation when I remember to give it, transcribes my garden notes when they’re not too damp, and occasionally adds unnecessary punctuation. He also runs my social media, which is why there are photos. I apologise for that. I supply the notes, mutterings, and occasional damp scrolls.

Here you’ll find:

• Irregular Almanac entries and rustic horoscopes

• Classifieds, curios, lost objects, and sightings of things that ought not to be moving (often gleaned from the Village Noticeboard)

• Bits from my wartime field diaries, often redacted or slightly on fire (redacted where necessary)

• Myths, warnings, and folk traditions (some of them invented by accident)

• General updates from the wider Twobyfour cosmology, which includes bees, quantum interference, and the ghost of a butcher’s assistant. 

• Reports of local incidents, sightings, and unexplained vegetable behaviours

• Faintly unsettling seasonal recipes

• Observations on the spiritual elasticity of treacle

You may also encounter me elsewhere online, depending on which wires are humming. I appear sometimes on Farcebook, haunt a corner of BluedSkies, and very occasionally post warnings disguised as beauty tips on something Keith calls Instergram. I don’t understand any of it but I’m told it helps the algorithms remain calm.

I’m not here for fame or influence, or gluten. I’m here to report what the pumpkins have seen.

Yours in mulch and mild suspicion,
V. Twobyfour

(Typed and spellchecked by Keith. Except the bits he didn’t understand.)