Owen recalls his youthful days breaking in horses...
My gardening tips this month:
Make sure you harden off all greenhouse raised plants first. If you take tender plants straight outside from a warm greenhouse, cool night temperatures may cause the leaves to scorch, and winds could tear them. Put your plants outside in dappled shade during the day. Start with just two hours outside and increase the time outside each day, then bring them in at night. Do this for at least a week
Sow runner and French bean seeds direct, or plant out your pot grown plants now, after hardening them off
Outdoor cucumber varieties like Marketmore should be ready to go out now. Plant them in a warm sunny position, water well, and when they have made growth start feeding them once every two weeks with Tomorite
Carrot seed can be sown in pots at least 20cm tall – the height above ground will help avoid the dreaded carrot fly infestation. Atlas are a good variety for pot growin
If you want to try growing celery get a trench dug now and dig in manure or compost at the bottom. Allow this to settle for a week or two and plant out at the end of June.
These days most farm work is done by machinery and a few workers. In my early days the balance was very different; we relied very heavily on man and horse power. This month I am going to reminisce about my days as a horse breaker. I'm going to split this tale in two and finish it next month.
Horses were a key part of farm life when I was a lad, though their role started to decline from WWI onwards, as men and horses were taken from the land to fight and farmers had to find alternative power sources. Every young farm horse needed to be broken (trained) to work with equipment like carts and ploughs. I first took part in horse breaking when I was very young in the 1930s and early 1940s. I worked for the late Jack Powell of Church Farm New Buckenham. The head horseman was Horry Bowen.
As soon as Horry was satisfied with the pupil's progress a collar was fitted over his head and chains called traces were fitted to it. These traces were then fastened to a huge log of wood and the horse learned to drag the log many times around the meadow. When Horry decided it had had enough the first one was brought out again and took his turn to drag the log.
After a day or two of this the pupil was then tied in tandem to a trusty mare named Mary. Both were fixed to single furrow horse plough. The pupil of course took some persuading to walk beside Mary but she had been used many times for this operation and knew what it was all about.
After the plough the next step was to get the animal fixed to a tumbril (a cart). This was a major operation and needed several pairs of hands to help. Tumbril wheels were shod with a steel band so they were very noisy when taken up the road and we had to be ready for the youngster to be scared by the noise and make a bolt for it when we left the meadow and hit the road.
You can see me here 'stooking up' at a heavy horse demonstration at Gressenhall Rural Life Museum. Stooks were made of 8-10 sheaves - bundles of cut corn tied together just below the ears with a single strand of corn. Hard physical labour!
After breaking in was completed Mr Powell would either sell the youngsters or incorporate them into his stable.
Until next time, moined 'ow yer go.
Owen
To be continued...
First published in Wymondham Magazine, June 2021
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