Jason Goodwin: ‘In the garden I see myself as a god, quite Old Testament, full of wrath and vengeance’

“Fires flare up in my wake,” says Jason Goodwin. “Brambles leave before I like the Red Sea.”

People talk about enjoying their gardens in the mild seasons: the awakening of spring, as catkins appear on the twigs and the bulbs push through the grass; the summer sound of the mallet on the wood, the gentle argument from the lawn and swallows on the wing; dahlias and lazy bees, swirling leaves and autumn twilights. Winter, however, gets a hard rap.

For every day that brings ice cream on the topiary, there are three that bring muddy paws into the kitchen. At this time of year, some people can barely lift their noses from seed catalogs or their feet from the couch, unless it’s to go to Kerala for sunshine and a month of mango lassis and Ayurvedic massages.

I once had a taxi driver who spent from April to September driving people to Heathrow and the other six months driving people to the airport in Auckland, New Zealand, so he never met winter at all, in all its muddy glory. I knew it was rather clever, but I thought the idea was a bit sad – and perhaps immoral.

In the second-hand quad bike market, as in the world of aircraft, the degree of wear and tear that the machine has suffered in its career is measured not by the kilometers it has traveled, but by the hours that worked. If I was equipped with a meter this month, I thought I would hit the dial.

This is where the most exciting packages arrive: boxes marked “LIVING PLANTS”, always smaller than you imagined – 100 mixed cover whips make a surprisingly tight bundle. To plant, in stony soil, I used a 6ft iron spear from a tractor bucket to make the hole and remove the whip. A stick, a plastic guard and on the next; 25, and it’s time for a cup of tea. Then, I like to mulch the line with cardboard, to suppress the weeds. I am very fond of cardboard and take it in bulk from the dump. The packing tape must be torn, but brown or shiny, printed, clear or corrugated, everything breaks in the end and feeds the soil.

It is not all new hedge. The old hedge needs attention, too, especially the overgrown and massively overgrown beech hedge that I’ve been ignoring for years. It is a job to handle saws and shears, to wear thick gloves and a hat. Some winters, there is also a hedge, with a hook and a greenhouse. Days can pass.

In the garden, I see myself as a god, quite Old Testament, full of wrath and revenge and with a penchant for burning bushes. Bonfires erupt in my wake; brambles part before me like the Red Sea.

Apart from anger, there is Creation, because I also planted yew and hearts, beech and medlar. I have rows of cuttings in the vegetable beds, stiff as park railings. I have plum apples and roses to attack, even the leaves of the hellebore need to be adorned to show the flowers. One day, among the ivy fronds, snowdrops appear.

As I am not God, but a pew filler, I think of the General Confession: We left undone those things we should have donehow to put it so succinctly, and we did things we shouldn’t have done. I shouldn’t have cut that old melem so hard – it will respond with water threads. As for the leaves that need to be raked, the poles that need to be checked, the paths that need to be cleared and the paths that need to be swept (now is the season, the manuals insist, for cleaning your pots of flowers and trays, as if anyone ever had time for that), will be a thing left undone that should be done – something for next season.