What a difference three weeks make

Hello and welcome to my garden. I'm very grateful to Gayla for this little word space, and I'm grateful to you for reading. It's lovely to share the happiness of my little patch of green. But more than that, because like Mike and Mary Anne, the more people come to watch the harder I work.

I'm a townie who never even had a window box before I came here. Now I'm responsible for half an acre that has had a lot of love and energy and manure put into it by previous generations. It's a challenge. And it's great to have this journal, apart from anything else, to keep me accountable.

Goes double just now. I'll tell you systematically what there is here in a later episode, but right now... the thing is I had to go to Afghanistan for three weeks. Don't ask. So it's July. But it's England. Watering's not too big a problem. Also I just set up a nifty little auto soaker for the greenhouse. So I scampered around putting in some spinach and lettuce seeds and tying up the tomatoes and off I went.

Kabul was lovely. Sunflowers like you wouldn't believe. A pomegranate tree in the garden. As you can imagine, there's a highly developed irrigation culture in Afghanistan. Wherever the karez can carry water they can grow the best apricots and mulberries - tasty, and super shade for a teaparty.

So I got back past midnight and took a torch out in the garden. It was like science fiction. The greenhouse is full. I can't actually get in. The tomatoes are taller than me. At the start of the month there were three healthy squashes, each a couple of feet tall, but at the back of the greenhouse. Now when I poke my head in the door for a look through the forest of bolting lettuces one of the squash leaves, the size of a dinner plate, almost slaps me in the face. And that... thing... doctor... it's huge... it's alive... calm down. It's an achocha. More on this funky plant from HDRA as the situation developes. If only it doesn't climb in the bedroom window and drag me off.

That's the greenhouse. And the vegetable plot... has eaten the sprinkler. It's gone down in a scrum of bolting and flowering lettuces that look like chinese paper christmas trees with menorahs on top, if that's not too cross-cultural. And what's that dark green rugby ball? It's a courgette. Stuffed courgette anyone? Dugout canoe made from courgette? And the spinach came up too - three or four inches already.

So you see, an embarras des riches. Get eating. And lots of fun but time consuming pruning, tying back, thinning out, beautifying. Even more than usual, then, I'm running to catch up. Thanks for coming to watch!

More by jbr | Oct 13, 2005 | July 03 | TrackBack ()