It’s been a mix of work and romantic drama this year leaving not enough time for gardening to conquer my habitual laziness. There’s no cow parsley anywhere, I’ll give myself credit for that. But the grass is knee deep in places, the shrubs are overgrown and underwatered, the north-facing back garden a rank swamp. And I’ve grown almost nothing to eat. Some greenhouse lettuce earlier in the year; some courgettes that never made it out of the pot; some tasty but short-lived peas; some beans with pretty flowers. Caterpillars ate all my kale.

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BUT those tomato seeds from last year. Someone takes the trouble to send you seeds - you take a bit more trouble. The plants got into the greenhouse and although I failed to water them to the point of cruelty they did turn into modest trees… and today (it’s AUGUST - what would they have done if I’d cared for them?) some ripened! Like a gift - scarcely anything I’d done to deserve them - but they’re tasty tasty. I even didn’t label them properly… but I think from the characteristic flame markings they must be Tigerella. Tasty? Damn’ betcha. And many more to come.

So the garden wasn’t a complete washout this year. Now I feel emboldened to tidy up the greenhouse and plant heaps of spinach, which is my favourite leaf veg, and which supermarkets only sell in plastic bags suffused with carbon dioxide to preserve the leaves at the expense of nutrition, and which my local green grocer can’t sell because of conservatism or laziness in his customers. Apart from me, his only reliable customer for spinach is a woman who feeds it to her RABBITS! How can I become a rabbit?