30 January 2008

I love the moment when the postlady delivers my vegetable seeds. It seems to go with the time of year when the garden is at its most secretive. But also with the time when I sit and draw and dream and see in my mind’s eye a splendid, over-flowing garden just bulging with everything delicious and good. I wonder – in rare, down-to-earth moments – what the reality will be.
Whereas last summer I was limited to two little veggie beds, this year I have all six at my disposal. Well, I would have all six if one wasn’t functioning as a compost bin right now, but I shall endeavour to rectify that very soon.
My natural, over-enthusiastic reaction to this would be to sow handfuls of my wonderful organic seeds (all sourced from www.organiccatalog.com) right away. That would give me a summer 2007-type situation, of course, with so many tomatoes I didn’t know what to do with them, and most of them all at the same time. So I’m fighting the temptation, not allowing myself to put seeds in more than one of my little root-trainers every ten days or so. It’s a good discipline, and makes me focus hard on just what quantities I’ll need of what, when. I have made a box, with dividers for the months, and am carefully placing seed packets in the month they should be planted, shifting them as necessary for repeat sowings. Does this sound obsessive? I hope not: all it is is a desperate attempt to combat my own haphazardness.
I’m going for few varieties of each of the most obvious things. I’m going to try to make myself wait this year, transferring teeny seedlings into slightly larger pots before moving them on into my beds. All told, I’m planning to have a more reasoned, more grown-up vegetable garden, and one that lasts through the summer and out the other side, trying to remember that the end of August shouldn’t necessarily signify desolation on the orto front.
The wonderful palette of browns under blue blue skies continued last weekend. Every time I look at my bits of freshly-weeded earth (my friendly robin had a field day as I cleared out around my newly-pruned buddleia) and the various-coloured skeletons of plants emerging from it, I wonder at anyone who would want a 12-month garden. Evergreens are so sad, with their year-round sameness. I love the sense of repose. And, right now, the sense of expectation and surprise. As I pulled weeds from between the buddleia, I spotted the tips of the ludicrous giant alliums that I had forgotten that I’d planted; little yellowy-greeny spears hardly even breaking the surface. On the steep bank beneath the field maple, a carpet of daffodil leafs has appeared. Here and there in Saturday’s midday sun, bulging tips looked ready to burst into flower: a few more warm days and they’ll be out. I love those daffodils in particular, even more than the ones that I have planted. I can’t imagine who could have scaled that sheer dirt-face to put them there. So where did they come from? And how did they survive the ravages of builders’ rubbish, chucked down there with no thought whatsoever for vegetation, for over two years?




	Rome 30th January 2008

I love the moment when the postlady delivers my vegetable seeds. It seems to go with the time of year when the garden is at its most secretive. But also with the time when I sit and draw and dream and see in my mind’s eye a splendid, over-flowing garden just bulging with everything delicious and good. I wonder – in rare, down-to-earth moments – what the reality will be. Whereas last summer I was limited to two little veggie beds, this year I have all six at my disposal. Well, I would have all six if one wasn’t functioning as a compost bin right now, but I shall endeavour to rectify that very soon. My natural, over-enthusiastic reaction to this would be to sow handfuls of my wonderful organic seeds (all sourced from www.organiccatalog.com) right away. That would give me a summer 2007-type situation, of course, with so many tomatoes I didn’t know what to do with them, and most of them all at the same time. So I’m fighting the temptation, not allowing myself to put seeds in more than one of my little root-trainers every ten days or so. It’s a good discipline, and makes me focus hard on just what quantities I’ll need of what, when. I have made a box, with dividers for the months, and am carefully placing seed packets in the month they should be planted, shifting them as necessary for repeat sowings. Does this sound obsessive? I hope not: all it is is a desperate attempt to combat my own haphazardness. I’m going for few varieties of each of the most obvious things. I’m going to try to make myself wait this year, transferring teeny seedlings into slightly larger pots before moving them on into my beds. All told, I’m planning to have a more reasoned, more grown-up vegetable garden, and one that lasts through the summer and out the other side, trying to remember that the end of August shouldn’t necessarily signify desolation on the orto front. The wonderful palette of browns under blue blue skies continued last weekend. Every time I look at my bits of freshly-weeded earth (my friendly robin had a field day as I cleared out around my newly-pruned buddleia) and the various-coloured skeletons of plants emerging from it, I wonder at anyone who would want a 12-month garden. Evergreens are so sad, with their year-round sameness. I love the sense of repose. And, right now, the sense of expectation and surprise. As I pulled weeds from between the buddleia, I spotted the tips of the ludicrous giant alliums that I had forgotten that I’d planted; little yellowy-greeny spears hardly even breaking the surface. On the steep bank beneath the field maple, a carpet of daffodil leafs has appeared. Here and there in Saturday’s midday sun, bulging tips looked ready to burst into flower: a few more warm days and they’ll be out. I love those daffodils in particular, even more than the ones that I have planted. I can’t imagine who could have scaled that sheer dirt-face to put them there. So where did they come from? And how did they survive the ravages of builders’ rubbish, chucked down there with no thought whatsoever for vegetation, for over two years?
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