Letters from gardeners in three countries (aged from 40 to 80!) Strange that we all go on gardening when it seems to have many inbuilt problems! The triumph of hope etc.
” …my garden is starting to look just marginally more respectable in that some perennial plants have honoured me by actually growing. Most of them are still quite small yet, but I feel that when there is growth there is hope that something bigger will eventuate. I still have to arrange a path to my orange tree and compost bin – at present it is what one could politely describe as ‘beaten earth’.”
“The garden has dried up and we have been trying to fit in some of the winter tidy. I’ve managed to prune my trees (though piles of branches still lie about) and dug a big enough patch to put my seed potatoes in, though I don’t think there is any point until it gets a trifle warmer; and have weeded my leeks – which are about the only thing I’ve got growing apart from half a dozen Brussels sprouts which are too small and weedy to pick. I made a couple more kilos of pumpkin soup last week and managed to use up an enormous carrot which was the sole remnant of my so-called crop and which partner was refusing to cook as being too coarse. It tasted well enough as carrot soup with curry powder and the rest in it. I have artichokes too waiting to be dug up and converted in the same way, but they are rather a bore doing, and nobody really likes the result very much – and I have not discovered a way of disguising them. I wonder whether they would just add some body if I mixed them with oxtail, of which we have the remains of a catering-size tin which must be getting pretty stale by now. I have replaced all my strawberries with new ones, but fear with cold weather delaying them, we shall get very little fruit, very late, this year…”
“I got bored stiff with the rain. Days and days of meaning to get on with jobs and only getting short spells at sweeping or digging or something – still bits got done and that is about all I can manage in one session. I had a lovely afternoon today as I lit a bonfire and burnt about 6 barrow-loads of acorns and oak leaves – very, very naughty as I ought to compost the lot, but there are so many and I am not sure about the acorns and whether they turn into leaf mould! There are still plenty left to add to the heap on another day when they are wet and clingy – today they were bouncing everywhere in the wind.”
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