As I stepped into the kitchen garden this weekend it was like being transported to a different world. A place of minor miracles everywhere you look. I still can’t get my head around the fact that I can grow food. Food we eat and enjoy. Food that started by me fumbling with packets of seeds and crossing my fingers that my efforts would not be in vain.
I munched my way around the beds pulling out the occasional weed but otherwise marvelling at what nature has produced for us to eat.
I rest my case with Little Basset. He has been eyeing up the new garden bed every since the landscapers arrived. For a dog that loves soft sand and soil it’s like his birthday and Christmas has arrived all on one day. The fact that the bed is raised and he can think he is above all of us on higher ground just reinforces his small dog syndrome and his ambitions to be top dog around here.
As the one and only leader of the pack, I’m pretty chuffed with the new arrangements out front too. Rather like we might be close to having a front garden instead of piles of mulch and weeds spoiling the garden effect. 2 years and 4 months after we moved in I can now declare our front garden landscaping over.
I didn’t know it the time but the line of sight to the kitchen garden from the bedroom window is perfect. It’s the first thing that I see when I first open the curtains in the morning and the last thing I see when I close them at night. Every day I look down and think how marvellous it is that you can grow food right there outside your bedroom window.
There are many other things that also cross my mind like must tie up tomatoes, plant swede seeds. Order cloche frame. It’s a pressure cooker of things to do.
Between you and me I’m just relieved that anything is growing. The fact that we’ve just eaten our first beetroots grown from seed that tasted rather delicious is just a bonus. And every day I pick something new for us to eat I just feel happier and happier. Now all we need to do is align our menu planning a little more strongly. I can tell you that it won’t be long before we’ll be eating courgettes in as many forms as we can.
I remember 2006 being a year long winter. A cold, wet winter in the UK and a cold wet autumn, winter, spring and summer in New Zealand. It wasn’t until weeks into 2007 that I realised that sunshine existed. I’m starting to get that feeling of déjà vu.
On one hand the moist air flows we’ve been experiencing in the last couple of weeks are a pain but they are doing wonders for the kitchen garden. I could happily do without the cold temperatures though. It’s a heinous crime to have the heating on in the height of summer but with single digit temperatures this week my fingers and toes were starting to seize up.
I remember the pain of returning to work after a vacation. The numbness of arriving to my desk and the energy it required to talk to lots of other people. The exhaustion that sets in from mid morning and the overwhelming feeling to lay my head on the desk and hope that no-one would notice if I had 40 winks. So, I know how MT has been feeling as he headed back to the office this week.
The bassets and I have lost our momentum too. Our holiday routine has gone and with it our home companion. I’m not sure if it was this or the cold snap in the weather but it’s been an uphill struggle to the start of this week.
The pain of last year’s thistle harvest is like a reoccurring nightmare. So much so it brought on a severe case of procrastination on completing the job. That and months and months of rain, wet and other distractions we put off the final clearance of the dead thistles and gorse, until now.
I know my father will have his head in his hands reading this. He’s a man that doesn’t give in until a job is done. Finished. Complete. But he didn’t dig out the darn things thistle by thistle. Only those that stuck their fork in the ground and pulled out those pesky weeds will know the pain of it all and why it might take as long to deal with them again. But deal with them we have and it’s opened up a whole new paddock area deserving of a special name.
There is something comforting buying plants from a nursery rather than a garden centre. There’s no glitz and glamour or bright labels to distract you but row upon row of plants. You can keep focused on what you’ve come to buy rather than being enticed into buying the latest new plant release. Also, nurseries are generally more systematic grouping their plants together in distinct groups and ordering them alphabetically. Perfect for someone who suffers plant name dyslexia.
Armed with our landscaping plan and list of plants we wheeled up and down the acres of plants. Every time we found what we were looking for it was sheer relief. I couldn’t bare the thought of having to start making decisions about substituting plants. With trolleys, yes plural, full and the plant list systematically ticked off we were confident that we’d be able to make significant inroads into planting out our new bed.
Being the butt of many jokes was an occupational hazard working in marketing and PR. Someone once asked me if we threw a party in the office to open the post since we were constantly organising opening ceremonies of one sort or another. Although my life in corporate PR is now a thing of the past I still couldn’t bring myself to do anything special for the official opening of the Domestic Executive kitchen garden. Also, vegetable gardens are very much headline news so think it’s best to keep a low profile.
Suffice to say the kitchen garden is now officially open. But not open to everyone.
Water tank bursting rain is upon us for a few days. The temperatures have plummeted and the winds are wild enough to create sleep depriving booms under the veranda. However hard I tell myself that rain is a good thing for the land I can’t help feel deprived of summer. Call me old fashioned but I rather like the sun to shine during the summer months.
Cold enough to add a layer and replace the jandals with socks it was also a day to ditch the salads in favour of something more warming. Just was well as the last remaining cauliflower was crying out for harvest.
Being in the new Kitchen Garden with me is a whole new adventure for the bassets with enormous scope for mischief. I love their company but gardening with bassets is a futile exercise in command and control. There is rarely an offer of a helpful paw but rather an annoying contribution to digging. They are also insistent to check things out like a canary in a mine to sniff out the patch until they are satisfied that it is safe for me to work in.
Mostly they will busy themselves finding the most comfortable spot to sit and contemplate the view or take in a few rays while they snooze. There was no time for snoozing for this Domestic Executive though as I’m already weeks late in planting out the spuds.
