..whip like appendages slaying the peaceful denizens as they listen to the passing traffic in the early morn.
They only thing that I am sure of is that they will be flowers.
In fact there are a lot of surprises at the moment as one forgets where one has planted bulbs and tubers and, at this time of the year, parts of the garden are suddenly announcing that daffodils and freesias or some other plant has decided to announce its presence. Every year I say to myself that I really should mark what is where but I forget - which is annoying as the tulips that I have planted in the past actually need to be looked after. Not just ignored. They really should be dug up annually and place in the fridge to fool them into thinking that it is a northern hemisphere winter. Mind you if you do remember to do this you also have to remember to label them very clearly as they look very much like onions but are actually poisonous.
The only time I did remember to do the right thing I nearly killed us all or at least came very close to making us a little ill.
I am not sure how I got interested in gardening; it might be that working in the Victorian education system all those years ago got me accustomed to being surrounded by youthful vegetables or it might just be that it is a pretty irresistible activity. Maybe it’s the far-off New Zealand farming background though that is unlikely as we only had a few early years in sheep country?
But I am interested gardening in a happenstance and non-scientific way. I tend to go with what might be a nice idea on a particular morning and find that several days later that I have a whole lot of Japanese spinach or, alternatively, three more rose bushes, or another vegetable bed. But even though we live in the bush I have been given sovereign domain over a flattish area where I can wreak agricultural havoc. Nevertheless most of the acre remains native fire-prone vegetation which lurches down the hill towards the Yarra. This morning there were kangaroos grazing peacefully on the frozen grass.
Gardening is full of miraculous surprises such as the fact that things grow from seeds and don’t just appear in punnets from Garden Nurseries . This always astounds me and it seems curious that no one has written about being able to see the whole of the universe in broad bean pod or a Brussel Sprout. At various times of the year a bit of bland organised organic molecular structure decides that the moment is propitious and sprouts, pushing aside whatever earthy matter is in the way. “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower ……….” and whatever else Dylan Thomas wrote. Then they produce some sort of fruit which you can both eat and find within more seeds to plant the next year to have even more things to eat. Not only that but the bits that you don’t eat can be composted to turn into rich soil that you can grow more stuff in. Bloody clever.
Currently I have a reasonable vegetable patch but when we first moved here many, many years ago we had a clay and rock ridgeline with one centimetre of soil and with various black wattles waiting to fall down over the power line. Where there was any soil there was verdant onion weed, Allium Triquetrum which is related to the onion and garlic. This means that you could eat it them if you were so minded. I would have nuked them as they were so tenacious and took years of cultivation to get rid of.
How did we start? Being vaguely hippy-like, and having our own copy of the Whole Earth Catalogue, we built a small vegetable patch on a forty-five degree slope using fallen trees as retaining walls and soil that had been left around after the building was more or less completed. Actually the house was less than completed as we had run out of money and where the decks were meant to be there were life threatening drops from doors that had been barred shut to stop people throwing themselves in fits of absent-mindedness to certainly broken limbs.
Getting directly to the garden was, therefore, a challenge as it was below the kitchen, about eight vertical feet below the kitchen. This meant that one trekked around the house to pick whatever came to fruit and hadn’t been eaten by the possums. But a few things did grow and were edible. And delicious. And then summer came and things were fried on the vine.
Strangely, over the years we persisted, built the decks and then twenty years later rebuilt the decks and rebuilt the garden several times.
But after all these years I still cannot manage to grow asparagus. It eludes me after many years of trying. Is the pterospermum hedge right next to the garden bed sucking out all the goodness? Is it the acidity? Am I addressing them incorrectly? Are they bastards that grow a few fronds and then decide that a sleep in the bed would be preferable?
I know that it is probably a waste of time and that the farmers in Koo Wee Rup can produce them with better flavour and at much less cost than I can. But it’s the principle of the matter. They are the only thing that I cannot grow. Until then the Green Thumb Award shall never be presented. I have the tarragon growing to make the Béarnaise sauce to eat them with. Everything awaits.
Maybe this year if I rebuild the whole garden bed ………