Happy Pocketz

It is a satisfied feeling when a gardener gets to sample the first of their summer produce; the salad bowl will be carefully passed around the dinner table with as much pride and precision as a father steering his sleeping new born around the maternity ward.

And why not? After all each of those dazzling home grown treasures have been nurtured from seed, scanned daily for aphids, frost damage and disease. It is a full time job tending an allotment.

I started out with a plot 3ft by 6ft with the intension of growing a few herbs and salad leaves. But as anyone who is acquainted with a veggie gardener will tell you; we become greedy and...sneaky! Somehow I have managed to ‘acquire’ three herb gardens, an 8ft by 10ft plot, a cold frame, various pots and containers, the spare room for raising seedlings and the conservatory which resembles a tropical rain forest in the height of summer!

Unfortunately for those around us it becomes an addiction, an obsession even; people who do not have a competitive bone in their bodies suddenly find themselves surreptitiously surveying the neighbours’ gardens to insure they still have the best row of onions on the street. Although we may smile sweetly and comment on how nice next door’s courgettes are looking this year, our subconscious is scanning the garden shed for the shears!

We become berserk, merciless and over protective individuals, to the extent that when confronted by an overexcited daughter grasping a very plump slug and exclaiming “Mummy look what I’ve found!”
All we can think about is snatching the contented creature and hurling it down the toilet! For fear it may climb down the over excited daughter, slither up the garden path, through the mine field of pellets and traps and into the adored lettuces.

Gathering sanity and smiling, we say very calmly something along the lines of;
“Well isn’t he lovely darling, why don’t you pop him next door on Mr Rose’s garden?” Ignoring the looks of horror and disgust on both husband’s and daughter’s faces.

The months May through to August become a silent war zone of plotting, scheming and strategy with everyone a potential enemy. Mid May will bear the ‘Battle of the Beans’ in which gardeners will compete to build the tallest bamboo frame for their runners or berlotties and will seriously consider the most devious form of sabotage on the ones next door!

June will be exposed to the ‘Sweetpea Sickness’ during which enthusiasts can be seen covering every inch of the house in the boldest, strongest smelling blooms they can muster. Too bad if the children have allergies-there’s always Piriton!

To your families’ obvious delight and covert relief there always seems to be a slight lull during July, a calm before the storm. This is partly because we are waiting for the second batch of seedlings to nervously appear and partly because of all the summer fates you find yourself attending. During which you will converse politely with the neighbours over a very warm glass of wine and the promise to swap unusual vegetable plants. Unfortunately the green fingered devil in you is screaming “over my dead body!” as you vigorously try to swallow down a mouthful of very burnt hotdog! Thank goodness all you can do is smile as chew!

But behold, August the bringer of harvest is on its way; every seed sown and packet read will be for this moment. Foes become friends as you all proudly stand, fork in hand around the abundant produce and a knowing look it shared, a look of contentment and fulfilment. All harsh thought will be forgotten and edible peace offerings (that at one point you were trying to train your son’s puppy to urinate over) will be distributed and discussed excitedly. Yet, through the joy will be an underlying remorse as everyone will be too aware that the season is nearly over and it won’t be long before they will be staring bleakly out of the window praying for next years beloved chaos!
So if your friend, wife or husband is a keen gardener, and you want to earn a few brownie points, always say yes to a second plateful of salad, accept the dirty bunch of parsnips (even if you hate them with a passion) and enjoy the hundredth tour around the allotment. For come the winter months, they will seem as glum and empty as their plots and containers and remember ‘Human beings, vegetables or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.’ (Albert Einstein).