GARDENING: WHAT A GARDEN SHOULD BE
Sweaty, scratched, bitten, decidedly grubby from head to toe, beaming inside and out with pure, unadulterated joy, I picked up the hand-woven gardening basket bulging with tools, with open and sealed seed packets, with a bunch of just-pulled radish and a crisply-fat lettuce balanced on top and headed up the flower-lined garden path towards the house and a much-needed cold shower. Utter bliss!
Another three dozen young tomato plants — Green zebra, Blue Bayou and Marmande — transplanted out into their well-prepared bed; exactly 29 more chilli seedlings — mixed varieties from home-harvested seed — inter-planted with rapidly growing radishes to maximise the use of space and water; five more courgette seeds sown to fill in the gaps where seed had failed to germinate in the courgette department; and three more Marina di Chioggia pumpkin seeds likewise, as well as a few Ananas da America sweet melon seeds sown here and there and all is well in this particular garden world.
Swallows perform incredible acrobatic feats in the balmy evening air, blackbirds serenade, a single Hoopoe, crest erect, struts its stuff on a fragrant carpet of creeping thyme as nature itself inhabits this chemical-free, 100 percent organic zone too which, in my humble opinion, is exactly how and what a garden should be.
Despite the hot weather, much sowing of flowers, vegetables and fruits can be done for the coming months
Creating and then maintaining a garden is a never-ending pleasure although, to be frank, some days when one has to do really heavy work and onerous tasks in adverse weather, it may not seem this way.
Gardeners live in sync with seasonal rhythms, seasonal sounds and sights and aromas; they tune in and are turned on by the intricacies and needs of plant life and of the soil structure that supports it all.
Just like the plants they grow, nurture and love, the life of a gardener is suffused with wonder, grounded in patience, stitched together by belief.