cultivation, compositions + collections

A hot and lovely morning. 30 years ago, it was cold and windy but memorable and a cause for celebration. Happy Birthday Claudia!

On Paddy’s plot, he recycles drinking vessels and the odd glove with a raised finger in the camp style – all jolly and productive – and grows good chard too, I see . . .

. . .  the bolted leeks are still providing nectar for bees and hover flies as well as looking great with the smaller Allium sphaerocephalon. Picked a few leeks and hung them on the shed as the heat is causing a big droop so the rest will be cleared tomorrow.

Many of the plots now have spreads of onions  –  left out to dry off  . . .

. . . I lifted mine awhile back in the wet weather of July and dried them off in the shed quite successfully. Hence the large gap between the nasturtium clad willow hurdles and the stand of verbena . . . .

. . . just one of some beautiful artichokes and mixed pink tones of sweet peas. An image for all those that pick up my image from this post written a while ago. If you were in this country Claudia, you’d have a birthday bunch! X

‘What did Thought do?’

Stuck a feather in the ground and thought

it would grow a hen.’

Rod by rod we pegged the drill for sweetpea

with light brittle sticks,

twiggy and unlikely in fresh mould,

and stalk by stalk we snipped

the coming blooms.

And so when pain

had haircracked her old constant vestal stare

I reached for straws and thought:

seeing the sky through a mat of creepers,

like water in the webs of a green net,

opened a clearing where her heart sang

without caution or embarrassment, once or twice. Seamus Heaney  Sweetpea