I know there can be good years and bad years. As gardeners we are mindful of the vagaries of weather and their consequences. We are accustomed to shrugging off the failures and celebrating the successes. But 2026 in the vegetable patch has tested such fortitude to the limit. With few exceptions, as Lammas approaches, thereContinue reading “Vegetable garden gloom”
Category Archives: Vegetables
May be or May be not
In my forthcoming debut novel and in effulgent terms, I describe May in south west Scotland, where I live. May can be the finest month in the Nithsdale year. Through the woods, bluebells nod in drifts. Along the loanings, cow parsley froths and swaggers. The lovely campion and cuckoo flowers are everywhere in the grassland.Continue reading “May be or May be not”
April come she will
April can seem full of deception. Promising much, then failing to deliver. Eulogized by the poets for its splendour, but also exposed by them as painful and cruel. The gateway to Spring, it still has frost on its back. Not for the first time in my life, I associate it this year with death andContinue reading “April come she will”
In and around the garden: some fragments from January
The January man he goes around in woollen coat and boots of leather (1) The year begins with weather warnings. Frost settles into the garden ground and doesn’t move. Motivation is low. Piles of hazel thinnings lay unsorted or trimmed. Tall herbaceous plants, long past the ‘interesting in winter’ stage need cutting back. Leaves areContinue reading “In and around the garden: some fragments from January”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables
It’s one of the great pleasures of gardening to grow some crops for the family to eat. However modest the quantities, something grown at home, freshly harvested or carefully stored over time adds to our diet and the pleasures of eating. To this end, the greenhouse and the raised beds work in conjunction to extendContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables”
Quotidian 