Germination celebration

A half-day of gardening. I came back from the train station with great plans for lots of planting. First was to finish the thyme path beside the lower vegetable garden. I now have a full set of plants to line on side of the path. Does it look odd? A bit, but it’s the most aromatic and neat way I have to keep the side of the steep bed in place. If all goes well I will slowly get more thyme plants for the other side. Unless it looks way too neat and I think of something drastic for that side.

Heading down to the compost bin (and turning it over) made me realise that the corner of this part of the garden really is vile. Too messy with left-over strawberry pots from the summer, random bits of plastic that end up beside the house, and a lurching empty huge water container that is still waiting for its drainpipe to be attached.

Half an hour was all it took to transform the squalor. Mind you I can’t manage the water tank on my own. Spent a comic time trying to prop it up on bricks and a heavy piece of metal track – only to realise that one side would always list drastically after each effort. Must ask Bernard to help.

Then it was on to top up the nettle soup I have fermenting beside the compost bin. A wonderful if smelly fertiliser. I have no lack of nettles. The septic tank is the perfect environment for these beasties. What is that Australian expression? The grass is always greener over the septic tank. Too true.

Things I want to do this week: pot up the land cress, pot on the eggplant and peppers I bought from Gamm Vert. Pot up the kale, the cavalo nero, the rocket. And if all goes well sow some flower seeds too. The Echinacea could go in the ground in front of the potting shed.

So what is up? Miracles – some of the cleome seeds has finally germinated. One out of three separate sowings. The tomato gardener’s delight, the land cress, nicotiana, verbena, nasturtium, dwarf French bean, antirrhinum and thyme have all germinated.

Up in the top vegetable garden I even have the first flowers on my broad beans. They are a bit bent and battered from all the rain, but a few deft sticks have propped them up above the wet soil. I have taken the plunge and actually prodded the asparagus bed for signs of life. I definitely have ten plants alive. Some even look like asparagus. But that’s a lot of missing plants. And I think its even worse in the raspberry bed. I think I have only eight plants with leaves. And even then not a romping away plant of leaves. Just a few. What to do? Give in and buy more? I don’t want to waste a whole season. We shall see.

The pea seeds are germinating away up there as well. And there are even a few potato leaves poking out among the rows. Amazingly fast germination.

Other garden news: the mint prison finally has more mint inside than creeping about the path. And the garden at the furthest end of our plot – the vineyard – has had a haircut. Nicolas wielded his mighty secateurs last week. Things look decidedly tidy.

And I planted up the lemon verbena Sally and I bought at the Vernoux market on Thursday. I had thought this little planter was going to be the destination of the blueberry plant. But that has now gone into the ground under a plum tree. (‘Shade, shade, the bush needs shade’.) And this will hopefully be the home of a bountiful lemon verbena crop over the summer. I have put it in a smaller planter so hopefully it can come inside to the potting shed when the weather turns. It’s an odd thing to consider now that it’s spring. But where is the warm weather? Making its appearance on Thursday, the day I leave. Chuh.