Salad days: March 30th 2020

We had a couple of days where the garden turned into Brigadoon. That's because in Berwick, right beside the sea, a couple of sunny days is considered more than enough and then the fret sets in (some longer-standing locals call it a "haa", but I don't think it's anything to laugh about). I spent most of those days looking at gardening books and realising how woeful my knowledge is. Planting is more complicated an activity than I hoped it would be. The plus-side of this is that we were almost alone on our brief "getting outside" walks.

But the brightness is back (even if the warmth is not). And so the serious business of planting those edibles begins. It's quite scary, because I started this project in such a huge wave of optimism and I'll be pretty crushed if the planting comes to nothing.

Greens

I'm starting simple. Salad leaves and peas. I have a fantastic childhood memory of being allowed to shell peas (one for the bowl, one for my mouth, one for the bowl, two for my mouth, etc), but they were bought at a greengrocer, rather than being home grown.

The peas are the things with bendy sticks in the pots. These are made from bits of willow that my neighbour, who I will refer to as Tommy the Tree-Hater, chopped down from his side of the fence and threw back into my garden.

Tree-Hater feels that my willows affect the light in his (pretty massive) garden and he also wants to chop the trees on my side. I've agreed to this on the understanding that he gets a professional in to do it, to create a pleasant-looking canopy, as the way he's hacked at his side is pure vandalism. Given the coronavirus situation, this has put off the destruction indefinitely. Smiley-winking emoji.

I digress. Here are the salad pots. Exciting, huh?

Tomay-to, tomah-to

I phoned my local garden centre to ask if I could still buy frivolities like tomato plants. Bless them for saying yes: we had to order on the phone and then go pick them up from the car park, where the trollies of stuff were just waiting, unobserved, to be collected. This being Berwick, no one nicked anything.

Man on the phone asked which varieties of tomato we wanted. We confessed we had no idea, so he said he'd just give us a surprise. We have: Gardener's Delight and Supersweet Cherry, which both sound promising, and a third variety enigmatically named Shirley, which could be anything.

It's so Baltic out there I am anxious about putting them out, though, so for the moment they're staying in my kitchen and I'm keeping them moist. This may be entirely wrong, but I'm a beginner (in case you haven't noticed). There's a grow-bag waiting for them when the sun turns its settings back to Heat as well as Light.

Dreaming now of the days when I can snip my own crispy greens (not a euphemism for anything). Mark will be happy if the tomatoes taste of anything, as he's not usually a fan.