A few trips to the plot before work this week. Perhaps my favourite times to sow. The short rows are greening against the brown ground. It is just me and the young curious robin.
The sun is shining, the sky is Greek island blue. Morning colours are more intense. The horse chestnut towering above the shed has vivid green leaf, the candles have come.
I can’t stop with the flower seed. I have started to hide it from Howard. Must be self-sown I say when they show.
That said, the radishes are through, the beetroot too. The spring salad mixes were likely sown a little early but there are two rows already showing. The dill tetra is shadowing the saved calendula. Burgundy amaranth is bursting through. The start of a sort of an exuberant semi-chaos that increasingly defines our planting.
I catch the early bus with the hospital workers on early shift. I blame the blackbirds calling from the churchyard opposite the house. The circling, screaming near-resident gulls.
I carry constant seed like an addict (or someone open to opportunity, as I sell myself). The reassuring call of the secret stash. Mixed and matched in my work bag, depending on mood and room on the plot.
Happily, Kala has returned from Thailand and it is her birthday this week so we can do our ritual garden sowing close to the day. There will be Higgledygarden sweet peas and others Howard has quietly vetoed for the plot. I am hoping Kala is keen on ox-eye daisies and another wildflower mix.
The climbing beans have pushed through despite the fox digging a regular hole between the hazel sticks. The tear peas too are an inch or two tall. From now on we will nourish the soil with an occasional evening seaweed feed. An early-morning water. I may whisper quiet encouragement even though there is no one here to hear.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
