The Tan Beginneth

Ha! Had my legs, arms and face out all day today, and it’s been a scorcher. Apparently hotter than Ibiza! We’ve put up trellis on the back wall, planted loads, and D has enthused me for vegetable cultivation all over again. He knocked together a raised bed for the Mouse to grub in, out of two by four, on Saturday. I like it so much I have commissioned  another two to grow peppers and tomatoes in.

My dear friend M has given me yet another fantastic book; ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’ by Barbara Kingsolver. All about this extraordinary American novelist’s attempts to go self sufficient for a year. The family moved to Appalachia from Tucson, Arizona and got a farm started pretty much from scratch. I’ve just got to the part where they harvested a fifth of a ton of tomatoes; all organic, heritage varieties. This makes me think that a few tomato and pepper plants, with maybe a chilli or two, can’t be so far beyond me that it’s an unattainable dream.

My father and my brother are both vegetable growers; they somehow seem to get the most superb results where so far I’ve had only frustration. But we’re all growing in the wake of my venerated grandpapa G, the vegetable king. How he managed to grow anything at all is beyond me - hayfever, sea winds direct off the Channel, arthritis; but his vegetable beds, his artichokes, his hothouses and his row upon row of parsley are with me still in my memory. I cannot, to this day, taste curled parsley without being immediately transported back, to sitting on the end of the row talking to him as he dug. I say talk; it was like chess by mail, a zen conversation, like talking to the moon. He punctuated his utterings with the rhythmic jabbing of the fork into the earth, and the syncopation of digging familiar to any gardener. Over the course of an afternoon, we would move the discourse along, while I ate gritty parsley in the sun, salty from the sea air.