GARDEN DIARY: OCTOBER

 

It has been quite a long time since I picked up my laptop and wrote anything. Just as we had cleared the garden and torn down the buildings, we had to go back to work. All my previous anxieties came flooding back, only now there was a garden involved. We didn't even have anything growing at that point, but we had to down tools and head back to work. 

For at least a month the garden remained untouched and the weeds started to take over again. The only difference this time was that they were weaker, which meant several weeks of rigorous weed-killing. As the garden became browner it was time to start deciding what to do with the space. The garden was originally built-up into sections to stop any flooding, so we decided to work upwards. 

If I rewind all the way back to March, we had had an offer accepted on a house. Things were exciting. Then they stopped. The garden was a great project to do while we waited out the lockdown. Then when it was over we figured out ways to keep the garden going while we were at work. One of those ideas was to start things off in the back garden of our yet-to-be-moved-into-house. Thanks to the unending requests for paperwork and a skeleton staff of bank workers, that mortgage application has yet to be approved. 

The endless uncertainty of this year has not lead to any inspiring ideas on my part, coupled with the stress of just getting a damn mortgage. With no end in sight, we headed to Pugh's Garden Village, bought a polytunnel reduced in price, bags of compost, seeds, and raised beds. We thought we might as well try to grow something this winter, even if nothing works. So far we have white onions, spring onions, and radish growing in the raised beds, with salad leaves, parsley, and chillis growing in the polytunnel. 

The raised beds are doing well. It is probably too late to put in garlic to grow, but I'm sure we'll get to that one day. We did discover mushrooms growing where a greenhouse used to stand. We'll leave them there for now and figure out what they are one day. It is exciting and reassuring to be reminded that life goes on. Seeing even the tiniest of green peek through the soil never gets old. 

This most recent lockdown has meant that we didn't get an option of cushy furlough this time. The central government seems to apply that only when it suits them. In the meantime, I'm still going into an empty building to work, hoping each day brings us closer to our new house and continuing our grand garden plans.