‘God Almighty first planted a garden,’ wrote Francis Bacon, ‘and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.’ Well, he should have known, but the general business of gardening is a pleasure I have come to late, even though I have the right hereditary input, being descended from farmers and passionate planters and turners of soil: perhaps this particular creative gene comes into its full strength late-ish in life. In any case, I was halfway through my allotted span of three score and ten when I migrated somewhat unexpectedly to Greece, and it was then that the dormant gardening gene staggered out of hibernation: in my neck of fertile olive groves in the south-west Peloponnese, it is usually a case of sticking plants in the ground and standing back. But in this part of Europe, scarcity of both soil and space also leads to a continuous tension between the desire for productivity and the desire for beauty, the desire for economy and the desire for ornament, so I was always in trouble with the old yiayathes, the old women who would prop themselves against the stone wall with the express purpose of telling me that I had no right to be wasting precious water on things as frivolous as flowers.
Summer
Graeme from Norwich is on the phone.
‘How’s Greece?’ he asks.
‘Hot.’
‘Anything else to report?’
‘I’ve started a vegetable garden.’ And already I’m asking myself why, but I don’t tell Graeme this.
‘Well, that’s worth a chapter.’
But when I impart the same information to a Scot, she emits a hollow moan. ‘Don’t get like them,’ she instructs, apparently fearful that I am in the grip of a threatening atavism and about to revert to some ancient and boring rustic pattern. Well, so what if I am? Many people round about, especially the aforementioned old yiayathes, think I’ve had my fun. They’re relieved that the foreign witch has seen sense and is doing something useful. At last.
Getting started on the vegie venture took some time. Because I’d been away for months, the whole garden took me what seemed like an eternity to clear up. I counted the jumbo-sized plastic bags as I worked. Each one holds 80 litres and I filled 35 of them with weeds and a motley collection of rubbish. I also had to dismantle a marathon-like tumulus of light wood—olive prunings mostly—mixed with weeds, rubbish and dirt, in the backyard. This alone took