Earthling

I love my garden.

When I moved into the flat I shared with my Significant Ex, I had a kitchen of my own for the first time and I learnt to cook. I loved that flat, and I loved that kitchen. There wasn't a garden -- there wasn't even a balcony -- but I didn't really see the point of growing things, I had only just learnt to cook them.

Then when I left, I moved into the Flat On Top Of A Storage Building. That had a windswept little patio, on which S and I grew precisely nothing. We didn't even have a houseplant, though we did have a hammock. We were hedonistically utilitarian.

When we looked round houses, I just thought, right, yeah, garden, whatever, how far's the pub?

And then we moved in. And there was suddenly this whole extra outdoor room that I had no idea what to do with. I wish I'd taken photos of it now, it was like a little jungle. I had no tools, no knowledge of what anything was, nothing. And it kind of fell to me to work it out, because I seemed to care the most.

So I began my gardening life much like I had begun my cooking life five years earlier, by reading books and having a go. And now I can spend all weekend doing it. Miles comes out to help sometimes, and is a very good weeder, and even S has done a bit of digging.

This weekend I went to a plant fair with some of my planty friends. I bought a clematis (montana rubens, if you care) and an erysimum (a new kind called Apricot Twist, if you care), and I knew exactly where they were both going to go. I also know that lavender doesn't create new growth on old wood, I know that rosemary prefers poor soil, and I know that camellias shouldn't face east. Mine does, but I didn't plant it.

It is lovely to know that I still have room in my head for a whole body of new knowledge, and it's lovely to plan things and then see them happen. It is quite a lot like cooking in that respect, but everything takes much, much longer. I won't be a good gardener for a long time yet, but I'll get there one day.

There is also something quite profoundly calming and optimistic about it, especially at this time of year, when the sap is rising and everything is waking up. Last weekend was the first time I really went for it since the winter, and I realised that I could dig a lot longer and pull a lot harder than I could in October. It must use a lot of the same muscles as yoga. How very zen.

NB I am not premenstrual anymore, as if that weren't utterly obvious.

joella