Off The Edge Gardening

So early in my new blogs existence I am using someone else’s photo.  Taken last week in Brittany by my very talented brother (one of them) he has very generously donated (it was free wasn’t it?) this magical picture for your delectation.  Escholtzia and cornflowers, linum, field poppies and achillea adorn this lush carpet. Undoubtedly crickets were chirruping, butterflies flitting and hoverflies, well hovering.  Does a more perfect meadowscape exist?  Mind you from the angle of the picture I would imagine a mysterious man sized crop circle has appeared in this field!

As I was hot footing it down the high street this morning our Hawaiian-shirted butcher, cleaver in hand, gestured to me.  My initial reaction was to keep my head down (preferably to retain its relationship with my shoulders) and shift gear to hyper-drive until I noticed he was smiling, beckoning me over and into his emporium of home made sausages, homity pie and Cornish Yarg.  Mr T is a relatively new convert to the ways of the soil and has embraced this religion with zealot-like enthusiasm; in the last year he has re-landscaped his garden,  grows vegetables, flowers, herbs, the whole kerbang, many from seed.  Ignoring potential pork purchasers (ha!) he shouted “wait there” and ducked into the back room.  He emerged proudly with two pots one of which contained a Cape Gooseberry Physalis peruviana, the other the Chinese Lantern Physalis alkekengii.  An unexpected and welcome gift.

This happy event was my inspiration to put finger tip to keyboard and begin my new blog.  There are gardening folk around every corner, some of them might not even consider themselves as such, but anyone who grows and tends, from the smallest yoghurt pot to the largest estate, indoors or out, has a story to tell.  And I do love a good story.