George Clooney once appeared in a film called 'Return of the Killer Tomatoes' he had a big role in it, it was a bad film, so bad it is still funny but this year tomatoes have not been a laughing matter.
There are peas still to be cleared on the allotment, there is long grass in the orchard that needs a scythe taking to it and the hawthorn hedge has only been half clipped. The sides of the hawthorn are crisp; as crisp as they can be with shears that I took quickly to them last week.
Autumn in the air, it is only a tingling sense at the moment that winds itself around the nape of your neck and kisses it like a lover; there are promises of falling leaves, browning trees and the changing of weather from warm to cool to cold.
Here on Pig Row we have been thrown by the weather. Rain and rain and more rain. We are weeks behind with the weeding, the rain has been a boon to the weeds and not to the skin of the gardener, me. Little D and his Mum have watched from the kitchen window as a trudge up the wet steps to a wetter garden coming back ninety minutes later, blackened, muddy and tired.
Here on Pig Row Little D is wandering up and down the row of strawberries pondering where they have all gone. The strawberry season is too short in the first year of cropping and though we have had pounds of strawberries, they have run out before we have even grown bored of them.
Here on Pig Row I am tending the tomatoes. I love tomatoes; the
smell of them in the greenhouse is a childhood memory that has stuck with me.
It transports me back to my Dad’s allotment, the humid air of the glasshouse,
the hotch potch style of window frames tacked together.
Here on Pig Row my wife and I are busy demolishing the kitchen, Little D watches from the safety of the baby gate directing us. Little D is the site foreman, a coo, a yell, a jabbing finger that points, and a clapping of hands followed by a high pitched screech of ‘all gone’.
Here on Pig Row we are thinking beans not to be confused with the beans my wife opened a few days ago. She found something organic, something not bean like floating in the tomato sauce. I suspect that it was a sliced up mouse, I’ve seen them before; I’ve worked in a crisp factory. I couldn’t help but tell my wife the story of crispy sliced mice, she shrieked, felt queasy. I shouldn’t have told her that story but my mouth went into first gear before my mind did, I am a man, it is a curse of our whole gender. All men have the ability to put their foot exactly where their mouth is in less than a split second.
Here on Pig Row we’ve had quiet week, it has been a week without paperwork, building work, house work and due to the weather a week without gardening. I draw the line at gardening in rain that comes in sideways; I’m not averse to getting wet or working in the rain. However, when the heavens open in a way that sinks through your skin and down to your bones then it's time to take cover. There are only two times when it is not advisable to garden, when it rains like this and in a thunderstorm; a fork and spade are great conductors for lightning.
