And this is relaxing??!!??

I've read all the books and Coco and I have had long conversations about gardening and if it really is relaxing.

Now Coco will probably tell you that her idea of gardening is having a ride in the wheelbarrow, trying a freshly picked carrot or peas straight from the pod or having a go on her swing or a chill out with Uncle Luke in the hammock.

Uncle Luke is back from Aberystwyth for a few weeks, he is studying Genetics, poker and alcohol at University there. We are all very proud of him and probably don't tell him enough but then that's what parents, especially Dads do. 

Uncle Luke

Great Grandpa Southwellski would always tell me how well my brother Colin was doing and tell Colin how well I was doing and it was only after Great Grandpa Southwellski passed away that Colin and I spoke about it and realised that he was equally proud of us both. 

So Luke if you read this I am proud of you and all that you are doing and Coco has a very cool and chilled Uncle, even if you are a tad untidy!

Anyway is gardening relaxing?

The argument against.

I have developed a very individual war dance for when the dogs and cats stray onto the veggie plot, it would strike fear into Cochise himself.  

And when it rains from absolutely nowhere just as I am watering the peas which I stupidly placed as far away from the tap as I could and have to carry a watering can to them because the hose isn't long enough I go a decent shade of puce!

Monty

When my parsnip seeds on a strip (that are impossible to sow on a windy day and I resemble a gymnast doing a ribbon dance) only germinate every 6th seed I tend to feel a bit miffed.

Or when Monty creeps up behind me and barks just as I am removing that trickily placed side shoot just below my very first tomato of the season, which I have called Trevor by the way.



 The argument for.

Nanny Southwellski and Monty all smiles!

When Coco and I get up in the morning and let the chooks out and the birds are singing, the sun is shining and all the veggies are standing proud and glistening with early morning dew it makes me stand and look and feel good.

When Monty and Nanny Southwellski smile in unison it makes me feel warm inside and when Coco points at the carrots and peas and says 'This' as only she can, it makes the carrots taste so much sweeter. 

Trevor

 

And when our plants that we have nurtured from tiny seeds, battled to protect them from the chooks, dogs, cats and birds, watered religiously day in day out, talked to sung to and encouraged from the very start, when they start to produce the hard work is forgotten.

We have called our first tomato (left) Trevor for no reason other than it begins with 'T'.  Trevor is an Italian plum tomato who will end up in a pasta sauce of some sort.  You won't feel a thing Trevor.

Pea processing Southwellski style!

We harvested our first peas today, expecting a heavy crop we took our largest trailer (right) down to the peas and commenced picking.

Coco quickly took charge of quality control marking each suitable pea with a tooth mark, just to let me know that she had checked them all you know.

We seemed to have about twice as many pod shells as we did peas, I suspect I will trace the missing peas in tomorrows first nappy!

Our potatoes are the sweetest new potatoes you could wish to eat with just a hint of our home grown mint added at the end of cooking they are divine and the hard work in the cold of digging the plot, planting and then replanting after the chooks had dug in a fashion Time Team would have been proud of, being hit by a late frost which took them almost back to the ground, all that seems a dim and distant memory and well worth the effort.

So I guess I have answered my own question really, the fruits of Coco and my labours are more than enough to make us forget the stress and toil we have gone through to get here.

Yes, gardening is relaxing!