Terra Legra

It's absolutely nearly spring. How can I tell? Well, there are tête à têtes in my front garden nodding merrily in the breeze, a splash of bright yellow amid the sometimes-gloom of February. I get woken up by the Disney-like chirruping of birds every day. I sat on a bench at the weekend with a flask of tea, a packet of Oreos and NO COAT. I know. Groundbreaking stuff considering a fortnight ago I was sledging. But no, the real test of it being spring is... I've lost my windowsills to seedlings. Windowsills are at a premium in my house anyway (WHY when inventing UPVC windowsills did they make them so tiny? Were they not propagator fans?) but it's getting ridiculous. My kitchen windowsill is currently housing Flora tubs/cherry tomato punnets with wooden barbecue skewers stuck in them with tin foil taped to the tops. What for? You ask. Batavia lettuce, microherbs, tomato seedlings and rainbow chard, with their tin foil reflectors like a leathery boomer in the Costa del Sol. We h...

I've written before about how many years ago I'd kill plants just by looking at them* (*forgetting to water them). Now, I'm a full on "plant mother" as my wife calls me, nurturing plants, chatting to them, growing from seed, taking cuttings, growing veg and all sorts. But my gateway drug to this life was through houseplants. Yes, I wanted that cool Instagram aesthetic okay! The garden outside seemed like an enormous project and it was, alongside full time work and Having No Money we sat it out and waited a good couple of years before starting work on it. I'd had a trio of cacti at university (IKEA, of course), but I somehow let that die. My Dad had to resuscitate them in the holidays. Years later, I was extremely cautious about houseplants in our new home, but started buying them in tiny pots from a friend who at the time owned a florist. We'd chat in the shop and he'd give me a generous discount while I wondered whether it was pointless, because I...

I stumbled upon an old blog I wrote when I first moved into my flat - March 2017 - and I am astonished at how far I've come when it comes to gardening.  Case in point: For the first time, this weekend, we sat outside with a cup of tea, and it felt great. There's a sycamore tree, some sort of unknown fruit tree blossoming sweet-smelling, tiny white flowers, euphorbias sweeping low over the pathway, nodding in the wind and a pink camellia, loaded with buds and ready to burst. There's also a picnic bench, shed, tulips and daffs, all lovingly put there by the previous owner that we're now responsible for taking over. But here's the rub: I have a history of killing plants. There's probably a picture of me hanging behind the tills in garden centres saying 'Plant murderer - do not sell anything living to this woman!' Seriously, everyone who has ever bought me a plant, I'm sorry, I definitely let it go to the big garden centre in the sky. [My grandather] Reg...