Tomato time?

An afternoon in the garden.

First thing I need to do is take a photo of the lilac tree.

When I say “the” lilac tree, I’m talking about the original one, planted by me back in the late 1990s. When I came back here from a decade in London I discovered that the garden gate had been left open for some time by Mike, who clearly didn’t use this space we’d started to establish.

All but one of the rose bushes I’d planted had disappeared and the lilac had been chewed down by the deer to something barley a foot tall. (I had to get my neighbour Pat to come over and confirm that, yes, those were lilac leaves on the tiny shrub being choked by weeds. As you can see, it is considerably more than a foot tall now.

It took some years before the tree produced any lilacs. (Fortunately Pat has two well-established trees from which I was able to take lilacs to put in a vase.) But a few years ago a few flowers started to appear and now it’s quite showy. All I can hope is that the other two lilacs I’ve subsequently planted in the garden and the one I carelessly planted near the house will eventually look the same. (No sign of this so far.)

After taking the photo it’s time to get down to business: turning over, fertilising and drenching the soil where I will plant six of the eight cherry tomato plants I purchased from the not-always-reliable garden shop.

Not easy to tell from the photo, but the two in the middle do already have a number of flowers on them, so fingers crossed. Surely, with these six and the two Tumblers I planted in pots, I’ll get a decent crop of cherry tomatoes? Surely.

Time also to get the courgettes in the raised bed.

No flowers (male or female) yet on either, so I can but hope there will be courgette and gorgonzola soup to be made this summer.

Warm enough now also to get the pole bean seeds in the ground and get a few more peas planted.

Then it’s time to get the cushions out of the shed and hang out on the garden swing.

Stella agrees.