Grass Frost and Passiflora Caerulea

Weather: dry, warm, sunny.  One of the warmest Aprils since records began.

Spotted: bumblebees, ladybirds, frogs, magpies, aphids, spiders, butterflies, robin, blackbirds, sea gulls, black cat .

My neighbour on the allotment, Bob has given me a couple of pumpkins a couple of times now.  The first one died of thirst and the 2nd and 3rd were caught by grass frost.  I’d never heard of grass frost before but Bob said he’d been down the allotment very early and saw white frost at the very tips of the grass.  My rocket potatoes succumbed to the same frost so I’ve piled them up with soil.

When I lived in Kyverdale Road in London, my friend planted a Passiflora [passion flower] in our first year there.  It’s such a beautiful plant and over the five or so years we lived there I watched this little plant grow and spread into the most wondrous flower.  My friend who was a fantastic gardener and a great home maker one year asked if I would help her around the garden.  One of the tasks was to plant out the bulbs of various kinds she’d bought, snowdrops, daffs and tulips.   It was cold, we had our dibber and our bulbs and we were on our hands and knees planting and planting in November.  I remember now I was baffled that we should be putting something in the ground when it was going to be so cold for the next 6 months.  Job done we forgot about them or I forgot about them until February the following year, and then spring.  And it was over the spring of that year that I realised something probably obvious to others, that by planting these bulbs I was sending myself a message.  It was a message of love and hope and a reminder to plan for the future and to look after myself.  This is the second year that I’ve had tulips and snowdrops and daffodils down the allotment and it will be the first year of the new passiflora plant I’ve just got from Dents.  So with help from my gardener friend who inspired in me an interest in gardening and to the new passiflora plant going in at the weekend - here’s to the future.

14A

Pink Tulips

Black Cat