Inside my drawer...

In the kitchen at my cottage, underneath the counter, is a drawer. It isn’t anything special, just plain pine with a simple pine knob; and it isn’t very big, far too small for holding anything of real use like food mixers or place settings or soup dishes with the word ‘soup’ printed repeatedly around the rim. It’s a bit of a useless drawer really, a drawer without a purpose, a drawer best forgotten by the keepers of kitchens.

It is in this drawer, allowed me by this keeper’s good grace and after much begging, that I keep my seeds. These are the seeds that I buy in the sales at the end of the season sometimes for as little as an old florin a pack. The end of season seeds that nobody wants, the bits and bobs that didn’t take the gardener’s fancy – cornflowers and dahlia and stocks and lobelia. Over-stocks or can’t-be-bothereds, seeds still and just the same, seeds that will grow. So, I take them home and put them in my dark, dry, drawer and leave them.

When the season comes I open my drawer and rifle through the packets like a deck of cards, shuffling them, taking out this and taking out that, placing the seeds I intend to grow this time to one side, all ready for planting. And then I put the rest away for another year. Not their turn yet. Some have been returned year on year for a while now, others sowed with success or none, still others, well past their plant-by dates, to be scattered into tubs to take their chance. Garden after garden awaiting soil and warmth, who knows what beauty lies awaiting?

So now I’ll stop my rambling and get on with my point.

Passing a neighbours garden the other morning I noticed these – so tall, and lush and blowing in the breeze, Digitalis, Foxgloves, Shirley to be exact, beautiful with their ocean-shell shades, dangerous with heartbeat stopping poisons and thinking back – I realised that within my small, dark, drawer - these flowers were waiting to be released it seems - next year then, for sure small seeds.

Yes, I'll open my drawer and release my dreams...