The Gardening Bug...

Did I mention the Gardening Bug? Yes, I knew it would happen as soon the sun came out. I’ve caught it and I’m in the early stages of Gardeneratti Buggerononis. It hits me every year at around this time, usually earlier if I’m honest. But I’ve lost all sense of time and season as I meander aimlessly through my life.

This year I’m a little later than usual but I’ve contracted it now and there is no known cure. I've well and truly got it, so it looks like another summer of gardening until I can shake the bug off in the autumn.

I spotted the symptoms yesterday, spending my Sunday afternoon removing all the dead things that I should have sorted out last November. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to fight it off and soon I was out there pulling up the dried stems and stalks of last year’s nasturtiums, sunflowers and tomato plants and stuffing them into the recycle bin.

Snip, snip, snip. I always mean to do it before the winter comes but somehow, despite my best intentions, it never seems to happen. Then, on the first or second almost-sunny-day in spring, the bug bites and I set about the job. I have no choice but at least within a few hours it’s done, and then the bug begins to really get its teeth in.

So here I am with a pretty much blank canvas ready to be transformed into an oasis of peace and tranquillity. Yes, I know that it’s more like a desert at the moment, but time and sunshine and lots of work will sort that out. So, seeds next and the question of what to grow.

All that I have to plant at the moment are the over-wintered foxgloves that I sowed the last time the bug infected me. I’ll probably plant them at the back to give some height and get some seeds to grow some smaller plants for the front. You see I’m getting worse, beginning to ramble… I wonder when the fever and delirium will begin?

I’ll let you know.