Grateful garden

The fronts of my two small cottages are hard against the pavement and close to the town centre. There is also a large back garden surrounded by an eight foot stone wall. Nobody can see in so I have my privacy. This means that I can do what I like with the garden and there is no one to object, no peer pressure in favor of horticultural conformity.

Earlier today I was sitting in the sunshine by the back door with a sandwich lunch. Crumbs fell on the slabs but this was not a problem – there are various sizes of birds with various types of beak waiting to make a meal of them.

I seem to have a thing about letting nature takes its course.

Several years ago I planted apple, pear and plum trees. Other than that there is grass. I used to mow it all and it took two and a half hours. These days I have a couple of small greenies up near the cottages and there are mowed paths around the rest of the plot. Now it takes only 45 minutes to give it a haircut.

The countryside round the village supports monster monocrops. Walls and fences have been removed to make it easier for giant agriculture machines to be more efficient. It is easy to forget the rich diversity of plants and animals that once knew this place as home. It is also easy to forget the enormous amount of brute labour that went in to taming the land in the 18th and 19th century. But there were clearances and the agricultural workforce was replaced by machines.

Most of the green fingered people these days have to make do with small village or town gardens. They have plans for every square inch. The hand of man is openly on show especially on homes and gardens television. And there are many awesome results.

But the green finger habit may be dying. Many gardens are now tarmacked to provide car parking. Others are landscaped with chuckie steens and weed killer to ensure low maintenance. There is no need to grow your own. People with money can buy food from supermarkets that stock an ever widening range of goods that grew in all manner of soils, weather patterns, and socioeconomic scams. There is perhaps too much choice.

It does my head in to think of all the value chains that lie behind the goods for sale in the local Coop which is 320 footsteps east of my front door. The issue of choice in a globalised world!

But there is no immediate need to think of such things. It is enough that I feed the birds with crumbs from an outdoor sandwich lunch and that I am grateful to be in my sun-soaked, private garden.