April 2010
A Gardener I am not
I’ve never been a gardener, in fact I hardly know an aster from an aphid, so I was quite surprised when a friend presented me with a pot containing a tiny two leafed plant.
'It’s a marrow.' she told me.
I had my doubts. However so as not to offend her I took the plant, put it on the window sill, fed it, watered it, talked nicely to it until it grew big enough to go into the big wide world of the garden.
It continued to grow, yellow flowers appeared. I heard a gardener talking about marrows, apparently there are male and female, and you have to pollinate them. This sounded a bit presumptuous and personal, but I persevered, and rather squeamishly, according to the book, using a small brush transferred the pollen.
Soon a tiny marrow appeared. It grew bigger and bigger, I made it a little bed of straw to protect it from the sharp edge of the path.
Finally came the time when it was ready for picking.
'Stuffed marrow for dinner tonight.' I told the family.
Armed with my little ‘this is the sharpest knife you will ever own’ black knife I went into the garden.
I looked at the marrow, it looked at me. I couldn’t do it! It would be like eating the cat or the pet rabbit.
The greengrocer sold me a look alike, the family enjoyed it.
The marrow? Well that lived to a peaceful ripe old age and finally turned into a horrible gooey mess. I gave it a touching burial.
Next year I shall grow Brussels.