Finally, the deed is done; Spring crawls through a rotten stream of 120 crappy days in a row and May comes out the other side clean. Ok so it’s not exactly Abrahamic, and it’s certainly no Lukan prodigal nor even a Saul to Paul experience; it’s not Shakespeare’s Leontes nor Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov; and hell it sure ain’t no Andy Dufresne, but make no mistake, after weeks (if not months) of delay and retardation the early days of May have reported for duty ushering in light winds with warm pulsing rain and in the process have managed to redeem not only this year’s spring, but have also compensated for the total lack of that season from last year’s annual cycle.
The year’s attempt to trudge winter’s tale into March, April and beyond is terminated, and where till now it could reasonably have been thought that winter was being extended interminably, from here on in any inclement hiccups must simply be classified intemperate spring days.
As warden Norton may have noted; Winter, upped and disappeared like a fart in the wind…
We spent quite a few short sleeved hours this weekend spot dropping the cosmos, alyssum and marigolds onto the Monster’s face with the scent of sun-cream wafting from neighbouring plots, a noticeable increase in the volume of activity from the ladies’ hives in the corner, and the sound of children giddily making the most of stray spray form those plot holders who’ve suddenly switched from using watering-cans to cultivate their plots and have resorted instead to the use of the summer hose-reels.
The sky was bright, the air was mild and the soil finally warm enough to allow us sow our French beans, which we duly did. We also scattered a ridge of curled parsley seed together with troughs of coriander and fennel seed. With these sown we are now left with only the winter kales, courgettes and cucumbers to sow at the end of the month, and once we a pop those few pumpkin seeds in the ground at the beginning of next month there will be little else sown in the annual schedule of plot 49.
Of course the odd successional tray of lettuce, basil and beets will be needed by mid-summer, but how quickly the Monster’s schedule is fore-shortened and for all the worrisome angst through the slow cold days of late March and April we are now most certainly heading to a consideration of summer with all the latent promise of that season.
We are harvesting the rhubarb, and the radishes and lettuces will be ready soon enough. The 5 gooseberry bushes have set fruit, as have the Ben Lomond’s, we’ve thinned the parsnip and beetroot to final spacing, and as said in the Monster’s previous outing we are weeding, especially in the onion beds. And lest we forget to remind you, we are weeding in the onion beds…
And to round off with an ol’ Redism of sorts, this time of year there are basically two options on The Monster in the Corner, you either get busy weeding, or you get busy weeding!!!
Monster In The Corner... 