Weekly window into our gardens

Morning morning morning.

I've just got back from walking the dog. At least I think it was our dog I was walking, as it was so misty I could hardly see to the end of the lead.

It feels like I have entered an abusive relationship with the weather: when you have skin - as an old friend once described mine - like pastry, it’s not that I’m craving sun to finish my tan (it takes me until mid-August to stop reflecting most of the sun that hits me), it’s that I feel a deep longing for warmth.

I know we are supposed to feel lifted by the solstice or whatever, but it doesn’t compare to the first day of the year when I slide into the car to find the interior is warm. It’s better than a birthday.

Yet, having had Warm Car Day, lately it has felt like November again: I love November, just not in April. Small things in the garden are keeping me reminded that even though it doesn’t feel like spring, the plants can (mostly) tell.

The appearance of this, a Welsh onion flower pointing at where the sun is supposed to be, gave me an indecent amount of encouragement arriving back from the walk this morning. In a day or two, the winged insects will come; in a week it might be ready to break into florets (as you might a chive flower) and cast over a salad, a pasta dish or whatever. Their flavour is of bright but not harsh onion, with a sliver of sweetness. Small very welcome things really are the bricks of life.

As you’ll know, I post occasionally about what’s growing here and anticipated more as we move into spring, but this single Welsh onion flower has given me the idea to do it weekly, as a kind of marker and a quiet undertaking to be encouraged by the garden. I hope you might join me - the community of us here is such a pleasure of writing - and it occurred that the best way to do this is using the Substack Chat feature.

Don’t be put off if you are unfamiliar with Chat: it is as simple as a sort of Twitter-like part of Substack - instantly allowing us (this community of subscribers) to post comments, images and more - in a way I think might really add to what we share already. You can post from the app or online.

So, today and every Sunday, I’m going to post something from the garden that’s given me a lift, taken my eye, gone wrong, that’s working in a way I hoped it would or hadn’t begun to imagine it might.

I’d love it if you would reply with the same. Wherever you are in the world, whatever it is you are growing, please share it. Mine will almost certainly be edible, but if you are from the ornamental dark side, you will be encouraged in with metaphorical tea and biscuits (in the hope we can convert you…). I love the idea of us building up a shared picture of what’s growing across the seasons, across the world. Connected.

The first Sunday post is below. Click on it and will take you where you need to be, and in a few minutes Chat will feel entirely familiar if it isn’t already

I hope to see a window into your garden very soon.

P.S. If you like the idea of this, you will almost certainly love Lia Leendertz’s Substack, which includes a Sunday celebration of the passing seasons in her Chat.