putting a seed in the soil of 2021

So, in the space between me crashing out of work with a suspected second stroke (false alarm! Now on adjusted medication and feeling a lot better) and waking up to a second desperate scuttle into my workplace for a few last key tasks before second lockdown, a couple of gardening catalogues came through my door. 

During the time I was so uncertain about my recovery, I couldn't face the thought of the garden. It felt like a jinx to plan into the future that way. Gardens, after all, are faith in a future. It might be yours, shared or someone else's. But you've put your hand on the steering wheel of continuity. Whether it's alkanet or roses, nettles or hellebore, you can look out on it and whisper, "I made that".

So, to the catalogues. That pile of glossy promises, full of hints of an April, a June, even a September. Will we be out of our homes by then? Or should I budget for a lot of being in the garden? One day I found myself marking items in the catalogues; another putting in an order of seeds. The hands have voted for a future, in the garden, with fruit and flowers. And who am I to argue?

So, what's in the garden for 2021?

Somewhere in the postal system:

• Sweet Pea. Blue Shift, Bristol, Prince of Orange and Velvet Crush.
• Tomato Orange Queen, Orange Wellington, Ailsa Craig, Bloody Butcher, Brown Berry and Carbon 
• Chilli Black Cobra, Cayennetta, Chenzo, Little Bomb and Orange Tyger

Other marked up in the seed catalogues include a climbing/hanging basket strawberry (I left my strawbs up at the allotment), those weird blue potatoes (actually a shade of purple), Courgette summer ball and those sparse sprouting broccoli like Red Fire. There's also a lovely white Kale (Emerald Ice - also available, Midnight Sun) and a cartoonish bean called Selma Zebra. I want some crimson flowered broad beans too though I'm also intrigued by Masterpiece Green Longpod - a new variety to me.

Yes, yes, I know. I don't have an allotment any more....