Pleasures of the Kitchen Garden

What are the the things that bring you pleasure in your vegetable garden?

plaiting onions into strings
in the garden shed
with the rain pattering on the roof above

the first thin green line
of seedlings
down the dark soil

white flowers on early peas

gaudy orange flowers
opening in the early morning sun
on courgettes and marrows

beads of dew resting on the
crinkled inner leaves
of cabbages, like
crystal drops

the sweetness of stolen peas
eaten raw

 

scarlet flowers
climbing up wigwams
and
tents of runner beans in high summer

leeks in orderly rows



the earthiness of new potatoes
just dug up



baskets piled high
with a glut of produce

frozen fingers tingling back to life
around a mug of hot soup
after winter digging

Extract from

'Through the Garden Gate'

by

Susan Hill