Scrubber

I am preparing for the Great Spring Planting.

This is very exciting indeed.

I have been scrubbing the plant pots.

One of the features of our current everything-being-banned way of life is that it is possible to welcome even small changes in routine, and not only was scrubbing out the plant pots a thrilling event, I have actually been looking forward to it for a couple of days now. Indeed, I had even stacked them in an anticipatory pile in the yard, by way of prolonging the adventure.

If ever I meet Boris Johnson I will be having some words to say in his ear, I can tell you.

Oliver says that he is doing it because he wants the whole country to be alone with no friends and thus experience what it was like to be him at Eton.

The thing is that it is almost time to start seed-planting. Obviously I can’t put anything in the garden yet, because of the risk of frosts. This will always be a bit of a danger. We had a gloriously warm springtime a couple of years ago, followed by a terrible late frost, which killed both the grapevine and the sage bush overnight.

I was sorry about the grapevine, which used to produce about twenty pounds of grapes every year. We had made wine from it one year, and were very proud of it, although I ought to add that it was truly dreadful, and if it had been served to us in a restaurant we would have taken it home in a doggy bag to clean the scum off the side of the bath.

We think that we will plant another, in the space where the tiresome honeysuckle once was.

I had the happy reflection this morning that the honeysuckle was such a horror to dig out that clearly we do not have problems with root-devouring vine weevils in that flower bed, at any rate, and so I can plant a grape vine with impunity.

I had not touched the plant pots since the end of last year, when their contents were ejected and presumably dumped in the compost bin, or possibly, if they were of the everlasting variety, planted in the front garden. This is what happens to anything which does not interest me very much. We never go in and out of the front door, which is fairly universally regarded on our street as being for reserved for the sort of guests that you are trying to impress, the police and the bailiffs. All of the rest of us live out our lives in the alley at the back, and only go into the front garden when the postman starts to complain about impenetrable foliage on the path.

Obviously you do not want to put new plants into horrid filthy flower pots. This is not just because they look scruffy, but because you might have disease, or black mould. You have patiently nurtured your little seedlings into life over several weeks, marvelling at every tiny leaf, and you need to give them the very best possible chance.

I brushed the worst of the mud out of them in the yard, and then hauled them into the kitchen sink and scrubbed them hard, with a scrubbing brush and some bleach.

There were some very horrible slugs.

Nothing is nastier than slugs in your kitchen sink.

Obviously some things are nastier, like dog poo in your shoes, but you do not need to split hairs, slugs in the sink are fairly nasty and it is merely a figure of speech.

There were about six of them, and Oliver had to rescue me, using a dog poo bag, because I squeaked and flapped about being a bit helpless.

I do not like slugs.

When I had finished all of the plant pots were clean and fresh-looking, and I spent ten minutes wondering where I might arrange them in the conservatory when they are filled with fragrant herbs and lovely things.

I am going to plant the first little seeds in their new seed bed tomorrow.

I can hardly wait.

The picture shows some un-scrubbed plant pots. It is the new seed bed being prepared. I thought I might take a picture of a clean plant pot, but they were all very boring and reminded me of the sort of thing that you might see on the sort of Sell And Seek page that is only ever frequented by dull people. I know this because I am dull enough to look sometimes.

This picture is lots more interesting, obviously.