Allow me to introduce...

I’ve been getting complaints that I’ve been hiding the rabbits from the world, so here we go… Louis and Marley (as in Armstrong and Bob), this one’s for you.

We got the rabbits entirely by mistake one day whilst waiting for the optician to finish preparing the boyfriend’s new glasses. We’d wandered across the road to the pet shop opposite and there they were, little bundles of cuteness, and 30 minutes later, there they were, sitting on my terrace. Now before you reach for your phones to call the RSPCA, yes I am aware that pets aren’t toys. I could attempt to reassure by explaining that I had rabbits when I was younger so know what I’m doing but to be honest that didn’t end so well so perhaps it would be best not to mention. Seriously, I am a responsible pet owner.

The one thing I didn’t anticipate was the impact the rabbits would have on the garden. It genuinely was a battle. On the one hand I’ve worked hard on my garden. I spend a disproportionate amount of my waking hours thinking about it and get upset when my plants and plans fail. So, when two overgrown rodents start gnawing on my pride and joys I think it is understandable that I get a little uptight.

On the other hand, no matter how much you love your garden, you can’t ever love it more than you do a pet. After all, the point of a green space isn’t so much to care for it for its own sake, but rather for your own.

Whatever.

Here are the highs and lows of my readjustment period:

1) High: watching the rabbits jumping for joy across the terrace, noses a-twitching and generally being rabbity.
Low: chasing Marley around the terrace three hours later whilst he jumped for joy and dived behind the bath tub whenever I got a little too close.

2) High: seeing the potato plants growing stronger day by day.
Low: seeing Louis eating his way through the aforementioned potato plants.

3) High / Low: Louis jumping face first off the upper level of the terrace straight into the lettuce and then bouncing off. Responsible pet owner.

4) High: deciding that it was probably about time to have my first home grown beetroot salad of the year.
Low: finding one pot of beetroot surrounded by 20 fungi… these things always seem to creep up on me over night. Finding the other pot of beetroot covered in two month old rabbit poo.

5) High: watching my wonderful rabbits enjoying my garden just as much as I do.

I only wish we’d called them Armstrong and Bob.

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Rooting around

It was around 4.30pm on my last day in my previous job when upon seeing the post arriving, one of my colleagues (or rather ex-colleagues) leapt up shouting “They’re here! They’re here!”. Now the post doesn’t normally provoke such a strong reaction so I looked passed the 4 envelopes now lying in the post tray to the lifts in time to see two portly gentlemen emerging. Nope, not them. Eyes back to my ex-colleague. “My ladybirds are here! My ladybirds have arrived”. Eyes back to the 4 envelopes. Nope, not them. Eyes back to my ex-colleague.

It was them though. Apparently this is the latest craze. Ordering desirable wildlife online to stave off the advances of less desirable wildlife in your own garden. The ex-colleague was having problems with aphids (greenfly to you and me) on her roses, so had ordered a test tube of ladybirds to let loose in her garden and let nature take care of the rest.

One of the joys of having a roof terrace is that you don’t have quite as many problems with the normal garden pests. The slugs and snails can’t be bothered to make the climb, and the flies… well I’m not entirely sure why we don’t get as many flying pests but we don’t. Until now that is. This year, my roses have been plagued with greenfly and my beloved rosemary is full of beetles - I just googled “beetle in rosemary” to try and bring a little detail to my story and turns out that they’re the imaginatively named “rosemary leaf beetle”. Call a spade a spade…

I digress. Whilst living in France my mum kept a vegetable patch that allowed her to be almost self-sufficient. One year, for the first time, she decided to grow potatoes. The entire crop was destroyed by a particularly nasty beetle - "the Colorado beetle" - drawn to the potato plants. It also destroyed all of the other vegetables that were coming to fruit. The old farmer next door had 70 years worth of experience of the hazards that living off your own land will sometimes bring. He quietly told Mum that she would have to burn the land in order to ensure that all of the larvae had been destroyed. His crop had suffered the same fate and he had lost his entire harvest. It was the year after the devastating forest fires and the second year of draught in France. Losing an entire harvest in rural France in the middle of a draught is no laughing matter.

It is perhaps not surprising then that I attributed this year’s increase of bugs and slugs to the three innocuous looking pots of potato plants. “I know we haven’t eaten any of the potatoes yet but I’m never growing potatoes again!” I announced about a fortnight ago whilst desperately spritzing the rosemary with over priced “vegetable friendly” organic pesticide.

About a week ago the potato plants seemed to be on their way out so we decided to dig them up and see how we’d done. Sadly my bright idea of keeping a vegetable diary hadn’t quite happened so I think they’d been in the ground for about 12 weeks. I hesitantly stuck my hand into the soil, felt around, felt something, grabbed it and pulled. It was a potato alright. It was also the size of a large pea. Disheartened I roughly pulled the rest of the plant out of the pot and there they were. Potato after potato after potato sweetly nestled in the soil little nuggets of gold. I can genuinely say that that was my best moment as a vegetable gardener.

One hundred and twenty two potatoes later I realised we’d have to store them somehow. Google to the rescue. One website told me to store them in plastic, another offered strong warnings against plastic and demanded that I store them in paper. The more professional sites go into detail about the ideal temperature that the root cellar should be kept at to keep them fresh. Deeply unhelpful advice for the inexperienced, flat-bound, urban gardener. I cut my losses and put them in old paper envelopes and wrapped them in plastic. Perforated both bag and envelope to allow some air and put them under the plate drawer with all of the pots and pans. So far so fresh.

I’ve never eaten home grown potatoes before. Simply divine. Perfectly creamy, perfectly sized, perfectly peelable, perfectly potatoey.

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