The garden of Eden

The M&G traditional kitchen garden by Bunny Guinness

It's one of those days, you know the type where you get out on the wrong side of the bed in the morning with everything conspiring to aggravate you as the day goes on. Only I didn't so much as get out of the wrong side as shoot upright awake this morning with a jump while dreaming that a calm looking snake, resting itself on my sitting room floor, suddenly reared up and tried to bite me!

Bloody hell!
Not good for the heart early in the morning.Thank you St. Patrick for doing the island a favour and sending them all packing in the 5th century.It was better than bringing Christianity, shamrocks and bonfires.

Is pathological fear of snakes an Irish thing? My brother spent a year on my cousins farm in Melbourne terrified of meeting snakes, which were in abundant supply, stomping the ground whenever he was outside to send them slithering in the opposite direction. He escaped without having a single encounter and headed home, undoubtedly relieved, calling on my sister in New York en-route. The first morning wiping the sleep out of his eye he opened the door to the kitchen to find..yes you guessed it..a snake!! Savagely Ironic.

Turns out it was a pet snake that had escaped from another flat mate who was conveniently away on holidays and had neglected to tell the rest of them. But the best part was yet to come when my sister walked out, saw yer man and went back in her room closing the door with "well its not coming in here" leaving poor traumatised Joe to deal with it!
It's OK Joe, I won't dob you in to the animal welfare groups and mention where you live in Blarney..oops said too much already, moving swiftly along....

Anyway I got the sleep out of my eyes, didn't to meet any snakes in the kitchen and hunkered down to do a bit of work. Since then I have been busy doing paperwork, perhaps the worst kind of "work" known to man. The day which began cool and overcast has slid into soft but brief spells of rain-so no guilt about being indoors.As I opened one of my students diaries I saw her first picture was of Bunny Guinness's Beautiful Vegetable garden from Chelsea last year. It is strikingly lovely isn't it? The kind of garden you could dream about hiding from the world(and mountains of paperwork in ).

I do wonder about the practicality of the woven beds but there is no denying the beauty and atmosphere the whole thing conveys. Feck it though you'd be pretty cranky if you got earth on the path wouldn't you? I would be really nervous about doing anything that involved serious digging here-can you imagine trying to dig the spuds? Breaking that pretty wicker border! not good!! Show gardens are just that-for show. A bit like looking into the window of Brown Thomas-it gives you ideas but you wouldn't want to actually live there.

There is an excellent article here in shoot gardening to take you through the garden with details of the plants used and more lovely pics. You might get some ideas on how your patch could look more pretty this summer.