Plant giveaway! Plus: summer rain
The Earthworm’s earworm, and some homegrown cuttings that could be yours
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There is a song that has been squatting in my subconscious for weeks. Ever since “this nice dry spell” was officially reclassified as a drought – with the sun-cracked river beds, scorched meadows and hose-pipe bans to show for it – I have longed for rain. Summer rain, to be precise. (Fans of early 00s chart music will have guessed where this is going.)
On the surface, the 2003 song Painkiller by indie singer-songwriter/cheesemonger duo Turin Brakes has nothing to do with irrigation. But dig a little deeper, and you will still find absolutely nothing – not a jot – to do with irrigation. Or gardening, or plants, or wildlife, or nature, or meteorology for that matter.
In fact, read the lyrics in any depth, and you’ll discover that the song has no discernible meaning or significance whatsoever. It is three minutes and 41 seconds of twee twaddle.
And yet, that phrase: “Summer rain, drifting down your face again.” I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Because for so, so long, it is all that I have longed for. I fully appreciate how insensitive that might seem, given the catastrophic flooding in parts of South Asia in recent weeks, but here, at home, we have desperately needed the rain. And last night, finally, it came.
We’d already had a bit of rain. But this was different. Not merely a spot of drizzle, nor a passing shower but a diluvial downpour. As if the gods on high had all sat down together to watch the final scene from Toy Story 4. It was wet.
And it still is wet. In the garden, my perennials, their stems soft after a summer spent scavenging for scraps of moisture in the soil, are sagging under the weight of the water. But in no time at all they will rise Lazarus-like – rehydrated, refreshed, renewed – their stems full and turgid.
And finally, finally, I can purge that earworm – not to be confused with the much more tolerable and altogether pleasant Earthworm – from my mind. (Turin Brakes, by the way, are currently on a nationwide tour, promoting their new album. Just saying.)
Late summer fruit, and a great garden giveaway
A few autumns ago, I planted a kiwi fruit vine, barely a metre high. By the end of the following summer, it had begun to make its mark on the fence it was being trained against. Twelve months on, it had become a sprawling menace, tangling itself around anything – or anyone – in its path. And this summer, it has borne fruit.
Or started to, anyway. If all goes well, come October or even November I will be harvesting my first juicy kiwis. But I am sceptical as to whether this will come to pass. The fuzzy little berries – which currently closely resemble the nether-parts of a capuchin monkey – have hardly put on any size in weeks, owing I’m sure to the aforementioned drought. Still, gardening is nothing if not an act of hope.
Now, kiwi vines can get big. We’re talking nine metres long. In my garden, that is almost double the length of my entire south-facing fence. Even if you have the space, in order to keep the plant under control and ensure the greatest possible harvest, the vines need to be pruned twice each year, first in summer and then again in winter.
This is either brilliant or irritating, depending on whether or not you enjoy adding tasks to your limitless horticultural to-do list, but it does have one clear benefit: the opportunity to take cuttings. This year, I haphazardly stuck a couple of scrappy stems into some compost. (I’d have taken more, but I simply do not have the space to bring on too many cuttings.) A few months later, they have rooted and even put on a bit of new growth.
So, do you want one?