or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
CadwellNOT Caldwell
My garden tells the truth
[ 4 minute read ]
Garden confessions
I am fairly convinced that the state of someone's garden and what is grown in it, is a good indication of how the garden owner's mind works. I have to be conscious that not everybody understands what I intend to write and as such the previous sentence begs me to clarify that I know that minds need stimulation and nutrition. However, nigh on everyone, who is not deliberately pedantic, realises that I mean, what makes people tick, and I am not winging an explanation of the 'mechanics of the mind'.
My garden is not messy but it is certainly not manicured. I am not 'anal-retentive'. I grow vegetables in my garden. I am practical, even though it is not really a good use of resources to grow our own vegetables, except for it being a kind of hobby with a reward that requires patience and long-term dedication towards keeping the plants healthy. I might, in this way, regard vegetable-growing as one step up from flower-growing. It is 'horses for courses' though. I grow flowers, but their value to me is in the growing; the display of the blooms and the feeding of insects. They don't have the same payoff as a vegetable plant with a reward in the kitchen and belly. I can live with a drought killing my flowers, with regret for being too lazy to attend to them, much more easily than if the tomato plants, for example, die from the same drought.
I expressed this same opinion (a person's garden is a manifestation of someone's mind) some time ago and someone vehemently denied this as being so for their garden. I actually took it to be a denial of being strange. They did that, not me. I mean, who really cares? Yet, there are some who, for them, I touched a raw nerve that no-one else noticed was hanging bare. Of course, an overgrown garden, in my book, is possibly representative of a mind that is largely undisciplined or under-used, and so I accepted their outburst as demonstrating something that (probably) they had not realised for themselves, disorganised. Too harsh? I don't think so. In my ivory tower? More than likely; I can't tell; my garden is a bit wild, so.....
'Oh! Wow!' My visitor had come to read my electric meter and after chatting for a while I led him into the back garden. He was not the first to stop in their tracks and look all about them. I always think they are shocked that it is not a bowling green with a freshly creosoted fence and a new shed. There is never a robin perched on a garden fork temporarily standing where I had been double-digging. There is no pergola or arch covered with wisteria or climbing honeysuckle. There is no garden bench or picnic table with a pot of tea and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off waiting for the local vicar to tuck in. There is no Red Setter dog and I have not left my pipe with freshly tamped-down tobacco in it on the potting table.
'Oh, Wow!' He stepped forward and followed me, his ankle rudely twisting as he crossed the unevenly dried clay on which clumps of overlong grass was seeding. He left with some leeks I pulled from the ground, three tomato plants and a potted mint plant.
'You would like my Irish friend, Brian', he called over his shoulder. I lived in Tipperary for a while; I know what he means.
My garden has a hibernaculum for insects and small animals to live in. It smells of rotting wood and fungus. I like it; it reminds me of my childhood when my parents were not enough people to tend to all the corners of our 3 Acre garden (1.2 Hectares - multiply by 10 thousand for square metres - 12,000 m2), and there was a barn full of old and antique furniture, quietly breaking down under the minuscule weight of spider poo.
My garden has Hawthorn leaning heavily into the garden as a divide between my garden and my neighbour's, which Blackberry brambles like to hide in. My garden goes untouched for weeks at a time because I once read that we can exercise our bodies just by thinking about exercising and I apply the same notion to gardening. Fairies, magic, or whatever, it works for me and my garden. It is unkempt, but I love it, because I keep discovering things in it. 'Oooh! a new Oak tree where the bean plants should be planted!' I wasn't sure if the squirrels would like the acorns I left in a bucket for them, or if the Muntjac deer and badgers had eaten them. It, the one that got away and rooted, will stay there for another month and keep the new Walnut trees company. Their tap roots are probably so long now that I might need an excavator to dig them up if I want to save them. 'That one can stay there and become a proper tree.' I decided. I am like that; kindness blends with my laziness. Of course, I had calculated how much effort it might take to dig that one up and how long it might take to produce walnuts and worked out that by saving my energy I can allow energy-giving nuts to grow. A win-win outcome. Fully justified laziness!
I used to be able to read people and, within two minutes of talking to them, establish the gender of their siblings, without even asking oblique questions. Some people were such that I could tell how old their siblings were in relation to the person I was talking to; five years older or even ten. It comes down to influences. If they had no siblings I always drew a complete blank. Quite impossible to read people these days; they have a million influences.
I don't wander around my village looking over people's garden walls and fences, thinking, 'Weirdo...disciplined....inter-est-ing...or boring'. That simply would not do. I don't pay attention to other people's gardens. However, I do know that my near neighbour, having spoken to the chap on a number of occasions, has quite strong mental health issues. I noticed a bunch of people in his garden, tidying up. Drat! These folk are aliens in my nice comfortable and wholly empirical theory; I have only induced that gardens represent the people they own. I don't have any realistic premises at all. It was fun while it lasted, but I never really considered that garden are liars too.
'Liar!' I shouted as I peered through the knot hole in the vicar's garden fence. 'You are not at all what you are pretending to be!'
'What is troubling you, Martin?'
'Oh, hello vicar. Just admiring your garden.'
'Oh yes. Some of the parishioners come in and tend to the lawn and flowers. I am far too busy, what with the distance between the parishes I represent.'
'I know. How kind.' I said through gritted teeth.
Why is it we call someone a fruitcake when we mean nuts? Is it, 'As nutty as a fruitcake'?
Garden Confessions
All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
Cadwell NOT Caldwell
My garden tells the truth
[ 4 minute read ]
Garden confessions
I am fairly convinced that the state of someone's garden and what is grown in it, is a good indication of how the garden owner's mind works. I have to be conscious that not everybody understands what I intend to write and as such the previous sentence begs me to clarify that I know that minds need stimulation and nutrition. However, nigh on everyone, who is not deliberately pedantic, realises that I mean, what makes people tick, and I am not winging an explanation of the 'mechanics of the mind'.
My garden is not messy but it is certainly not manicured. I am not 'anal-retentive'. I grow vegetables in my garden. I am practical, even though it is not really a good use of resources to grow our own vegetables, except for it being a kind of hobby with a reward that requires patience and long-term dedication towards keeping the plants healthy. I might, in this way, regard vegetable-growing as one step up from flower-growing. It is 'horses for courses' though. I grow flowers, but their value to me is in the growing; the display of the blooms and the feeding of insects. They don't have the same payoff as a vegetable plant with a reward in the kitchen and belly. I can live with a drought killing my flowers, with regret for being too lazy to attend to them, much more easily than if the tomato plants, for example, die from the same drought.
I expressed this same opinion (a person's garden is a manifestation of someone's mind) some time ago and someone vehemently denied this as being so for their garden. I actually took it to be a denial of being strange. They did that, not me. I mean, who really cares? Yet, there are some who, for them, I touched a raw nerve that no-one else noticed was hanging bare. Of course, an overgrown garden, in my book, is possibly representative of a mind that is largely undisciplined or under-used, and so I accepted their outburst as demonstrating something that (probably) they had not realised for themselves, disorganised. Too harsh? I don't think so. In my ivory tower? More than likely; I can't tell; my garden is a bit wild, so.....
'Oh! Wow!' My visitor had come to read my electric meter and after chatting for a while I led him into the back garden. He was not the first to stop in their tracks and look all about them. I always think they are shocked that it is not a bowling green with a freshly creosoted fence and a new shed. There is never a robin perched on a garden fork temporarily standing where I had been double-digging. There is no pergola or arch covered with wisteria or climbing honeysuckle. There is no garden bench or picnic table with a pot of tea and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off waiting for the local vicar to tuck in. There is no Red Setter dog and I have not left my pipe with freshly tamped-down tobacco in it on the potting table.
'Oh, Wow!' He stepped forward and followed me, his ankle rudely twisting as he crossed the unevenly dried clay on which clumps of overlong grass was seeding. He left with some leeks I pulled from the ground, three tomato plants and a potted mint plant.
'You would like my Irish friend, Brian', he called over his shoulder. I lived in Tipperary for a while; I know what he means.
My garden has a hibernaculum for insects and small animals to live in. It smells of rotting wood and fungus. I like it; it reminds me of my childhood when my parents were not enough people to tend to all the corners of our 3 Acre garden (1.2 Hectares - multiply by 10 thousand for square metres - 12,000 m2), and there was a barn full of old and antique furniture, quietly breaking down under the minuscule weight of spider poo.
My garden has Hawthorn leaning heavily into the garden as a divide between my garden and my neighbour's, which Blackberry brambles like to hide in. My garden goes untouched for weeks at a time because I once read that we can exercise our bodies just by thinking about exercising and I apply the same notion to gardening. Fairies, magic, or whatever, it works for me and my garden. It is unkempt, but I love it, because I keep discovering things in it. 'Oooh! a new Oak tree where the bean plants should be planted!' I wasn't sure if the squirrels would like the acorns I left in a bucket for them, or if the Muntjac deer and badgers had eaten them. It, the one that got away and rooted, will stay there for another month and keep the new Walnut trees company. Their tap roots are probably so long now that I might need an excavator to dig them up if I want to save them. 'That one can stay there and become a proper tree.' I decided. I am like that; kindness blends with my laziness. Of course, I had calculated how much effort it might take to dig that one up and how long it might take to produce walnuts and worked out that by saving my energy I can allow energy-giving nuts to grow. A win-win outcome. Fully justified laziness!
I used to be able to read people and, within two minutes of talking to them, establish the gender of their siblings, without even asking oblique questions. Some people were such that I could tell how old their siblings were in relation to the person I was talking to; five years older or even ten. It comes down to influences. If they had no siblings I always drew a complete blank. Quite impossible to read people these days; they have a million influences.
I don't wander around my village looking over people's garden walls and fences, thinking, 'Weirdo...disciplined....inter-est-ing...or boring'. That simply would not do. I don't pay attention to other people's gardens. However, I do know that my near neighbour, having spoken to the chap on a number of occasions, has quite strong mental health issues. I noticed a bunch of people in his garden, tidying up. Drat! These folk are aliens in my nice comfortable and wholly empirical theory; I have only induced that gardens represent the people they own. I don't have any realistic premises at all. It was fun while it lasted, but I never really considered that garden are liars too.
'Liar!' I shouted as I peered through the knot hole in the vicar's garden fence. 'You are not at all what you are pretending to be!'
'What is troubling you, Martin?'
'Oh, hello vicar. Just admiring your garden.'
'Oh yes. Some of the parishioners come in and tend to the lawn and flowers. I am far too busy, what with the distance between the parishes I represent.'
'I know. How kind.' I said through gritted teeth.
Why is it we call someone a fruitcake when we mean nuts? Is it, 'As nutty as a fruitcake'?