The green fingered genius

Him indoors is a green fingered genius. The day the twins came home from hospital after their birth he dug through the raised bed he had built the week before, did whatever one does to soil to make it the kind in which plants thrive and planted the whole thing with vegetables and herbs. I was in a state of frenzied trance. Brain dead from the hormones sluicing through my system whilst manically trying to get to grips with feeding tiny twins and looking after a two year old. I did well to keep the children alive but I could not have been entrusted with the welfare of our handsome vegetable patch.

A month later and we started to feast on the luscious fayre. Green and red peppers, chillis, more basil than you'd know what do do with, sweetcorn, all sorts. This year his enterprise has expanded. Green beans swarm all over the back of the house, passion fruit vines wind their fragrant leaves across the fence but his real pride and joy creeps down the side of our driveway. A huge melon patch. I don't know if you've ever seen a melon patch but the vines and leaves grow pretty much as you watch them. He has never tried growing melons before and I can't believe we have feasted on some of the most honeyed flesh you could ever hope to taste this summer. His commitment to the garden finds him wander in through our gate, dusty and bleary eyed from a day of building only to kiss his wife and children briefly and direct his attention to the watermelon patch, watering and pruning his pride and joy. His obsession does have me rolling my eyes sometimes and his friends have been known to cellotape huge, ripe fruit to the vines as a gentle nudge in the ribs but underneath it I find his understanding and love of the earth enormously endearing.

What a cool talent.

Quinn O'Connell took these pics