How does your garden grow?

I think, if you're a proper gardener, that there's always something needing to be done in the garden. Whether it's weeding the beds or mulching the borders, Gardener's World would have you believe that the world's not right until you've been out with the spade and the secateurs and to hang with any jobs from the real world.

There may well be a grain of truth in this. If, however, like me you're just messing about at it and trying your luck* then one can manage the incredible feat of pottering about and appearing simultaneously productive/constructive and yet shambolic and disorganised.

This, of course, may be no bad thing. Too much anal retention can't be good for either the garden or the digestion. Are regimented rows of seedlings and well drilled lines of saplings really doing much to advance the cause of human happiness? Laissez-faire and devil may care, that's me.

Real gardeners (yes, retired folk really) would no doubt be horrified at my planting regime - points to consider: do I have space, do I have any soil/compost? Answer = yes? Bung in the seeds regardless of instructions to the contrary. I prefer to think of it as a kind of "control method", checking whether those seed packet instructions really are accurate is a true service to the horticulturist I think.

No, no, don't all rush to thank me. It was nothing...

* many years ago, the Beechgrove Garden used to talk about, what I took to be a form of cultivation called "keanamata gardening" - it's only recently I've discovered this seemingly exotic form of horticulture to be for the "keen amateur". Oh well, another bubble burst.