Digging the dirt with Brian ‘the Red’ Barron!

Our relationship started in 1982 - but it was not love at first sight.

She was 52 and I was 33. Life had not been kind to her - she was showing her age.

The mistress is my garden, 139x8 paces of therapy, sanctuary and pleasure.

Created from an old orchard alongside a house that had to cost ‘at least £400’ when it was built, its ‘features’ were two sentry-like holly trees, an oak tree, a perennial flower that turned out to be montbretia, a few gooseberry bushes and some Conference pear trees. Only the montbretia remains.

From the bottom of the garden we took out two skiploads of broken pottery, rusty nails and a fair amount of bones (various pets, I think, nothing sinister) leaving the only decent soil on the plot.

The rest was clay, much of it blue, squelchy in winter and rock-hard in summer.

We also inherited two plants to strike terror into the heart of any gardener - ground-elder and horsetail.

Ground elder, it turns out, was introduced by the Romans. The story goes that the leaves were used in salads.

So was it introduced by a foot soldier, who couldn’t do without it, or was it official Government policy to introduce a plant guaranteed to have gardeners close to throwing in the trowel?

Romans may have introduced straight roads, urban life and numerals but all the good work was undone with this illegal immigrant.

Around March/April time it appears like a nasty skin complaint followed soon after by another rampaging thug, horsetail.

In my innocence, I tried to dig it out. Down and down the trowel/fork/spade would go until surely the blighter must come out only for ‘ping’, the elastic root snapping. I had merely succeeded in turning one root into two.

Now when it makes its unwelcome appearance through the cracks in the patio I let the fern-like leaves develop before doing a tap dance all over them to weaken their resolve before spraying them with chemicals and repeating the Sammy Davis routine.

It’s only a temporary fix - but in 270 million years it has clearly developed a formidable immune system.

Someone must love it somewhere because it is credited as a remedy for (take a deep breath) brittle nails, bleeding wounds, hair loss, cystic ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, gonorrhoea, digestive disturbances, bronchitis, lung disorders, tuberculosis, poor teeth and gums, varicose veins, and fallen arches.

Skin ailments such as sties, rashes , itchy eczema, or eye inflammation may be treated with an external compress made from horsetail tea.

I still hate it…

So that is the darker side of my gardening life but I needed to get it off my chest. If anyone can offer help, spiritual or practical, please get in touch.