April 2023
The equinox has passed, the clocks have gone forward. Spring is officially here, though at an altitude of 1100 metres, signs of it are slower to emerge than in places lower down. In Sarria, for instance, 40 kilometres farther along the Camino Frances at a tenth the altitude of La Laguna, there are already early roses, whereas mine are just putting forth leaves.
Still, the promise of the season is evident. Tiny aconites and snowdrops nod in the angles where granite walls meet, and I note that last year’s deep blue muscari have established themselves in new situations that owe nothing to any effort of mine. They join the irrepressible calendulas - hundreds of them, all the offspring of a single plant given to me by a neighbour – in bringing dashes of bright colour to a garden that is still largely clad in wintry brown.
Another charmer is the red-stemmed dogwood (cornus sibericus), cheerily coming into leaf against the stone wall outside my kitchen, but what is really splendid just now is my sole star magnolia, decked in white blossom like an old-fashioned bride. This little tree, whose furry grey buds have been biding their time since December, seems to possess an innate wisdom that prevents it from flowering too soon. I wish I could say the same of the narcissi, true harbingers of spring joy, but soon blown flat by the westerly gales.
It’s too early, at this elevation, to plant seeds in the open ground of the vegetable plot before mid-May, but one can plan. I always try to include something I’ve never grown before, partly for fun and partly to have something interesting to offer my neighbours, who are generous to a fault in sharing their produce. Since I can’t rival their immense and perfect specimens, I resort to novelty, and so far have introduced them to parsnips, shallots, black tomatoes and oak-leaf lettuce. This year it will be a variety of chard called ‘Bright lights’, a riot of red and yellow stems with variegated leaves that look as good on the platter as they do in the plot.