Tag: vegetable

Mind my plums!

It was a hazy spring afternoon when Davina entered the green grocer’s shop. The light slanted in between the notices stuck on the window, – MeLon’ s £1-99 and in one corner BICYCLE FOR SALE 27″ frame £20, and MAN & VAN, with telephone numbers. Plum’s the greengrocer had been at the centre of village life for a long time, and fulfilled many functions, not just the supply of your Five-a-day to whomsoever might be interested.
Since moving to the village, Davina’s intake of fruit and veg had escalated astonishingly. This was not due to a conscious decision to eat more healthily. It was due to her seeking an excuse to visit as often as possible. It was quite close to her flat, so she could manage to spread her purchases thinly, buying a little something at a time. She had come to love the feel of the rustly paper bags, of a succulent pear in the palm of her hand. The proprietor, a young man who was keeping on the family business, had decided she must be a health food obsessive, always wanting her fruit as fresh as possible. And that was fine, because he liked serving her. She always dressed very nicely too, though she seemed impervious to cold. Even on chilly days she rarely wore a coat, and often appeared in a vest top. He supposed she was also keen on keeping fit.

In fact Davina was a recent convert to the joys of intensive fruitage. She had at first just come to the shop out of curiosity and orientation to her new home. She asked for apples, – unable at the time to think what else to all for. The green grocer had stepped forward out of the shadows and been handsome at her. Quite powerfully. And it had had an immediate effect, so that when she said “a bag of apples please” and he had replied “what do you like? Cox?” She had become covered with confusion and had to go outside for a few moments, feigning a coughing fit.

She recovered herself, and got her apples to take home. It was very first experience of Cox like this, – in a brown paper bag, and it was as delicious an experience as the apples themselves. Next time she went in, a little shyly, and asked for the next kind of fruit on her then short list; pears.
The lovely green grocer had smiled at her again, and his hand her brushed hers as he handed over the brown paper bag. “I always say you can’t beat a lovely juicy pear.” She was almost sure he had winked.

As time had passed, her requests had become more adventurous, and her outfits smaller and tighter. She bought potatoes with the earth still on, and then asked him to clean it, “Can you make the earth removed for me please?” She asked him about his plums, and he generously let her feel them first.
By the time she asked for his advice on melons, she was dressed in a vest top so tight that from some angles it was possible to read her bra size through the taut fabric. She hoped the green grocer, expert as he appeared to be with succulent fruits, would not need to see the label to confirm what he could judge with his eyes.
She stood in the busy shop, breathless with excitement, watching him deftly reaching for a leek, adjusting his courgettes, talking effortlessly with the customers. She hung back, professing indecision, until everyone else has been served. “I’m interested in your melons” she said. “Can you advise me?”
He gave her that smile again, and she felt the sensations stirring within…She thought she could hear her blood circulating, rushing through her ears on its way to other, more secret places….

“I certainly can” he answered. “I’m a great man for the melons myself.” He lifted a cantaloupe gently with one strong hand, and lifted it up for her to see. “You have to handle them very gently…they bruise easily, do melons, especially when they are ripe…and juicy, and -” he shot a lingering glance at her chest – “ready to burst”
“I’m sure you’re right” she whispered, her voice failing in her throat.
“Should I get just the one, or would I be better with two?”
He put the melon on a scale, and reached for another. “I always say, why have one melon when you could have two”
She nodded, her mouth dry. “I’ll take those then”
“Anything else?”
She felt as though she stood at the brink; it was more or never…
“Can I see a courgette, maybe?”
Of course she could. He picked one out, and held out towards her. In an instant of pure passion she took a firm grip on it with one hand and pulled him towards her. They stood for a moment, the courgette firm and upright between them.
He reached past her and flicked the sign on the door to CLOSED and then allowed himself to be propelled backwards until he was leaning against a shelf covered in artificial grass, and still stacked with produce.
Davina was leaning against him, her succulent melons, still, he noticed, with the stalks on, were tempting him beyond endurance. And since he could not endure that, he gave in to it, dropping his courgette and unwrapping the melons (he was glad these did not rustle) and checking them for ripeness. They were, as he had expected, perfect. She leaned harder against him, and they tipped back into the shelf, which was fortunately strongly built, like him. “Mind my plums!” He cried. The contents of the shelf tumbled away across the floor. She didn’t mind his plums, at all.
Suddenly she looked surprised ” what’s happened to your courgette?”
He laughed “that’s the thing about a courgette…in no time at all, with the right conditions, it turns into a marrow!”

Drusilla and the Dibber

On a warm spring day there was nothing Drusilla looked better than a browse round the local garden centre. She did not have a garden, just a balcony, which although like Drusilla, was generously sized, could not offer the sublime pleasures of a garden.
However the local garden centre, Let’s Root, was inviting, and there were some extremely inviting staff. On her very first visit, she noticed a man who was designed by nature to wear overalls in a very fine way. He was strong and handsome in a rustic, earthy way, with eyes as dark and shiny as elderberries, though fortunately somewhat larger. He must have noticed her looking at him, and presumed she was wanting help. She was, though not in the way he first thought.
“Would you like me to help you?” He asked her, tucking his trowel tidily into his overalls.
Drusilla was overcome with embarrassment, and, pink-cheeked, looked around for inspiration.
“Errrr…I’ve got a gap I need filling”
“Ok. How big is the gap, and where exactly? What sort of soil and light conditions?”
She blushed further, which Edward thought most becoming.
“It’s not that big…I mean, normal size I suppose…doesn’t get much light, and the soil is, well it hasn’t had much attention for a while”

Edward rubbed his manly chin thoughtfully. She noticed his strong hands, and with a thrill, the lines of ingrained dirt.
He had taken her to the special shady section, and together they had discussed the merits of various shade-loving plants. Drusilla had come home with armfuls of woodland species, quite unsuited to her small sunny balcony.

Since then she had been back over and over again…each time returning home with more plants. She gradually filled her balcony, until the struggling shade-loving plants actually started to thrive, beneath so many others.

So it was, with a heart beating in anticipation, – rather than purely circulation – she once again arrived at Let’s Root.
Sure enough, Edward was there, fiddling with his bergenias.
She wandered in his direction, trying to look casual.
“Morning, Drusilla! What can I do for you today?” And after a pause he added “….any little gaps you’d like me to fill?”
“I’d value your suggestions” she said, tossing her curls flirtatiously.
He pointed. “What do you think…Antirhinum?”
She looked where he was pointing “Not at all. I think they’re lovely”
“Would you like to try a Coleopsis?”
Drusilla’s heart began to pound like a rotivator on clay soil.
Would she ever! She followed him, breathless with anticipation, to a far corner of Let’s Root, but then in dismay she realised he was talking about a perennial.
“Can we go straight to summer bedding?” She asked, urgently.
Edward, his confidence growing like the disarray in his overalls, took her tenderly – like a young dahlia – by the hand, and led her there. He looked around.
“There’s no-one else near, Drusilla…”
“I know…” She murmured, nervously playing with a young shoot.
Edward took his dibber out of his overalls pocket and laid it in the compost.
“I like this time of year” he said “you can feel everything sprouting, and growing”
Indeed she could. The sap was most definitely rising, things were reaching up to the light, swelling and growing.
“I think you should consider experimenting with bulbs too” Edward hinted. Adding that they were underrated and responded well to a little attention.
“I’ll remember that” she replied, and gently gathered a handful.
“I love this time of year, when everything feels so….vigorous” she said, and she was right; Edward certainly WAS vigorous.
And in the spring sunshine, Edward at last was able to put his dibber to work in the compost, thus filling a gap in the lady’s garden.
He loved his job

Heat and Vegetables

It was a glorious day for the Little Nimby Flower and Produce Show. The marquee was fully erect on the green, and there were stalls springing up around it, a Coconut Shy (the outgoing coconuts never seem to make it across to England) Hoopla, Whack the Rat and other village traditions. The show always seemed to fall on a hot day, and the local young girls arrived in skimpy summer outfits. The Vicar always nobly volunteered to be the victim at the Soak the Bloke stall, where he spent the afternoon getting doused in cold water. He never seemed to mind; indeed he said he found it oddly helpful.
The judging in the big tent had been going on in private for some time. The folk of Little Nimby were keen gardeners and there was always a lot of competition. If anything, the hot weather seemed to help: more people than ever wanted an entry.
Finally the judging was complete. The mayor pulled the flaps apart and declared the marquee open to the public. Priscilla, who had been trying to win a ping pong ball by throwing goldfish into glass bowls, was keen to get inside and see who had carried off the rosettes.

She came first to the bakery section, where as usual Miss Glover’s buns had again been declared Best in Show.
The Sticky Tart section was a draw between the two most highly regarded practitioners of the art: Mrs G Lans and Miss L Abia.
So Priscilla had to go to the vegetables to get a surprise. And she certainly did, encountering quite the most magnificent collection of aubergines a girl is ever likely to see. But that was not all. She positively gasped with astonishment when she saw the courgette entry. Mark Dibber, who was one of the judges, heard her cry of amazement and was in a moment standing behind her, a prize parsnip in his hand.

“Impressed, eh?” He asked, noticing how the sunlight, streaming in through a gap in the marquee, played on her hair. He leaned closer but was unable took make out the tune. Still it was nice being so close to such a lovely woman. She turned suddenly, and found herself gazing into a pair of steely grey eyes. She had expected the judges to be rather older than this man, and definitely not so handsome. Mark Dibber was tall, and wore his hair swept across his brow. When he wasn’t wearing it, he kept it on the bedpost brushed in exactly the same style.
Priscilla felt emboldened by the surrounding vegetables.
“You have amazing eyes” she said, “steel grey”
“Yes, they’ve always been grey” he replied. Sensing her interest in his parsnip, he held it up. “I’ve had to disqualify this” he said.
“Gosh!” She exclaimed. “What on earth for? Is it the wrong size?”
“False start” he said grimly. “It’s a shame. But rules are rules”
He put the disgraced parsnip down.
“Would you like me to show you around?”
“I know what a round is, Thankyou” said Priscilla, a little primly. She didn’t like to be patronised.
“I can give you a tour of the prize marrows” he offered. At that, Priscilla immediately forgave him over the patronising incident; after all, such an offer does not come knocking twice, and Priscilla was not a girl to pass up a knocking.

Just as he had promised, he showed her the finest courgettes, the most perfectly formed bulbs of garlic. He showed her the winning beans, all varieties, though he preferred the broads.
The marquee was deserted by the time they came to the highlight of the afternoon, but it was definitely worth waiting for.
He never even asked her name, nor told her his. At the time this seemed perfectly natural..they were just two people together, enjoying some late summer heat amongst the brassicas.

“This is it, then” he said, his excitement mounting like a Jack Russell.
“The prize exhibit”
She looked…She gasped…
It was truly astounding. The little card beside it said, instead of the full name of the entrant, just “Mr M D”
Priscilla turned and gazed into his eyes, which were of course steel grey,

“My marrow” he said, with a smile
“But you’re a judge! Surely your not allowed an entry?”
“That’s my secret” he said. “I always enter without giving my name. It’s better that way”