There were some odd beige/green things growing that I left to prove that they were worth keeping, and thriving away between the huge pile of rocks that had been exploded (is that a word??) to make way for foundations, was a lovely green plant.
I had no idea what it was, but it was green, it was growing and I watered it daily in the hope that it would bloom and multiply! It was the beginning of my garden!
I also noticed that the builders next door were constantly looking over into the garden when I was busy, and seemed to be checking up on my plant too. 'Wow', I thought, 'these guys are also interested to see what is growing here.'
But, they actually knew what it was!
One evening I called Phillip over to have a look and see if he could identify the plant that by now was as tall as me. The leaves were a darkish green with a seven-fingered look about them, and each 'finger' had a slightly serated edge. Like this:
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| A healthy dagga leaf! |
Phillip took one look at it and said one word.
'Dagga!' *
He heaved it out from between the rocks and said that he would take it home to show his daughters what it looked like as they had never seen it growing. (I still wonder what he did with it after that........)
When the builders arrived the following morning and peered over the wall to see how the plant was progressing, they all looked a little crestfallen to discover that it was gone. Then I realised that they knew what it was (obviously) and were biding their time until they could harvest it!
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| I only had one plant!!! |
Moving on ten years.......
A few days ago when we walked with Alfie (and managed to dodge the cats by going out through the garage), we walked round the corner towards the sea and stopped to chat to one of the 'new' home owners in the area. He showed us a beautiful vegetable garden of tomatoes and several healthy pumpkin plants that had suddenly sprung up from the soil that he had used to level an area before paving it. Now he was planning on leaving the veges there until he had harvested the crop.
So we told him about our illegal crop of dagga and we all had a good laugh.
As we turned to carry on with our walk, we saw it! A healthy dagga plant growing just outside his boundary wall!
He went inside to call his wife to show her, and we carried on, chuckling and tutting. 'Eish, builders', we said, 'They are all the same!'
Yesterday we saw that the plant had gone!
Deja vu!
* dagga is the local word for marijuana!
1 comment:
Just think you could all get together and have a healthy little industry going down there! We also had a thriving crop growing a few years ago, I thin k planted by the horticultural advisor at the time!!
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