No place for melons

Having cleared the garden last week, I've made a really good start on the vegetable patch, and I'm starting to get an idea of what I'm going to plant and where. But I'm acutely aware of the potential sexual connotations of my choices.

Being of a sober disposition, I'm not inclined to see ribald amusement in common or garden fruit and veg - not that I should call "common" anything that the Giver has blessed. But I find such frivolity common in my fellow men. I remember in my teenage years, my granny rolling around laughing at some particularly deformed parsnip or turnip on the popular BBC TV programme "That's Life". I would have to leave the front room, ashamed of the depths of sin to which my family had sunk, and read the Book of Proverbs to calm my raging thoughts.

And so I am currently planting leeks in part of the vegetable patch. They are an upright vegetable, if I can use that word without causing excitement among the more vigorous of my readers, but the general floppiness of the tops prevents any unfortunate comparisons.

So I have compiled a list of approved vegetables without jocular or carnal connotations, and will be issuing it to my congregation as follows:

Leeks - YES
Cabbages - YES
Onions - YES
Pumpkins - YES
Peppers - YES
Radishes - YES, just about
Butternut squashes- NO, probably not
Turnips - NO
Carrots - NO NO
Cucumbers - NO NO NO

So having disposed of the vegetable morality issue, I turned my attention to the fruit already in the garden - acutely aware that even the word "fruit" has certain connotations.  I have to be careful that I do not lead my congregation into sin through an inappropriate choice and so certainly the fig tree had to go.  There's something so Song of Solomon about a fig.

It was after I had cut the fig tree up, and was washing the sap off my hands under the garden tap, that Mrs Collins looked over the garden fence. Mrs Collins is a lady of rounded figure who has a habit of hanging out the washing while wearing only a dressing gown over her nightgown - not that I look that closely, you understand. Should I be out in the garden when Mrs Collins appears, I do my best to raise my eyes to the heavens and engage with our Creator in prayer.

But on this occasion she caught me unawares, as she pointed over to the remaining fruit trees, and commented,
"Oh - what a lovely pear."
So that was the fate of the Conference sealed. And I cut down the plum tree down as well, to be on the safe side.

On the whole, I've decided it's best if I just turn the whole garden over to leeks, onions and cabbages. It'll be a dull and monotonous diet, but at least it will be without temptation.