Terra Cotta

View from the Hertfordshire garden at Christmas 

Gardening on clay is tough. The soil is heavy, slippery, muddy and gets marshy in winter, so you can't go out or you'll compact it.  It's impossible not to bring clods of mud indoors every time you go out and as someone who used to garden on sand and gravel, I really miss the 'cleanness'. However, there's one thing you can't do with sand and that's make pots.  

I certainly could make pots with the clay in my garden, but I don't have to because my grandson Lawrence has made a small collection of artefacts with clay from his parents' garden in Hertfordshire  and I got one for Christmas, which I really prize. 

                                          

It's true terra cotta colour, a lovely warm reddish brown, unglazed, which he fired in the wood burning stove in the kitchen. He's been creating a kiln in the garden for firing, but so far the stove has worked out best. His collection consists of an oil lamp á la Aladdin, and various shapes of jugs, mugs and pots some with handles and some without. 

                                                                   

                            A few of Lawrence's creations, sketched from my (dubious) memory 

Mine is just the right size to be a salt cellar, and that's what it has become. 

                                                           

I have always found it exciting to grow things out of doors but I must say the idea of making real earthenware from the garden adds a truly magical extra dimension.