Here we are at the start of January, and the time when it is traditional to sow mammoth onion seeds. In my house it's a tradition of just three years' standing, but a venerable one already. This year's onions - when they are harvested at the end of September - will be as big and as taut as soccer balls, will weigh in at several kilos each and will be as sweet as sugar.
In my dreams, that is. In reality, because I'll probably be erratic about feeding, watering and supporting the floppy, tubular leaves, I'll be lucky if the majority of them top a kilo. But nonetheless, because I - like many other gardeners - find the mixture of fantasy and routine a peculiarly satisfying one, I'll carry on with my mission to grow the greatest onion in Ireland.
Of course, cannon-ball onions are not everybody's idea of fun. I understand that some people even find them vulgar. Still, they certainly fit in with the prevailing theme of excess as we close down another year and gallop towards the millennium.
Excess is all around us nowadays. Just look at last year's weather for instance. In 1998 we had far more weather than we used to: more warmth, more rain, more wind, even more sunshine (although it was in the autumn) than we are generally accustomed to. The average temperature for last winter was a full two degrees above normal - the warmest winter for nine years in most of Ireland. On February 14th a balmy breath from the Sahara kissed this country in a warm Valentine's Day salute. At 11 p.m., the thermometer in my garden registered mid-teen temperatures, and I came upon delighted slugs - happily surprised by the unseasonal warmth - mashing their way through the early tulip buds.
Plant and pest life continued to thrive in the wet, warm spring (the warmest in more than 35 years in Kilkenny, Cork, Rosslare and Mullingar), and the rampant growth of the one nourished the increasing populations of the other. But, as Holy Thursday ticked into Good Friday all hell broke loose: a vicious frost laid waste the pushy, over-confident growth of early spring. The delicate, emerging, origami-folded foliage of Japanese maples was irreparably seared; stiff, beefy arum lily leaves turned to mince; tender plants everywhere melted to mush overnight. The cold weather lasted for eight days.
After the frozen shock of April came a merciful May: beautiful, sunny and lovely - and as fresh and exhilarating as only an Irish May can be. A bounty of silken Oriental poppies, deep blue irises (both bearded and Siberian) and headily fragrant roses filled the flower beds. It was a good year for roses, and the start of a righteous summer.
It was also the end of it, more or less. June passed in a welter of rain, and July was not much better. The low light levels caused depression, not just among gardeners, but among their charges too. Plants put on spineless, floppy weight, necessitating stern girdling with stakes and string. Flowering was not what it should have been. The climate tried to pull itself together in August and it became warmer and drier, but things fell apart again on the last day of the month when heavy rain hit the country (including a whopping 76 mm in Cork). September salvaged the summer: it was the warmest September in 13 to 40 years, depending on which part of the island you lived. On September 21st it was 25.4 degrees at Belmullet - the warmest day there since May of the previous year and the highest autumn temperature since records began in 1956. Here in Dublin, roses and clematis that normally bloom just once in early summer gave a generous second helping of blossom in autumn.
And much of the summer garden continued flowering right up until the end of December. Penstemons, erysimums, daisies of all varieties, verbascums and abutilons all bloomed in tandem with the winter cherry, the winter jasmine and hellebores, while the foliage of spring bulbs and summer day lilies pushed impatiently through the soil. It was a confusing mixumgatherum of plants of all seasons - with nothing behaving in a timely fashion. Perhaps I'm rigidly unimaginative, but I hanker after winter plants in the winter garden, not a bizarre collection of wan, anachronistic stragglers. And so, my wish for 1999 is for four proper seasons, one after the other, and all in the correct order. If for nothing else, we alliophiles need them for our giant onions: spring rains to fatten the foliage; summer warmth to plump up and ripen the bulbs; autumn coolness to arrest the cycle. And a cold, frosty winter to sit by the fire contemplating the triumphs of the past year and the fantasies of the year to come.
Diary date: South County Dublin Horticultural Society hosts a lecture by Ciaran Burke, Chinese Gems in the Emerald Isle, at 8 p.m. on January 13th, Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire. Members free, visitors £2.