Is it possible to become obsessed about a garden you don’t yet have? I guess so, because I am.
Instead of saving for the new bathroom & kitchen fittings for my little home, so that I can rent it out and move out to the farm full-time with MyMan and my garden – I’ve been internet shopping for herbs, seeds and rose bushes (despite insisting that I don’t like roses and it’s all for MyMan’s garden).
It’s hard not to, plants are so rewarding so quickly…unlike bank accounts.
This morning the herb fairy arrived, dumping a giant box of greenery (well, mostly) on my doorstep from an interstate organic supplier. (Does organic usually mean ‘a bit dodgy and sparse’?)
Small Beginnings
I didn’t think I’d ordered that much online but now it seems like EastWinds will be getting a good start on the kitchen garden this weekend. For the first time, Saturday sport is just down the road from the block and I’m looking forward to getting time with both my kids and my friends on the sidelines, and still being able to squeeze in some digging and dreaming.
In the meantime, my window boxes are being overtaken by snails for the first time. In my past life earwigs were my nemesis, but here it seems that snails are going to be the ones to mow down my lettuce seedlings and self-seeding peas.
So, despite all my plans to be ‘mostly’ organic I was so incensed by the sight of my leafless peas that I invested in snailbait, coupled with morning and midnight visits into the garden to crush any slimy invaders. Oooh, I find the crunch of their shells chilling. One day I’ll raise ducks and that’ll be one less job I have to do myself.
My windowboxes are seated on a white-painted north-facing colourbond fence and represent the only garden I currently have at my little town house despite equally empty chicken coop and tractor tires out the back, waiting for attention and occupants alike.
The plastic-lined willow-weave baskets were an impulse buy (they were on special!) and MyMan hitched up a reliable watering system for me after the first neglected lettuces began to wilt. Next thing we knew, with the addition of fish emulsion and regular water TheToddler and his babysitting buddy were expecting a strawberry or snowpea every time the car door opened alongside the garden. Basil and an ongoing supply of yellow and red cherry tomatoes made for lovely home-made bruscetta, although the capsicum succumbed in the last days to a hot wind and caterpillars.
So a few weeks ago I took my little safety scissors (I really must invest in some grown-up gardening tools) and hacked back the basil bushes, gloated over the sturdy lemon thyme, and tidied up the strawberries.
Now, the boxes have been replanted with lettuce, coriander, tricolor sage and pansies – only for me to discover that the capsicum, tomatoes, peas and lettuce have all self-seeded. As the weather warms up I often spend my mornings worrying whether I’m pulling out a fledgling ‘red leprechaun’ or nurturing a dandelion.
Noticing that the weeds beneath the boxes, on the driveway’s edge were benefiting parasitically from the extra water and my CharlieCarp regimen, I dragged out the terracotta pot collection and placed them strategically to catch the overflow and associated nutrients.
I’ve planted them with a self-seeded curly-leafed parsley plant that was languishing beneath the strawberry runners, sage, Vietnamese mint, garlic, spring onions and Vietnamese mint. I’m worried that the bulbs are a bit crowded but it’s a start.
I also ‘rescued’ some 5-colour silverbeet and mixed beetroots from the $1 basket at the local Mitre10 nursery which I don’t have high hopes for in the pots, no matter how deep they are.
One bunch of beetroot has become waterlogged in an old metal tin that journeyed here from the original farm garden and I’m waiting for MyMan to return my tool kit so I can punch holes in the bottom of the tin. That’s one downside I didn’t expect from having a partner again – he’s commandeered the many tools I’ve slowly collected together for myself over the past six or seven years. I really should have invested in one of those pink-handled tool sets. Perhaps now is a good time to start hinting to the kids that that’s what I’d like for Christmas. I spotted a pink shovel at the Mitre10 that would be handy this weekend when we start the kitchen garden – and I’d never lose it in the overgrown grass would I?
I console myself (and MyMan) that every pot or basket I plant here will be the beginnings of a garden out at EastWinds.
Small Beginnings
I didn’t think I’d ordered that much online but now it seems like EastWinds will be getting a good start on the kitchen garden this weekend. For the first time, Saturday sport is just down the road from the block and I’m looking forward to getting time with both my kids and my friends on the sidelines, and still being able to squeeze in some digging and dreaming.
In the meantime, my window boxes are being overtaken by snails for the first time. In my past life earwigs were my nemesis, but here it seems that snails are going to be the ones to mow down my lettuce seedlings and self-seeding peas.
So, despite all my plans to be ‘mostly’ organic I was so incensed by the sight of my leafless peas that I invested in snailbait, coupled with morning and midnight visits into the garden to crush any slimy invaders. Oooh, I find the crunch of their shells chilling. One day I’ll raise ducks and that’ll be one less job I have to do myself.
My windowboxes are seated on a white-painted north-facing colourbond fence and represent the only garden I currently have at my little town house despite equally empty chicken coop and tractor tires out the back, waiting for attention and occupants alike.
The plastic-lined willow-weave baskets were an impulse buy (they were on special!) and MyMan hitched up a reliable watering system for me after the first neglected lettuces began to wilt. Next thing we knew, with the addition of fish emulsion and regular water TheToddler and his babysitting buddy were expecting a strawberry or snowpea every time the car door opened alongside the garden. Basil and an ongoing supply of yellow and red cherry tomatoes made for lovely home-made bruscetta, although the capsicum succumbed in the last days to a hot wind and caterpillars.
So a few weeks ago I took my little safety scissors (I really must invest in some grown-up gardening tools) and hacked back the basil bushes, gloated over the sturdy lemon thyme, and tidied up the strawberries.
Now, the boxes have been replanted with lettuce, coriander, tricolor sage and pansies – only for me to discover that the capsicum, tomatoes, peas and lettuce have all self-seeded. As the weather warms up I often spend my mornings worrying whether I’m pulling out a fledgling ‘red leprechaun’ or nurturing a dandelion.
Noticing that the weeds beneath the boxes, on the driveway’s edge were benefiting parasitically from the extra water and my CharlieCarp regimen, I dragged out the terracotta pot collection and placed them strategically to catch the overflow and associated nutrients.
I’ve planted them with a self-seeded curly-leafed parsley plant that was languishing beneath the strawberry runners, sage, Vietnamese mint, garlic, spring onions and Vietnamese mint. I’m worried that the bulbs are a bit crowded but it’s a start.
I also ‘rescued’ some 5-colour silverbeet and mixed beetroots from the $1 basket at the local Mitre10 nursery which I don’t have high hopes for in the pots, no matter how deep they are.
One bunch of beetroot has become waterlogged in an old metal tin that journeyed here from the original farm garden and I’m waiting for MyMan to return my tool kit so I can punch holes in the bottom of the tin. That’s one downside I didn’t expect from having a partner again – he’s commandeered the many tools I’ve slowly collected together for myself over the past six or seven years. I really should have invested in one of those pink-handled tool sets. Perhaps now is a good time to start hinting to the kids that that’s what I’d like for Christmas. I spotted a pink shovel at the Mitre10 that would be handy this weekend when we start the kitchen garden – and I’d never lose it in the overgrown grass would I?
I console myself (and MyMan) that every pot or basket I plant here will be the beginnings of a garden out at EastWinds.
No comments:
Post a Comment