Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Obviously a work day so no hope of gardening. But a friend at work gave me some seeds, for "wild flowers" of unspecified types. Oh well, I am planning to plant flowers at various points in the garden so I guess these will be OK. I imagine there are poppy seeds, maybe some kind of daisy?
I have also been reading a magazine about "natural gardening", which just makes it seem like I will have a whole crap load of work to do in the garden. They say to put down straw to avoid weeds. But where does one get straw? Also unlike what other gardeners have said, this magazine says that you can sow green manure at any time like mustard, rye and stuff like that. Stops weeds growing and when you are ready just hack it down and you are ready to plant. But again, hope that you can find seeds for that pretty easily. I have realized that I don't know where to buy all this crap, I am guessing that a farm supply place might be the ticket. I think there might be one in the next suburb over. Or maybe I will just learn to love weeds.
I am convinced that my idea of splitting up the garden into squares is a good idea, rather than just a long list of rows, like some of the other gardeners have done. But to do that I am going to need some material like wood. I am hoping that there will soon be a big rubbish collection round my way, people bring out all their broken furniture, bits of wood, etc. I had a mad idea that maybe someone would throw out a clothes horse - I could see myself pulling it apart and tying it up to prop up peas. I am hoping to get some pieces of wood or panelling that I can use to make a compost box and to cordon off the various bits of the garden. Of course I cannot let Significant Other know about this, he will find the idea perfectly repugnant. He imagines some kind of Le Notre garden with running streams and symmetrical beds of green things whereas I feel it will be more of the horse shit/worms/mud variety... so I had better not tell him about the clothes horse and corrugated iron and bits of wood until it is too late.
At least I won't need bean frames or poles: I think I will only do French beans because I am not very good at cooking runner beans even though I do know that they give a lovely display of flowers. And we don't really eat dried beans so I won't bother doing any of those either. But we do eat a lot of salad, onions, tomatoes, courgettes and spuds so I think it's best to do stuff I will actually eat.
I don't know if I can get He Who Will Not Dig to think it is a good idea but I would like to drag out our old garden furniture that we can't use any more (no balcony in new flat) and set it up down there. There is so much room, I guess that it would be possible to cordon off a corner and set up the table there: in the summer we could go eat there or just hang out with a beer while the kids run around... Remind me not to put the table near the compost heap though...
I have also been reading a magazine about "natural gardening", which just makes it seem like I will have a whole crap load of work to do in the garden. They say to put down straw to avoid weeds. But where does one get straw? Also unlike what other gardeners have said, this magazine says that you can sow green manure at any time like mustard, rye and stuff like that. Stops weeds growing and when you are ready just hack it down and you are ready to plant. But again, hope that you can find seeds for that pretty easily. I have realized that I don't know where to buy all this crap, I am guessing that a farm supply place might be the ticket. I think there might be one in the next suburb over. Or maybe I will just learn to love weeds.
I am convinced that my idea of splitting up the garden into squares is a good idea, rather than just a long list of rows, like some of the other gardeners have done. But to do that I am going to need some material like wood. I am hoping that there will soon be a big rubbish collection round my way, people bring out all their broken furniture, bits of wood, etc. I had a mad idea that maybe someone would throw out a clothes horse - I could see myself pulling it apart and tying it up to prop up peas. I am hoping to get some pieces of wood or panelling that I can use to make a compost box and to cordon off the various bits of the garden. Of course I cannot let Significant Other know about this, he will find the idea perfectly repugnant. He imagines some kind of Le Notre garden with running streams and symmetrical beds of green things whereas I feel it will be more of the horse shit/worms/mud variety... so I had better not tell him about the clothes horse and corrugated iron and bits of wood until it is too late.
At least I won't need bean frames or poles: I think I will only do French beans because I am not very good at cooking runner beans even though I do know that they give a lovely display of flowers. And we don't really eat dried beans so I won't bother doing any of those either. But we do eat a lot of salad, onions, tomatoes, courgettes and spuds so I think it's best to do stuff I will actually eat.
I don't know if I can get He Who Will Not Dig to think it is a good idea but I would like to drag out our old garden furniture that we can't use any more (no balcony in new flat) and set it up down there. There is so much room, I guess that it would be possible to cordon off a corner and set up the table there: in the summer we could go eat there or just hang out with a beer while the kids run around... Remind me not to put the table near the compost heap though...
# posted by antipodesgirl @ 11:07 AM 
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