tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18170873555454431042023-11-15T22:38:14.389-08:00Mutant Gardena sporadic blog about gardening that will last until I get boredCJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-46555448456717005362019-04-20T05:33:00.002-07:002019-04-20T05:33:22.243-07:00Back in Black<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5cf4e278-7fff-0bf2-5a2e-c3fc86c6d58c" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the spirit of Actually Getting Things Done I have blitzed through two whole tasks in the garden by failing to do them properly first time around. Or compromising if you're one of those relentlessly optimistic characters. I’ve decided to go on holiday at some point and can’t face coming back to the land of giant tree pile and rubbish. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’m making it look tidier by moving things from place to another basically. And hopefully reducing giant tree pile to ashes. Literally. I may have been assisted in my fervour by a plate of carbs in the form of crab mac and cheese* and plan to continue this method until my garden looks like a garden again and not a refuge for hoarders. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other victims of my faux enthusiasm aside from my pancreas were my good sweatpants (so called because they were soft) and my black hoodie. I may have also worried about blood poisoning from rusty wires (thankfully my tetanus is up to date), spiders crawling on me and the noise my tarp wall was making annoying the neighbours. All in all a productive two hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Iceland. Not as fancy as it sounds.</span></div>
<br />CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-72760934151140187552019-04-02T04:55:00.001-07:002019-04-02T04:55:09.191-07:00The Fine Art of Not Doing Very Much<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-06181346-7fff-e70c-f9b2-b91b0321e35b" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it comes to gardening, I seem to have perfected the art of time travel. I go outside and into the Tardis. 2 hours later I come back out having not accomplished very much. If my gardening life was a movie it would be Dr Who Does Groundhog Day. I go out, I battle roots, hit myself in the face with various types of shrubbery, break garden tools and generally wreak havoc instead of progress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take yesterday for example. Or the day before, or last Tuesday, really doesn’t matter. </span><img height="298" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VYGxEzI0AXv3BcNAQ_-RYkgXXdSxLzA8P7PWz6WBwndwvSi2-iNsoHVDWCc0JJbL48iOHlYUjXhPptiOeGUgIBwypeo9iA58l8IMjqsf4e7EwXbZtW8jVo6z6oDIXHMd-kcg-rEC" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="223" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only difference was the addition of music to yesterday’s repertoire. Turns out headphones and spades don’t mix. And the lack of progress may also correlate to the number of dancing breaks…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The intention was to clear the area of ground for the storage and compost heap. What actually happened was:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Irrational dislike to ivy plant and a half an hour battle to remove said ivy plant. Metallica didn’t help but it was finally vanquished with the assistance of Powerwolf.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Said hello to the beetle I saw the day before. They really don’t go very far beetles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pulled up a root.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pulled up another root. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Said hello to beetle again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Accidentally smacked beetle with fork. Felt guilty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pulled up more roots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Got entangled with tree branch that accidentally grew underground instead of over it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Got irrationally annoyed at the following: dandelion roots, clumps of grass, gravel and my own wrists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bent the tines of my fork. It was £5.99 for a reason.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wished I was better at physics and would therefore know the fulcrum and leverage for optimal root removal. See also, broken fork.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Danced to La Bicicleta. I defy anyone not to dance to this song. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Had some conversations with my imaginary friends. Imaginary friends agreed that gardening is frustrating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Picked arbitrary stopping point so as to avert carpal tunnel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After all this, I was pleasantly tired and enjoyed an evening on the couch, typing away. I still have no compost heap. </span></div>
CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-38054612512132357992019-03-31T08:48:00.002-07:002019-03-31T08:48:23.939-07:00<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-8f27b87c-7fff-960d-6588-9696e389ea03" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I finally googled what wattles are. And this led me to a video where a clay hut was being made. Not going to lie I fell a little bit in lust with the competence of the dude. And also learned how to climb a tree without handholds. Winning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today has been a bit of a boom and bust day garden wise. I made this lovely pile of wood...</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="298" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/3erlBDDN6wVCFahjAROc0AHa_ilb_e-VijlhIKsV2sPpnim3q6rKeF7VVay8OaDLqVVVEK1rj6AGCVVTBu-cDmlVPMJy4mB-UREsH1YbE0e08OMa5eX_BpUAVK3qi5QrhhiP1Nj8" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="223" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The temptation to throw a bunch of compost over this wood pile and make a giant hugelkultur was almost unbearable. However, I don’t think the neighbours would like it and harvesting would be a problem seeing as the pile is taller than me. But I can just picture it…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point of the wood pile was to clear room for the compost heap. I took an irrational dislike to an ivy plant that had become a tree so wrestling with that took me up to the time I had to leave. On the bright side, I realised that the land at the side is actually wider than I thought. I will have plenty of space for the pallet heap plan. I also found a random fence post buried in the trees which may be something that gives me a fixed point to clear that tree area to other than me climbing them and randomly hacking bits out of my way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The garden is still at messy jobs stage. And I’m away for a bit soon so it will probably stay that way for a while. It has been piecemeal over the last couple of days, the art of doing little things here and there that actually all feed into the whole. Like chipping away at a the brick planter and realising that the soil/gravel mix would be perfect for the reedbed/pond lining. And using the front lawn for sorting out usable wood meant the identification of the perfect site for the reedbed/pond thing. The piece of random guttering I took home from the park ages ago will act as a feeder pipe from the front of the house to the pond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least, that is the theory. It remains to be seen how well this will all work in practice. I still haven’t got rid of the There Is Something I Should Be Doing feeling. </span></div>
CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-87819620008033557412019-03-21T06:10:00.001-07:002019-03-21T06:10:33.753-07:00Much of the ‘gardening’ thus far has been discovering exactly how many roots have been lurking under the soil and forming a more unnecessarily complicated network than Facebook. I say roots, what I really mean is fully developed underground tree branches than could be used for firewood, fencing or the construction of a small shed.
My garden is the bottom corner of a giant, higgledy piggledy tumble of backfill, lawn and random leftovers from previous occupants including two random fence posts, a tyre and several rubbish bags. There is a hedge running along the back which leads to the netherworld. Or yet another abandoned council property that is used for nefarious purposes and a random Asian volleyball club. At one point, there was a gap in this hedge which led to local vermin schoolchildren using it as a shortcut. Thanks to previous experiments, I have now learned that the reason why my garden looks like it is running away from itself i.e. sloping in all directions at once is thanks to the enormous pipe running under the edge of it. There are four ‘gardens’ in one, with a shared drying green in the middle. All of these are lumpy and misshapen plots except for my next door neighbour, who is 76 and puts us all to shame by paying someone to do her garden for her.
The roots have invaded the plot of upstairs mysterious thumping flat. Or perhaps they came from there, who can say for sure? Mutant roots know of no such concept as Property Boundaries. They laugh in the face of such things. Of course, successive owners of the flats have also laughed in the face of such rationales as good fences make good neighbours (forever intoned in the voice of Robert Frost, thank you YouTube) hence cigarette butts on my patio and the world’s largest pampas grass plant slowly making its way into my vegetables but perhaps most importantly blocking the light in its attempt to reach the moon.
I have been engaged in battle with these roots in the process of moving large amounts of garden debris compost from one place to another. In theory, this will then become the garden boundary and compost bins. Or maybe they will go in the long bit of garden at the side once delusionally earmarked as the perfect chicken run. Delusional as I don’t actually eat eggs. Attempting to plan things in advance with a noisy brain like mine usually means staring at the large hole in the ground or empty space wondering why it doesn’t look like what I wanted to put there.
Best of all the garden shenanigans has been my temporary sojourn as a tree surgeon. A highly unprofessional one. In fact, you would be forgiven for the fear you would have experienced at the sight of the madwoman wielding a hatchet. I really want to do it again. Now please. If only it wasn’t for these t rex arms...It’s highly therapeutic, hacking down large bits of tree with pseudo weaponry. Less gardening, more anger management. There is something very satisfying about purposeful destruction, a direct relationship between how much effort you put in and what comes out. Definitely an improvement on office days when it felt like churning with no butter at the end. Hatchet tree; no more tree that was meant to be a shrub in the powerlines. Or the neighbour’s garden. Almost a metaphor for life that.
CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-50212065883440987032019-03-21T04:14:00.000-07:002019-03-21T04:14:14.581-07:0042. The meaning of life? Or the number of garden implements that I will collect from the shed in order to complete any one task? You decide.
I don’t garden like other people. Or do anything like other people for that matter. I imagine most folk garden in a neat and orderly fashion, following the order of business at the allotment, mowing the lawn before it gets too hot, replacing the flowers every year… I don’t have a lawn, I have a dandelion farm (mesclun is actually a component of salad). I planted flowers a few years ago and promptly forgot about them. Which was a very pleasant surprise when the tulips still reappeared after their first year. My shed has a hole in the roof and may or may not be home to a wasp colony. My patio has a giant hole in it, seven pallets and more ‘I’ll do something with that one day’ than my neighbours would like. Especially since I have never actually got around to putting up a fence. Which does not stop me from complaining when the random neighbours that I never see use my patio to smoke on.
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To illustrate my lack of gardening nous, please bear witness to the unfortunate remains of the purple sprouting broccoli as shown in the photo to the left. Patio Larry he was called. He was called this because well, he grew in the patio. More specifically, in Sand House, Crack Lane, Cement Slab Town. Me being the sort of gardener that sees the veg growing but fails to make the connection between growing veg and eating veg, left it there. Mostly to see what would happen. Patio Larry soon turned into a bush of pretty yellow flowers and soon Patio Larry had a couple of illegitimate children floating about. Also in the patio.
Patio Larry was the result of my first love affair with gardening, his children came along as I lost interest and then the love affair began all over again as the gardener (me) discovered permaculture i.e. A New Experiment. So it was off with his head for poor Larry as he became more useful as compost material. Except he didn’t. Larry survived his removal from the patio where he was born and lived one more glorious season as a giant bush of broccoli. None of which got eaten.
I can’t quite recall how Larry met his demise in the end, it was either the winter of many rains or me cutting bits off him to try and make a fence of broccoli. Which was about as successful as you would imagine.
Day 1 in the garden ended after the obtaining of the incinerator and some dismantling of Mighty the hugelkultur which led to the discovery of some baby (very baby) potatoes. I am not entirely certain how they got there as I do not remember planting them. This discovery was also tempered by the fact that I had just bought two bags of baby potatoes. Fuelled by justified rage at the dumbassery of other people (not in anyway connected to the garden), I managed a good shift of one part of the garden to a different part of the garden. I may wake up tomorrow as the hunchback of notre dame but I will have taken my anger out appropriately (mostly) and will be well on my way to having the biceps of Popeye.
CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1817087355545443104.post-40851342874641504462019-03-19T12:19:00.001-07:002019-03-19T12:19:39.261-07:00the disaster zone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWY9BXSkF7BVjw71DBGvwKZCpIkROHjNwky8xQcQLa7cwwLq1-gytxzDG6adzNrc9zzK_K6GjdqLMxNVgJldWb_XMGMNl3dN4m7elXcki-y3ut0oWcN_e1NfW_NXEIbW7tZhG8xBiM9j4/s1600/IMG_20190319_122700.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWY9BXSkF7BVjw71DBGvwKZCpIkROHjNwky8xQcQLa7cwwLq1-gytxzDG6adzNrc9zzK_K6GjdqLMxNVgJldWb_XMGMNl3dN4m7elXcki-y3ut0oWcN_e1NfW_NXEIbW7tZhG8xBiM9j4/s320/IMG_20190319_122700.jpg" width="180" height="320" data-original-width="900" data-original-height="1600" /></a></div>
I have nobody to blame but myself. Some time in the last two or three years I have become The Neighbour From Hell, the Steptoe of the Street, the Chief Procrastinator of Hoarderville. Of course there are reasons, there always are. Too much work, too noisy a brain… The usual.
It was always somewhat unkempt around the edges but a perfectly functional garden nonetheless.
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If I’m honest I never actually ate any of those vegetables, this was more gardening for experimental purposes. Yes I know that is a terrible waste. See picture number one for evidence as to the type of person I currently am. I’m fairly sure I look a bit like it in person as well.
My garden and I have a complicated relationship. I know what I want it to do, in theory, and in reality I do nothing. I have enough land to produce food for myself and enough time (again, in theory less than reality) to turn my garden into something functional and pretty. Which is what I want. I think. My brain sometimes can’t hear itself over the noise it’s making.
At this point, it’s not so much gardening as self flagellation. Which is good. Hopefully the effort of clearing up the mess I’ve made will discourage me from ever producing it again.
My first step is obtaining a garden incinerator bin. It would take me weeks of filling the brown bin to get rid of it all and it’s already mid March. Although we did have snow last week. I tell a lie, my real first step was going outside and attempting to clear the remains of the garden netting from the top of Mighty (the big hugelkultur bed) but getting distracted 7 times in the process. My next step was then attempting to prune the tree in the very corner back to the point where it wasn’t shoving itself into my mouth at any given moment. Followed by much discouragement and realising I needed to go and make lunch.
I have subsequently returned to my ‘outdoor room’ and made a good start at hacking away some of the undergrowth all the while not daring to hope that my shift at work tonight would be cancelled so that I could continue to <strike>suffer</strike> enjoy the fresh air. Amongst the leaves, stubborn grass and muck I found a plastic bag, crisp packet, two lighters still in the packet and yet another baby wipe which is mysterious as my neighbours don’t have children. I also tormented myself by foolishly trying to pull up the evil fencing plant of doom that has insinuated itself in the lawn. For some reason it doesn’t seem to occur to my brain that the plant that has glove defying spikes in it will continue to have glove defying spikes in it each and every time.
Shift at work duly cancelled, I am now off to obtain numerous stares on the bus by lugging home an incinerator bin. I pretend that it is the practical option when really the truth of the matter is that I enjoy a good act of wanton destruction, hence the tree pruning entree.
CJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01759228533139841366noreply@blogger.com0