Citric salt in the wound

[desperance]

As you know, O my internets, I have not yet come to terms in any sense with gardening in California. Almost everything I try fails badly, and I write it down as one more lesson and hope for another year to try again.

And now suddenly I am having to come to terms with gardening in California in drought. I've turned off the backyard irrigation altogether, as we have a leak; Katherine says it just needs a new washer, so hopefully I can fix that soon. Meantime I had blessedly spent the last couple of weeks working out how to control the irrigation at the front, after a couple of years of flinching away from the very idea: you know how I am about responsibility. Wimsey after the war, more or less. But I've figured it out, and dialled it back, and dialled it back again; and even that may very well not be enough. According to the forecasters, we may be legally required to let our lawns go brown. Just when I was planning to reseed at the back, too. Hey-ho...

Still, with any luck that'll kill the bermudagrass, if bermudagrass it be. The nasty creeping stuff, that I was thinking about poisoning.

However: as it happens, the subject-line for this post is nothing to do with the garden. It is, in fact, literal. It will come as a surprise to nobody to learn that I grated my finger yesterday, making cheese bread for the massed yogi. My right index finger, natch: which has made dressing and typing and so forth matters of discomfort and interest all day. I don't think I've left smears of blood all over, but I might've done. And this evening, Mark is coming round for dinner, and I am roasting a chicken 'cos I'm too tired to do anything more complicated. Roasting a chicken calls for rubbing this delightful infusion of lime leaves and salt all over the uncomplaining bird. With my fingers. Um, ouchie...?

Comments

[movingfinger]

Ouch on the fingers! I so dislike the old box grater... I avoid it as much as I can.

Pick up some "finger cots" at the drugstore---they are like little fingertip condoms but they help keep a finger cut (or a bad hangnail) out of the salt and lemon, e.g.

Or good old medical latex-free gloves! But wash your hands after you put them on, to get any starch or powder off of them.

Drought: I am sorry to tell you explicitly what you probably know, viz., that the bermuda grass is most likely to go dormant and survive. Also, you would be wise to start considering lawnless options. Like gravel or bark, and succulents.

[desperance]

Thank you for the guidance towards finger cots! I had never heard of these things. I have ordered a boxful, and we shall see... (I do cut my fingers a lot.)

Drought, yeah. Here in California? I would happily rip out all the grass, and do something more viable. But m'wife is claustrophobic, and wants open areas; and I want growing things; and... Yeah. It's still under discussion.

[movingfinger]

One can still have open areas and growing things. But unless there are spectacular catch-up rains, a lawn is going to become a sight inducing depression sooner or later anyway. However, if you put in a graywater-harvesting system, which would probably be acceptable for sustaining a lawn...