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desperanceBecause I am a middle-aged foodie in possession of a patch of green, much of this weekend is devoted to the garden. We are picking up loads of free compost from the city dump, and I am trying Beck'E's suggestion of a cardboard layer beneath compost - what John calls the lasagne solution - to suppress the insidious creeping grass that's trying to repossess my new vegetable patch. As is traditional, I am not doing it well or thoroughly, and some of the nasty stuff will undoubtedly break through the gaps, but it ought to be controllable. I think.
Anyway. First tomatoes have gone in, courtesy of Alene, and I just now found a couple of little volunteers of my own, in among the fava beans. Don't know what variety they are, but they shall be nurtured and we shall see. I just hope I don't get too many volunteers, because honestly: I did swear last year to be rigorous in my self-discipline in re tomatoes this year, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at rooting out viable plantlets. It is not English to view a tomato as a weed.
Otherwhere, I am weeding diligently. And admiring things that grow and flourish as the green bay tree. I love my green bay tree. It was a twig when I planted it last year; already, it is positively a treelet. And there are flowers on the boysenberries, and the roses are in bud; and I have planted beetroot seeds and rocket (clinging I am to my English vocabulary; I may call them beets and arugula for the sake of being understood, but those are not their names), and there will be more things going into the ground - or into pots - today.
Yesterday was the day of brilliant insects: there was a spider in the yard with black foreparts and a vivid red behind. Lovely little thing. Mostly, though, it was all about the bumble bee. The neon orange bumble bee. Karen and I had never seen anything like it. [EtA: Karen has posted the best photo she was able to get, but it was in fact brighter than that. When I say neon, I mean it.]
In other news, it occurs to me that something has shifted in my head: it's not clear to me whether this is like cargo shifting in transit, or more like a shift in perspective, but. I think it's always been the case that writing was my focus, and everything else in my life was fitted in around that. These days, that's no longer so, and writing has to be fitted in around other stuff. Which I am not practised at, and may be why I've been struggling. It is a shift greater than it sounds: like those perspective-puzzles where you look and see something and then suddenly realise that actually it's something else entirely.
Anyway. First tomatoes have gone in, courtesy of Alene, and I just now found a couple of little volunteers of my own, in among the fava beans. Don't know what variety they are, but they shall be nurtured and we shall see. I just hope I don't get too many volunteers, because honestly: I did swear last year to be rigorous in my self-discipline in re tomatoes this year, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at rooting out viable plantlets. It is not English to view a tomato as a weed.
Otherwhere, I am weeding diligently. And admiring things that grow and flourish as the green bay tree. I love my green bay tree. It was a twig when I planted it last year; already, it is positively a treelet. And there are flowers on the boysenberries, and the roses are in bud; and I have planted beetroot seeds and rocket (clinging I am to my English vocabulary; I may call them beets and arugula for the sake of being understood, but those are not their names), and there will be more things going into the ground - or into pots - today.
Yesterday was the day of brilliant insects: there was a spider in the yard with black foreparts and a vivid red behind. Lovely little thing. Mostly, though, it was all about the bumble bee. The neon orange bumble bee. Karen and I had never seen anything like it. [EtA: Karen has posted the best photo she was able to get, but it was in fact brighter than that. When I say neon, I mean it.]
In other news, it occurs to me that something has shifted in my head: it's not clear to me whether this is like cargo shifting in transit, or more like a shift in perspective, but. I think it's always been the case that writing was my focus, and everything else in my life was fitted in around that. These days, that's no longer so, and writing has to be fitted in around other stuff. Which I am not practised at, and may be why I've been struggling. It is a shift greater than it sounds: like those perspective-puzzles where you look and see something and then suddenly realise that actually it's something else entirely.