Thanks to my new job, this weekend is not only the first weekend in ages that I don’t have to work, but it is a long weekend, thanks to Labour Day. I am so excited I can barely contain myself. I have great vege plans for this weekend, as well as plans to get some of my other 10 million projects done. I am not usually a big Labour Weekend planter-er; I don’t like to be like everyone else and I like to get stuff in earlier. It’s just how things have panned out this season. I have a problem though. I think the vege garden is bigger in my mind than in my backyard.
Amidst the busyness of changing jobs and working more, I have been digging round in the soil getting things ready for The Great Planting this weekend. The guys get to play in the dirt at work; I come home and play in the dirt. I have been moving herbs around to make more space, pulling out some of the parsley that is going to seed and I finished reclaiming the lawn-covered concrete edging around the vege garden. In the winter I had forgotten to poop the strip of garden along the carport, which is empty but for a wisteria at one end. I scored some free bagged horse pooh from near work thanks to a tip-off from a workmate. It turned out to be mostly sawdust with some pooh in it, which was rather too fresh, but I was desperate. The Husband had dumped masses of grass clippings from an intense lawn mowing session (broken mower = neglected lawn) into the compost bin on top of the last of my useable compost. Upon digging the carport bed, I found a never-ending, pretty well dead log of wisteria running along the ’empty’ end. I kept digging but it went under the carport and I have yet to get it out fully. Or partially. I would like to get rid of all the wisteria in there (maybe potting some up) so I can fit more edibles in. But it is a beast. Maybe The Husband could help with that…
I finally got around to measuring up my vege garden and making a scale plan of it in a good old spreadsheet. I have done it so that one square equals 5cm square, making it easy to figure out plant spacings. I should have done this ages ago. I usually make a scale plan so I can plan what to put in where like a good little organisation freak. Not that I always stick to it, but it helps stop me from going nuts. My vege plans have gone a little nuts. It was Wednesday night when I was doing up the spreadsheet that I had my first reality check. I had too many tomato plants. There were 28 – none of the seedlings had bombed out – and according to my spreadsheet I could fit a maximum of 20 into the vege garden. So on Thursday morning I offered some to my new manager, as he was going to buy some tomato plants for the weekend. As we were talking, I suddenly remembered that I had cucumber seedlings that I had not planned a space for. And I was going to buy a couple of pumpkin plants too. Argh! That night I attacked my plan again and figured I could have 18 tomato plants. I offered some plants to my parents.
I am still working on my plan as I write. I haven’t put all my existing plants in there yet and I’ve been trying to figure out how many potatoes I can fit in. I went out to the garage to count them in my dressing gown last night and was thinking about them when I should have been sleeping. I will have to plant some of my potatoes in containers, as I have 9 more than I can fit in the garden at the moment. After checking the forecast this evening, I brought the tomato plants inside as there is supposed to be a frost in the morning. What’s up with that? We haven’t had a frost for a month. Anyway, I discovered that one of my Small Fry seedlings has a damaged stem. Which is kind of helpful, as I have two more cucumbers to fit in. And so the plan keep evolving. Tomorrow is going to be interesting…
Wild Hope Homestead 