Old Man Stares
I spent a couple hours in the garden this afternoon, mostly raking up leaves from last autumn that were left when the snows "surprised" me and I ended up not doing it at all. Not ideal for the lawn, but our lawn in that area is pretty terrible anyway and is mostly a mix of different kinds of groundcovers I cut regularly in the summer so they look grass-ish. I also cut-back some of the various plants of their now dry and dead growth from last year, hoping that they will return this year. It is a bit early to know for sure, but I think I saw some with a bit of new growth on it.
This is the first year after planting.
Every other year we have lived in this house, we have pretty much known what is going to come back to life in the spring, because it has been here for years. Last spring I planted quite a few new plants and while they grew adequately through the summer, I don't know if they will have made it through the winter. If not, I guess it is back to the drawing board. One thing I have realised for one of the gardens though, is it needs something in there to give it some height when nothing has grown yet, so this year (in the fall) I might throw in a couple diamond thujas to balance with the other few we planted last year.
With money tight at the moment since I am not working anywhere near enough, the garden changes are going to be kept to a minimum and instead it will be about clean-up and maintenance. Last year we also put in a deck with the idea that we would continue the other half of it this year, but that is on hiatus also, since it is quite expensive to do what we need to do, including preparing the ground. Still, I am hoping that my time in the garden can be used well and I can move it along the maturity scale a little, even if not much can be added to it. And hopefully this year in the fall, I won't forget to sink tulip bulbs into the ground like I forgot to do last year.
No tulips this spring.
I must be getting old, because I quite enjoy pottering around the garden, even when nothing much is happening. My wife isn't old enough yet, because she only goes out when she has to do something, or to sit and have a cup of tea. I go out regardless of whether I have something to do or not. I will become one of those old men who will stand at the window, looking at the grass. Well, whatever is there that is currently passing for grass anyway.
What I think I will try to do this summer is to have a schedule of things to do, like a task list so that I don't really have to think that much about what I am going to do, but can just work through the list at my own pace. If things get done or not it might not matter, but each year I miss a lot of things that I wanted to do, just because I didn't remember to do them. And because the seasons dictate some tasks, once missed, it is a full year of waiting for the next opportunity.
Like plant carrots.
That one isn't for me, it is for Smallsteps. We had talked about it last spring, but I forgot. By the time I remembered, it was far too late, so this year I want to ensure that she at least has somewhere she can put a few carrot seeds (is that how carrots grow) in the ground and get something orange-y from them. And hopefully some of our herbs come back, and the strawberries.
Writing about it makes me want to go and do a little bit of research on what I need to do and what I should have done, but didn't know about. Since it isn't my forte area, I have to be curious enough to keep on increasing my learning and since I am usually a trial and error kind of person, I have to break my normal routines and learn from others - otherwise by the time I get it right, I will be too old to even stand at the window and stare at the grass.
Taraz
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I planted carrots this year for the first time (where I had success that is)... Keep moist is the key. I used cardboard laid over until they started to sprout. They're doing great and I'm quite chuffed.
Raking is an old man's sport. I can't manage raking without thinking of my late Dad, raking up all the eucalyptus leaves and bark after winds. He'd walk out to say goodbye when you left and would pick up the rake before you'd be down the driveway. He also loved watering by hand rather than sprinkler. It's such a good vibe. How lucky you are to be an old man who is alive and well enough to do such things.
Cardboard even in the rain?
Good memories of your dad. I think it shows something about him that he would spend the effort to rake. A lot of people choose not to if they don't have to.
Don't know how long I a longed for this world, but I guess it is better to spend some of that time in the garden.
Yeah it only has to last a few weeks. But if you think the soil stays moist enough for carrots to sprout - or maybe it has something to do with the darkness too?
Look it might be a corny oneness hippie thing, but on a really big level, being up and close with the earth you're going to be part of again in the form of dust ain't such a bad thing. There are worse ways to spend your time, like being an evil mother fucker genociding like a demon and raping children, you know?
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I choose not to because free mulch and also if it stays in place long enough outside of the garden beds it stops a lot of the dirt from blowing around in the dryer weather (when the clay isn't baked, it only took me several years of reiterating why we needed ground cover). Additionally I currently like how it looks on bare ground and will have to wait for the groundcover mix I'm planning to come up to re-evaluate XD
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Have you thought about planting other crops in the garden, since you already like to spend time in it, besides carrots?
Tomatoes, potatoes, onions? Growing those species would help your budget, and they don't require excessive investment.
The fact that with age, you forget, as well as the desire to spend time in the garden, should not surprise you. That's how it is with most of us, a little older🙂
Yes we could grow a few. Unfortunately, what we can grow are very cheap here and it will cost us more in water. It is just a hobby.
Getting old isn't all bad. Mostly. But not all.
I had big plans to work in the garden this weekend as well. We had our first really nice day of the year on Saturday, but my wife had other plans for us, so everything I wanted to do got scrapped. Now we are looking at rain for the next week straight.
Hopefully the other plans were fun and will give you the energy to make it through the rain.
No, it was mostly work, but it ended up being fine.
Ahh you're doing floral experiments too :D If you planted appropriately for the climate they're probably fine? x_x
I say having no idea if three of my amaranths died because they've gone to seed or because the conditions in the bed they were in weren't right for them
LoL! Yeh sibling dearest reckons I've hit my middle aged home improvement arc XD And J said the same thing some years back so if it's any consolation he's been old since the runup to 40 XD
Same. J is usually pretty good about knowing when to plant things and roughly when maintenance tasks need to be done but apparently terrible at knowing what he's got if the seed box is anything to go by XD But he doesn't like doing anything unless it's going to feed us directly and he's humouring me along in my endeavours partly to keep me happy and partly because he has some understanding of biology so does realise that most of the stupid little things I'm doing will eventually make his jobs easier even if it's making a lot more work for both of us now.
I think I mentioned recently about how I recently did what I should have done prior to starting anything (because well out of my forte) and asked AI (specifically Brave's one) to help plan the garden (it also gave me a planting and tasks guide for the year), so I now have backup plans (quite literally, it gave me plenty of stuff which I did normal research on and have been making notes and shopping lists and drawing plans in the bag notebook) for if my floral experiments fail.
I don't know if you're a stationery kinda guy but if you ever needed an excuse to buy notebooks and nice pens ;D
And herein lays the issues... :D
I wish my wife would listen to me on these things. A little work now, saves a lot later... she skips.
I have used AI for some things to answer fast questions when I am in the garden, but it also gives me a reason to watch gardeners do stuff on youtube. I don't use YT for anything but watching house DiY :D
I used to be for drawing, but never got into writing or planning - obviously by the state of my life.
You didn't or the previous owners didn't?
don't worry same x_x
Similar but different thing with maintenance work and some of the problems that are cropping up because they were ignored/downplayed/hoped they would somehow magically disappear when they were smaller problems here -_-
LoL! There's still good stuff on YouTube somewhere in the chaff.
If it's any consolation I did not get the hang of planning until about four years ago.
did you know that apparently with big projects/assignments you actually have to do more than write the due date XD
So better late than never or don't let that stop you or something along those lines? :)
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I replanted tulips into pots by our front door yesterday 😀 I grew the in plastic pots first as we had other flowers in white planters during the last summer. Here is the result:
Hey that looks great! Definitely tulips are going in this year.
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STOPNice to see how much joy can come from simply being in the garden, regardless of what is blooming. I think we need to learn being happy from such things. Hope those tulip bulbs make it into the ground this fall ;)
I should set an alarm now for buying them! :D
Right now I'm at a stage where I detest weeding, but I enjoy the results from yardwork. Yesterday, I noticed our lilac bush had bloomed. I stopped for a moment, walked over and took a big whiff, and it was wonderful. I'll probably appreciate gardening more as I get older.
I hope your plants and flowers all come back so there's not a lot of new planting needed.
Sending you some Ecency love!
Cheers!
!BBH
!PIZZA
!ALIVE
They smell so good. Ours is still a few weeks away here - it is so cold still.
Not sure if I will ever like weeding either, but at the same time, the garden looks better afterward :)
$PIZZA slices delivered:
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Breathing fresh air outside is good for your health.
My wife and I decided to make the garden more suitable for a lawn and spend less time growing vegetables. I told her we should spend more time in the lounge chairs, admiring the green grass and blue sky. I enjoy leisurely conversations on interesting topics the most.
Isn't it also nice to sit and watch the vegetables?
Does your wife enjoy them too though ;D
Where vegetables grow on green, mown grass, it's beautiful. But when I see vegetables growing on loose sand (after weeding), I don't like it. Natural nature, slightly altered by man—that's what I like. Apple and pear trees, raspberry and currant bushes covered with berries, it’s nice when all this is surrounded by a mown lawn.
She enjoys talking, but she's been a very hurried person since birth. As a child, she was nicknamed "Lightning." I was also very nimble as a child, but I managed to slow down at an older age and take a deeper look at this world.
I might be getting old too as I recognize that behaviour 😉, except there is always plenty of things to do in the farm 😂
It has been good for me to get outside and work the dirt and plants. So glad the spring weather is here. Sounds like you are a bit like us. We have projects we would like to do as well, but cost holds us back right now. But until we can do them, we will work in the flowers and lawn. May have to replant my tomatoes as that didn't work out well for me.
Well if you say you must be getting old because you enjoy being outside gardening then I must be 200 years old by that metric since I have been gardening since I was a small child :P
For the carrots I recommend either raised beds or directly in the ground in rows. After they will come up around or before midsummer you might want to do some thinning since the carrot seeds are small and it is hard to space them out sowing by hand. Meaning, you need to go over the row and thin them out (culling some of the seedlings as mean as it might seem) 3-5 centimeters apart for each tiny seedling. This will ensure your carrots will have growing space to develop full size. That is one of the biggest mistakes I see people do. Not thinning the seedlings and ending up with carrots that are each smaller than a human finger.
I make to do lists for everything. My memory is getting worse past few years.
Old men stare at grass. I prefer digging.