Gardening at night

Ok, I haven’t really been gardening at night, and nor do I intend to, considering I have been gardening eight hour days for the past three days, and would die of exhaustion if I set up some lights and carried on after sunset. But I just like the song, and I was going to talk about gardening, so it seemed (almost) apt. I’m sure I’ve done it before, but who remembers, much less cares? If you do remember, and you don’t like that I have named two posts in the past three years the same thing, please be sure to send me an essay on the topic outlining every way in which it gets your goat. I’ll be sure to read it and send you a mark out of ten.

So. Gardening. There is a lot of it about at my place right now. Late summer is “put on your Rossi boots and get outside and work until your blisters have blisters” season. This last weekend we pruned the stonefruit, pears and apples, and about now-ish is when we tie back all the trees in the orchard into their neat espaliered lines (or at least, we attempt to. Very often we have let growth carry on way past the ability to bend the limb, and then trouble sets in.) I had two near-tears moments on the weekend. One was when I was distracted by DH mowing for what seemed like an eternity in my general vicinity, which put me in a slightly grumpy mood (due to the ongoing unpleasant noise) and I accidentally cut off the second limb of a nectarine that we had been training for three years. ARRRGGGHHHHH. I was very annoyed at myself. I made do with another long limb from nearby and tied that in, but it doesn’t look as neat as it once did….

The other moment was when I got a bit overenthusiastic with the bartlett pear, which had two shoots I thought might train nicely along either side of the top rung. So I bent, and I bent, and I bent and….snap. Yes. Snap. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH. I was very annoyed with myself. Again. Luckily, though, I have been doing a lot of practicing of letting go, and being gentle on myself, so I didn’t beat myself up over it too much. Accepted that it wasn’t perfect, and I wasn’t perfect and it is ok to make mistakes. So that was nice.

Two rows of trees took the best part of two days to complete. I still haven’t tackled the grapes or the berries. And the figs are currently fruiting, so we can’t trim and tie them until they are done giving us juicy delicious breakfasts. Also yesterday I gave the potting shed a very good tidy out. Thorough, you could say. It was extremely satisfying, like any task you have meant to get to in, say, oh, about a year, and now you finally have done it. I discovered the mice are helping themselves to the poisonous bait straight from the packet, which saves me time having to take out the sachets and distribute them all over the place. Cheers. The downside was that they’ve almost finished the whole bag and when I went to Mitre 10 today to get some more, of course they were out of stock. Sigh. Don’t get me started on that shop. Just don’t.

Today, after a late start failing to rouse myself at a reasonable hour due to exhaustion on the previous day, I went and trained hard at pump class, ran all over town doing chores, came back and ate an early lunch at 11.30am, then put the grubby clothes back on and headed out to the shade house. It is an oasis in there, full of all the things in pots that need growing up before we can let them loose in the ground. And on the other side, it is full of the seedlings that DH is obsessed with cultivating, to what end I do not know, as we have no room for that many trees on our property. He just likes growing them. There are also a few plants that live there permanently because they would die outside in the heat or the frost, and we probably shouldn’t be attempting to propagate them in our climate. These move around and change position once in a while when we have a big clean out in late autumn. That will occur around May, or when the rains come. Before then, we both need to confer on which plants are going out this year and where they will be placed. This conversation is not for the faint hearted. It is also difficult to find time for, and tends to happen when DH is in the middle of dragging them out and planting them, and I discover what he is doing.

The top row of the shade house contains his (generally) neglected bonsais. Well, the left half anyway. Note, I only allow him half the bench space, on either row. My half of the top row (the right) contains the seedlings that are now ready to transplant, but I haven’t done so yet because A) it is STILL too hot; B) I haven’t prepared the bed they are intend for; C) I’ve been caught up doing household chores or endless surrogacy application commitments; D) I’m lazy, or E) more probably, have been distracted by something else that looked like it needed doing more urgently.

My half of the bottom row either contains the seedlings that need to be moved to the top row, but haven’t yet made it there, or the next lot of seed raising trays in which I have just planted next season’s crops, or said crops in varying stages of growth up to the point of being put out into the real world. So when you walk into my shade house, it seems like a chaotic jungle, with all types of plants higgeldy piggledy every which way, but in actual fact there is method to my madness, and for the most part, I generally know what the method is. Unless it has originated from DH, and then anything is possible, because he is very haphazard with labelling, and has no order to his positioning. So I guess that’s what’s creating the chaos/jungle aspect. As long as he is not trying to encroach on my bench real estate, I don’t mind.

So today, I pottered around in there, with the friendly mosquitoes (hoping I don’t contract Ross River Virus), and cleared some bench real estate (ok, I *might* have taken slightly more than half, but it’s necessary for the autumn crop. And if he doesn’t notice, then….) in preparation for the 8-10 seed trays of a cornucopia of food to come. I also potted on my primula auricula, which I have been growing for three years now. The plants that are in their third year still have not flowered, but I live in hope. The second year plants are still extremely small. The third year plants don’t actually exist yet, as I just sowed the seed today. None of them should technically be alive at all, given that they are alpine plants, and our summer should knock them firmly on the head. But, as I said, the shade house is a microclimate unto itself, and they hang in there, bless them. If I ever get a flower from any of them, I will post a picture immediately, and then go and have some champagne.

In readiness for my seed sowing, I had to trudge over to the seed-raising-mix bay, and extricate potting mix from the myriad poplar rootlets (and often somewhat larger than rootlets) that constantly find their way into there. DH even concreted the bay last year, and STILL they come. How??? Then I trudged back, and doused the trug (yes, that’s what it is called, I did not make that up) with wettasoil and water. If I leave the mix all dry and sow seed, when it comes to trying to moisten the tray, it will be to no avail. The water will run off the top and likely take the seed along with it. This causes frustration and is to be avoided at all costs.

Just as I was finishing my last task, at about 5pm, DH came home bringing along Albert (for reasons I won’t bother you with- it is a long story. In fact, there is no such thing as a short story, where Albert is concerned). Anyway, Albert brought with him a gift in the form of elderberry cuttings. I have long since wanted to grow elderberries (ever since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, really) and within the last couple of months had finally procured some from Bunnings. (Yes, I know. But needs must, and they had not ben forthcoming from any other quarter). However, I did not enlighten Albert of this fact, because his elderberry cuttings had much more interesting provenance, having come from a plant that has been in his family since the sixteenth century. Such pedigree! We all cracked open a beer, I sowed the rest of my auriculas, DH’s Dad (down for the weekend) struck the cuttings and DH took Albert home, before going on to his drumming lesson, where he is currently making a lot of noise that I can’t hear. Which is the best kind.

FIL is having a well earned nap (we worked him hard) and I am here telling you all about my fascinating weekend mostly spent in the garden.

Coming up for the rest of the week: compost making; compost distribution in beds that first need old plants pulling out; planting the garlic crop; training the berries and the grapes, the olives and the figs. Fertilising the olives. Sowing the autumn seed. And if I’m really lucky I might find time to clean the house. Perhaps it will have to be at night.