i still don’t feel so well. shaky, no energy. nausea, no appetite. it kind of feels like i’ve had way too much coffee except without the alertness. my infusion last week went fine, i think. i slept through most of it. i went and visited the old bugger the next day too and only had to fetch some firewood. he didn’t need any help in the shed, he hadn’t been to twizel yet. i think it’s best i leave him be until he has his heart valve replaced and there’s some things around here i want to get done, i have some timber sleepers i want to make into a raised garden bed before spring.
i sowed some broad beans/fava beans about a month ago but they don’t seem to be sprouting properly. i think i left it too late. with broad beans you can plant some at the start of winter and have them ready to harvest before xmas, then you can plant some more at the end of winter and have them ready after xmas. the first bunch i’ve sowed have all sprouted and already grown to half a foot high, that was in may. i sowed another bunch in june thinking it was still the start of winter but i guess it was more like the middle of winter and a weird thing has happened where i think the ground has frozen, or partially frozen and as the bean has sent out a little root, instead of bury down into the soil the whole bean and root has popped out of the ground. so that’s a bit of a head scratcher. ah, well. you live and learn.
i have to figure out what else to plant this season. i’m not going to try broccoli or cauliflower or anything similar again, if the butterflies and caterpillars don’t destroy them then they get infested with slugs. i have read somewhere if you grow these types of plant in a raised bed type of garden you can ring the bed with copper and cover the plants with netting to keep the butterflies out. the copper, apparently, gives a small electric shock to any slugs that touch it and they won’t crawl over it. i have a bunch of copper pipe here so i might try that.
other than spuds, carrots, peas and more pumpkins i don’t know what else i’ll try. i’ll have a look at a seed rack in a store next time i’m in town. my parsnips have partially rotted and the leeks i grew next to them never really came to much. i think they need to be on the other side of the garden where there’s more sun and it’s not so damp in autumn. i’m definitely not going to plant so many runner beans again, it’s fun to have this gigantic harvest of beans but then you’ve got this gigantic harvest of beans that you don’t know what to do with and the freezer’s still full of them. i think i’ll grow peas there. and i think i’m going to have the same problem with pumpkins, if this seaweed-as-fertilizer works. i still have a dozen or so left and they’re probably going to go bad soon. i know jimmy’s dad appreciates them but i haven’t seen him for a while so when/if i do i’ll give him a half dozen pumpkins and say happy birthday.
i’m babysitting tomorrow and wednesday. hopefully by next week i’ll be able to haul these sleepers out and make this garden, there’s a bunch of digging to do as well. i could… no. fuck that. that would be too stressful. the boys would just act like they don’t know how to work a shovel and i’d need a caveman to interpret jake’s “ugh” noises.
Loading comments...