It's 22:11, Saturday 28 May, and after a few hiccups navigating the internet (it's actually now Sunday 29 May), I'm starting my blog. The after work gardener (it would have been called the amateur gardener, but this title is already taken - so I guess there's a lot of us amateurs out there).
The after work gardener, Saturday 28 May.
Today has been a momentous day for me and my garden. Today is the day I finally got my living room back.
It's 22:11, and all the vegetables I've been nurturing from seed since April have made it into their final resting places - in the veggie patch. It's a joy to have windowsills, floors and the coffee table back. I can now close the blinds without fear of snapping off tiny fragile shoots, and sit on the sofa without fear of carelessly knocking a fledgling corn on the cob, or cherry tomato plant onto the floor - over is the endless wiping up of spilt water and rogue pools of mud!
I really should have started this blog 2 months ago when I first began rearing my small army of vegetables - however, you join me on this momentous day of living room liberty.
So a little bit of scene setting. In my keenness to share my money saving seed purchasing with a friend, I sent carefully labelled packets in the post to spread the joy of growing food at next to no cost, so I have, perhaps rather ambitiously, chosen 'luxury' veg like courgette, aubergine and pumpkin to really get my maximum money's worth.
I was determined not to buy ready-grown plants, convinced of the cost effectiveness of my actions. Of course, if I had bought shop-sturdy plants, there would have been none of the many casualties of the amateur gardener along the way. My greatest crime to plant life, so far, has been over-watering, which has prevented many a seed from ever stirring to life in its watery grave. My pumpkin, which raced into existence with a healthy vigour, was cruelly thwarted by my water abuse and a near fatal fungal infection ensued. It now looks like a bonsai pumpkin plant compared to its non aquatic much bigger brother.
Further exasperated by my over-watering were the mini biodegradable pots designed to be placed straight into the garden once small plants were established. However, due to an excess of water, these pots all proved to be veritable mould farms, and I am convinced that if penicillin hadn't already been discovered, then the psychedelic orange moulds growing up the sides of these containers could have made me my pharmaceutical fortune, and tonsillitis may well have been a thing of the past.
So....living room back and veg safely in. Although, not without incident. Freak high winds managed to blow over my two leggy courgette plants - that have been straining towards the light in my living room for the past 8 weeks - and snapping one of them completely off. Now I'm definitely no professional gardener, but I do have a vicarious knowledge and slight genetic aptitude borrowed from my botanist brother and keen gardening parents, and so I've carpet-taped the stem of this courgette plant together, burying this part of the plant deeply in the soil, in the hope that all will be well (I will keep you posted)
Anyway, it's near 23:00 and I'm hoping all will become clear tomorrow. My main worry is that in the lack of time I've had at home, the plants went straight from inside to out, with no Alan Titchmarsh 'hardening off'. However, I am taking solace in the fact that growing up in my special Victorian flat that remains cooler on the inside than on the outside, the plants will have already adapted to a naturally hard environment, so should survive.
Come tomorrow morning I expect to see all plants putting on a brave face, no flaccidity, and all doing their best to stay alive and look healthy.
How hard can it be?!
No comments:
Post a Comment