Garden

Painkillers, headspace, broken joints and assorted other things that won’t make sense

by Veronica on September 21, 2011

in Garden, Headfuck, My body is broken.

It was after I dropped Amy off at school that my hands started to hurt, badly. We were on the way to the supermarket and I’d already had to talk myself out of vomiting a few times this morning, so my head really wasn’t up to ignoring the pain in my hands.

By the time I was 3/4 of the way through the supermarketing, I was unable to push the trolley and the pain was at the front and centre of most of my thoughts. Luckily, with the help of unlimited lollipops, Isaac was being practically angelic and just following along behind us, as Nathan pushed the trolley and lifted the heavy things, like milk and rice.

(Side note: It takes three lollipops to get the supermarketing done without meltdowns or screaming. What I need now, is to find lollipops without artificial colours.)

I held on, until I got to the chemist, knowing that I had scripts for regular tramadol (that doesn’t give me insomnia) and panadol oesto for the arthritis pain. Only, when I went to fill the script, I discovered that it was out of date and I was out of luck. Fun times, you guys, fun times.

By the time we made it home, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind and Isaac deciding to have a meltdown over toothpaste wasn’t really something I wanted to deal with.

I managed to take some slow release tramadol (that does give me insomnia) and now, two hours later, it has kicked in and while I’m still in pain, I’m rather stoned and I don’t care quite so much. It was a choice between stoned, or knocked out. Sometimes there are no good choices.

This Winter has been really bad. I’m coming out of the other side of SAD, smack into depression and anxiety, but I think that if I can hold on until the weather warms up, I might be okay. My soul is screaming for long hot days spent laying in the sun, letting the warmth fix my joints for a little while.

***

I was outside using the pitchfork to poke holes in the swampy patch in my back corner. I had a bag full of mint that needed to be planted and Isaac was helping me, by tipping out the roots and running away with them.

Three holes in, the pitchfork handle snapped in my face, as the bottom (metal) end threw itself up into my forehead.

“Mummy! It hit you in the head! MUMMY!”

Funnily enough, I realised that.

My forehead still hurts, but the cut is healing, at least.

I can’t say that it’s helping either my mental or physical states to be beating myself up with a pitchfork, however.

On the upside, with some help from Nathan, I got 20 currant cuttings planted out (not sure what types – Mum had forgotten) and a bag full of mint plants planted. And the raspberry canes survived being transplanted and are shooting up.

Finally.

***

It’s been dark inside my head lately. I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting to the fact that eventually, this will change. It might not get better, or easier, but I can count on it getting different at some point.

Different is good.

I’m discontent with my house, with my lack of garden, with a paddock full of nothing, that screams its nothingness at me every time I see it. With the clutter and the lack and the excess and everything. I am discontent.

I need to work on getting things inside my head sorted, so that I can work on getting things outside of my head sorted.

And until then, I’m going to keep dreaming of moving house and living somewhere that isn’t falling down, that has a garden to sit in and just be, and storage space and cupboards for everything. I hear that they exist, somewhere.

Until then, I’m going to keep planting things and hoping that they grow and help sort my sanity out.

***

I don’t think this post makes much sense. Sorry about that.

 

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How to grow garlic

by Veronica on August 11, 2011

in Garden

I try to grow garlic each year, because I prefer home grown garlic to shop bought garlic. Garlic I harvest myself is always fresher, less likely to go mouldy, lasts longer (see: fresher) and I always feel like I’ve been really productive when I’ve got my garlic plaits up and hanging.

We’ve been living here for over three years now and I’m only just getting the garden into a semblance of a rotation system. The “big” garden failed entirely due to chooks and a lack of nutrient in the soil – but with a layer of hay over it and the chooks scratching the hay and grass out, it may be ready to have something planted in it next year.

Sprouted garlic under mulch

The greenhouse failed, due to wind and a general lack of ACTUAL strength, able to stand up to you know, ACTUAL WEATHER.

But, my small garden has been working quite well, albeit messily because I haven’t weeded it, I’ve just mulched it and ignored the edges.

Last year, I planted a little square of garlic and harvested around 15 bulbs. I hated that I didn’t have lots. LOTS is always better than some. (Some being better than none, but nothing beating LOTS.)

This year, I went wild and bought 2kg of sprouted garlic cloves and planted them all in the garden. They’re just starting to sprout up through the hay now and I couldn’t be more pleased.

How to grow garlic:

Find youself some sprouted garlic.

Some people use proper seed garlic, but I tend to just use green grocer bought garlic and leave it in my fruit bowl until the shoots appear. I’m pretty sure people will tell me that this is a terrible way to do it and supermarket or green grocer garlic won’t grow properly, but I disagree. It works fine, for me.

Planting:

Once your garlic has sprouted, plant it sprout side up in loamy soil, at about a depth of an inch. If you’ve got a large amount of green shoot, leave it above the soil, otherwise cover the entire thing.

Plant garlic in the middle of winter:

Garlic likes the cold (I’m in Tasmania, we have lots of cold) and I usually plant around late June, early July. I think I remember being told to wait for the shortest day to plant garlic, but I’m terrible at keeping track of the shortest day. BUT, that said, I have planted garlic in August before and it’s done quite well – I just harvested a bit later than normal.

Garlic hates weeds:

You will need to either weed your garlic regularly, or do what I do and mulch heavily around your garlic plants.

Mulch:

Once my garlic has sprouted and I can see the tops through the dirt, I cover the entire garden bed in mulch, to protect the shoots and keep weeds at bay. If I’m being lazy, I mulch the entire bed at the same time as I plant the garlic. It works just as well, either way.

Watering:

Keep the ground and mulch moist, but not terribly wet. You don’t want your garlic bulbs to rot.

Harvesting:

When the tops are about knee high (depending on your height – if you’re a toddler, you’re aiming for waist high tops) and are starting to brown off (usually by the end of summer) then you can harvest your garlic. I usually use a pitchfork and a lot of care to do this.

Then I wash all of the dirt off and plait the garlic into strands, to hang in the kitchen, while wishing that I’d planted more.

You can never have too much garlic.

Sprouted garlic under mulch

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I am such a country girl

by Veronica on July 24, 2011

in Animals, Garden

It doesn’t take much to send me into paroxysms of delight nowadays. A rabbit, some fruit trees and some blue metal will just about do it.

The mud has been steadily rising here, threatening to swallow my house whole. Fifteen ducks paddling in it have been making it worse and when an equal number of chooks stand around the front door yelling for food, while also scratching through the mud for interesting grubs, it can only end in disaster.

I put my foot down when I started to feel like it might just be easier to mud ski around parts of my paddock and insisted that we order some blue metal (crushed rock) to cover the muddy areas with.

It’s interesting to see who you know in our relatively small community and the woman on the other end of the phone when we ordered, was a girl that I had gone to school with. She arranged for everything to be dropped off that very same afternoon, while I imagined a future in which sliding through the mud wouldn’t exist. Blissful thoughts.

Of course, like all things possibly related to Murphy, the truck arrived while I was in the middle of collecting eggs that hadn’t been collected while I was away. There I was standing in my daggiest clothes, with blackberry leaves caught in my hair, and my shirt pulled up to make a basket for the eight eggs I had just collected, three of them covered heavily in chook poo.

Never let me tell you that my life is glamorous.

Chook poo and a hoisted up shirt aside, Isaac and Amy were also outside with me.

There is only so much consoling you can do when your shirt is full of eggs and shit and your toddler is trying to flail on the ground in duck poo and mud, while a truck roars and beeps in the background.

On the upside, no one got squashed, we didn’t smash any eggs and duck poo washes off small boys quite easily. Thank god.

Nathan spent the day shifting blue metal yesterday and I must say, I am not missing the mud slide. Not at all.

***

Today of course, I was hunter gathering, as I’m wont to do. This is no ordinary hunter gathering mind you, this is bare hands and unsuitable shoes type hunter gathering.

First, I picked out some new fruit trees, while holding fourteen kilos of toddler on my hip and smiling at the woman who was helping me. THEN, I insisted that Isaac hug his grandmother while I sorted out my gift certificate and Nathan bought new mattresses in the next door shop.

And then I came home and caught a rabbit, with my bare hand. Only one hand, the other hand was full of an egg that my chooks had laid.

Yes, you read that right, I caught a rabbit. WITH MY HAND.

Behold! My awe inspiring rabbit catching abilities.

Okay, so it was only a baby and it had run into an old cupboard and possibly all I did was flip the cupboard over onto its back so that the rabbit couldn’t jump out, but I CAUGHT IT.

There is something to be said for being able to announce to the collective members of a room (front yard) “Hey, so I just caught a rabbit. BY MYSELF. Want to see?” and then actually produce a live rabbit for the gooing and the gaahing over.

Hunter gathering went well today.

Now if I can just find where my bloody poultry are hiding their nests, I’ll be lots happier.

***

The bunny was so small that I couldn’t be bothered killing it. I don’t mind shooting, but there is just something so personal about breaking a neck, or chopping off a head, you know? Plus, with all the effort I went to to catch the little thing, it hardly seemed fair that then I would then be the one gutting and skinning it and getting all up and personal with its sneeze making fur.

And I might have had a Watership Downs flashback and wondered who was waiting for the baby rabbit at home and not been able to stop myself personifying it.

[Digression: The cat was waiting for the baby rabbit when I went back to let it go. He had been patiently sitting on the piece of tin I had blocked the opening with, waiting for his dinner to make its way out of the box. Now I know both why the cat is so fat and why there was a baby rabbit in the middle of my paddock in the first place. Curiosity satisfied.]

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How to grow apricot trees from seed

by Veronica on May 9, 2011

in Garden

A while ago, in the middle of our Summer that wasn’t, we ended up with a couple of kilos of apricots in the fridge. Being the frugal person that I am, I wondered if you could grow apriot trees from seed, so I did some googling.

It turns out, you can grow apricot trees from seed, but there is no guarantee that they will produce fruit.

I decided to do it as an experiment anyway, because you can never have too many trees, even if they don’t produce fruit.

First, you have to take your apricot seeds and let them sit somewhere for 3-4 days, until they dry out and you can hear the seed inside rattling. I ended up with about 40 seeds.

Once they’re dried, use a nutcracker or similar to crack the hard outer shells. Don’t damage the kernel inside.

I used a hammer to crack ours and ended up with about 25 seeds that were usable.

Soak the seeds in water for 3 days, changing the water every day.

NOTE: Apricot seeds are highly poisonous, especially to young children. As few as 6 could land your child in hospital, so please don’t leave them where a small curious child might decide to try them. I popped mine into a Tupperware container and set it aside on a high shelf. For once, we had no dramas.

Once the seeds have been soaked, wrap them in damp paper towel and close them into a snap lock bag. The put them into the fridge for 5-6 weeks. This is enforcing winter, to help with germination.

At the end of 6 weeks, they should have sprouted inside the bag. You can now plant them into pots. I used small jiffy pots to begin with, because that’s what I had.

I had 20 seeds sprouted at this stage, and one day, I had the bright idea of putting them out into the sunshine to help them grow. I had one seed just sprouting leaves and the others were close.

What I hadn’t thought about was our very naughty puppy. Within 5 minutes, she had jumped onto the table they were sitting on and eaten most of my seeds. I was furious and wished a tummy ache on her, but apparently apricot seeds aren’t terribly poisonous to dogs. I should probably be grateful for that, but I’m having a hard time with it.

I managed to save a few and with some time and water, they sprouted little trunks and leaves and they were adorable.

I potted them up into potting mix and they’re living on my bathroom sink for winter.

Because they already had an enforced winter sitting in the fridge, they won’t be able to be planted out into the garden until the threat of frost has passed. This means that they’ll get about a 15 month growing season this time, before winter starts again next year and they lose their leaves for it. I’ll probably have to repot them again in a few weeks, because they’re growing rather well. The biggest one is probably 25cm tall and gaining a few cm every second day.

Amy wasn’t all that interested in the growing process, but I can imagine that other children would find it fascinating, even though it’s a bit of a slow process.

So there’s how to grow apricots from a seed! It wasn’t at all hard, like making bread, the hardest bit was leaving it alone while it did its own thing.

 

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The death of a garden

by Veronica on March 6, 2011

in Garden

I mentioned in yesterday’s post about stolen ducks that my entire “big” garden was destroyed by frost.

Corn.

Wide angle lens – the tomato patch was 2x3m (plus tomatoes in the small garden that I lost too – not pictured).

We also lost the 15 pumpkin vines, 8 zucchini plants, all the basil, all the cucumbers, the rockmelon and watermelon (that were doing badly anyway).

The entire summer crop, gone. Sigh.

I’m going to go out this afternoon and see how many of the green tomatoes I can save, either to ripen inside, or to make green tomato sauce/chutney out of.

There are farmers in Victoria whose entire farms are under water still – while mine is only a tiny loss in the scheme of things, these were still plants I was hoping to use to see my family through winter. I can understand the gut wrenching feeling of realising that everything you planted has died.

A lot of empathy for the farmers this week. I only lost a small amount of money invested and everything else was time and energy, and I’m still devastated.

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