14 January: re-org

Thursday, 14 January 2021

At home

Once again, I did not get out the door into the beautiful weather till after noon. I miss out on gardening time by staying up late reading. But if I didn’t stay up late reading and got up early to garden, I’d miss out on reading time.

Because I’m going to order a big load of mulch one of these days …. it might be more accurate to say I plan to… I needed to get the final fish tote ready to fill, which meant moving the plants from on top of it. It’s the only one with a lid, a blue plastic lid that fits on top of the red tote and that I have been using to hold several flats of plants. (I forgot a before photo so I have only words.)

This meant finding room for the plants, which meant a reorganization of the plant tables on the west side of the house, and that meant wrestling with tarps and hoses. I actually put a ripped up old tarp in the wheelie bin, because how many tarps with holes does one actually need?

Before

After

Allium schubertii for my hobby plant sale which I hope I can safely have in May.

I had cut back some Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ (blue potato vine) from over the plant tables, and I pruned some crossing branches off of the Cox’s Orange Pippin apple tree, whether or not it is the right time of year.

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Before and after

I wish that tree were not leaning so much. We frequently get strong winds from the southwest. A typical garden tree around here might be propped up with a forked piece of driftwood, like this:

Allan ran the branches through the pencil sharpener, set up in Alicia’s driveway.

The sunny day was so warm that I changed into a cotton shirt.

I went out past the Bogsy Wood to the willow grove outside the fence to find some rotten wood. There is so much holly and ivy out there (noxious weeds both) that I could have easily been distracted by my vision of opening up the grove to make a path through it.

I resisted and got on with the project, having found enough wood for the bottom of the tote….

….while Allan put the pencil sharpener shavings into the other soil-less tote.

In the next few nice days, I must get enough weeding done to be ready for mulch. No more ornamental gardening distractions!

Except for one. Allan had ordered a lumber delivery from Oman and Son. He cut two more boat shapes out of plywood….

On Alicia’s patio

….and tomorrow I will paint them.

I found enough greens for a salad, partly in the greenhouse and partly around the garden (including some sorrel weed).

I am only managing a salad every other week because I planted winter greens too late. A mess o’ greens to cook is easier to come by.

We had a surprise package from Markham Farm, my favourite garden! It turned out to contain all sorts of treats to make up for us having given up the monthly Universal Yums box.

We had wonderful light sweet waffle cookies with tea. This box reminds me of how, in the Dodie Smith memoirs I recently read, she would send boxes of treats to her friends in England during WWII, while she and her husband were in exile in California; they had moved to the USA when war was declared because he was a conscientious objector. Unlike the Yums boxes, which would have some things we liked, some things that were so so, and some things we wouldn’t like at all (chips tasting of lamb and mint or of haggis come to mind), everything in that tucker box looks delicious.

If only we can get vaccinated by spring, we hope to go garden touring in July up to Markham Farm and other gardens nearby. I watched yesterday’s Zoom meeting from the public health department and we don’t see ourselves anywhere on this chart…

….until May through December! We are age 66 and 68. I hear it might change soon to include 65-70 in an earlier phase. We hope so. (Since then, Oregon and probably Washington were told they were getting fewer doses than promised, so who knows….)