Getting Started!
By bluenoser46
@bluenoser46 (7)
Canada
May 11, 2007 10:31pm CST
May in Nova Scotia. Spring has arrived and things are warming up. I look out my kitchen window at the square plot that is cut into my backyard. I'ts time to plan, ok; rototill, lime and fertilizer, rototill again. Make the rows, plant the seeds and plants. Set up the scarecrows, oh yeah start weeding, my god they grow fast.
The little plants are bursting through the ground, weed the garden again, phew the sun is so hot.
I turn around and it's July already, what, more weeds!. Oh no. Raccoons, get out! ,you brazen *%#@!. I look down at my plants, ants!, aaaahhh! thousands of them.
August, I look out my kitchen window and what do I see, pheasants, 14 pheasants, in my garden, noooo!, leave now. I rush outside and they scramble off, and stay out! I scream as I look down at my plants. No, not more weeds.
What a summer, all this work in the hot sun. Weeds, ants, more weeds and raccoons, more weeds and the pheasants, they think it's their garden!.
Finally it's fall, and I have brought in the last of my 'crop', my back hurts and my nose is burnt. My wife states that I have saved $34.18 on our grocery bill, with a sideways smile.
People say that they find gardening to be relaxing, I don't know about that, since I think my blood pressure hit critical on at least five occasions.
November, looking out my kitchen window, I'm thinking about my summer past, as my back gives a little twitch. My garden, that was a lot of work, in the hot sun, what a battle! I'm tired. But I'm already thinking about spring, as the first snowflake falls.
1 person likes this
2 responses
@DarlingGirl (745)
• United States
12 May 07
Hello, Nova Scotia! I have an acquaintance up there who was in "Lexx", good old Brian Downey. 'course he lives in Halifax - and you didn't say where you were at- but hey. I rarely get to converse with anyone up there 'sides him.
While we do have raccoons in NY, we rarely get anything else, thank god!
I have something even more torturous: Neighbors.
Last year I was tending my garden very carefully, and I noted that a little white mold spore had invaded some of my plants. I carefully pruned off the affected stems and bagged and tossed them before any other damage could be done. From then on, I made absolutely sure that when I watered, I didn't hit the leaves. To control the problem, I only watered the soil. In a week my garden was in perfect shape again.
But no! I came home one evening to find that my garden was covered in mold! I searched for the culprit...my neighbors had noticed my plants drooping. The lady downstairs loves to go outside and spray her garden with her silly hose, blasting away at the leaves and stems with a constant shower of water. She even waters the patio cement...for what reason, I cannot guess. I think she's a little loose in the noggin. ;)
She had sprayed my garden, leaving tiny water bubbles all over the leaves, creating an instant home to any high-flying mold spore.
My entire garden was nearly killed off, and I battled the spore for the rest of the summer. About $50 in adult Roma plum tomatoes and all my Zinneas were ruined thanks to her.
And yes, I did tell her why all her plants were yellow and covered with mold, and why it is wrong to just indiscriminently spray in the height of the afternoon.
She still stands outside, watering the cement. Heh!
@mrsbrian (1949)
• United States
12 May 07
Thank you for the walk thru your seasons of the garden,I believe I have been there and done that all before and I think all those critters had left your garden for the winter and are now at my garden so now that it is nice and warm there and you are ready to garden I will be returning them to you. happy gardening.
