I drive myself nuts.
A spring update with pictures is long overdue. I don't have the pictures handy right now, it will wait. But I have not blogged anything for ages and am in the mood for a quickie post.
We had a decent April. The weather was coolish, but the snow was gone by the beginning of the month. Now the May panic is upon us. Don't get me wrong, I love every minute of it. It's just that I would like to have four hands attached to a well-organized mind, and 7 free days a week of 48 hours each.
The young woman who I was hoping to work together with seems to have changed her mind. At least, she has not returned any of my increasingly urgent phone calls.
Not a big problem, though I had been looking forward to playing in the garden together. I messed myself up further by making a few time consuming commitments, never mind the details. One has to be a member of the community, or what's the point of life?
But what drives me nuts more than anything is my own ineffective ways. I should be further ahead by now. I stand around a lot wondering. What do I do first? Should this perennial go here or there? Every year I plan to figure this out in winter. It doesn't work.
The main dilemma concerns the boards around the veg beds.
On the one hand, I love working in the well-defined space, especially for the mixed "square-foot-style" beds. On the other hand, the older beds, banged together by son Alex with free slabs in the spring of 2009 are now falling apart. In some places where yours truly has sort of fixed them they are all higgledy piggledy.
I keep waffling between 3 options:
*fix them with old boards that are lying around. Saves money, costs time, results will be imperfect.
*get new lumber and do it right. If so, use same layout or make two shorter beds?
*just revert to unbound beds and use the new weed wacker to keep the grass short in between them? The cardboard plus wood chip mulch has all but disappeared under fresh weeds.
At least I found out the lumber yard will cut boards the right length, that is a huge hurdle cleared.
I will start by planting. The peas are in, the covered beds below the greenhouse are planted and there are lots of starts in the greenhouse. Right now I am leaning towards option 2, and get the makings of one bed every time I go to town.
And now.....the sky is blue, the weather will be warm and sunny for a while. I am feeling great, yeeha! Last year at this time I had to nap after two hours of dirt play. I have had my coffee and the day is all mine. I have a freezer full of ready-to-go meals made on rainy days, so I can keep going till I drop and still have decent food at the end of the day. OUT with me!
A spring update with pictures is long overdue. I don't have the pictures handy right now, it will wait. But I have not blogged anything for ages and am in the mood for a quickie post.
We had a decent April. The weather was coolish, but the snow was gone by the beginning of the month. Now the May panic is upon us. Don't get me wrong, I love every minute of it. It's just that I would like to have four hands attached to a well-organized mind, and 7 free days a week of 48 hours each.
The young woman who I was hoping to work together with seems to have changed her mind. At least, she has not returned any of my increasingly urgent phone calls.
Not a big problem, though I had been looking forward to playing in the garden together. I messed myself up further by making a few time consuming commitments, never mind the details. One has to be a member of the community, or what's the point of life?
But what drives me nuts more than anything is my own ineffective ways. I should be further ahead by now. I stand around a lot wondering. What do I do first? Should this perennial go here or there? Every year I plan to figure this out in winter. It doesn't work.
The main dilemma concerns the boards around the veg beds.
On the one hand, I love working in the well-defined space, especially for the mixed "square-foot-style" beds. On the other hand, the older beds, banged together by son Alex with free slabs in the spring of 2009 are now falling apart. In some places where yours truly has sort of fixed them they are all higgledy piggledy.
I keep waffling between 3 options:
*fix them with old boards that are lying around. Saves money, costs time, results will be imperfect.
*get new lumber and do it right. If so, use same layout or make two shorter beds?
*just revert to unbound beds and use the new weed wacker to keep the grass short in between them? The cardboard plus wood chip mulch has all but disappeared under fresh weeds.
At least I found out the lumber yard will cut boards the right length, that is a huge hurdle cleared.
I will start by planting. The peas are in, the covered beds below the greenhouse are planted and there are lots of starts in the greenhouse. Right now I am leaning towards option 2, and get the makings of one bed every time I go to town.
And now.....the sky is blue, the weather will be warm and sunny for a while. I am feeling great, yeeha! Last year at this time I had to nap after two hours of dirt play. I have had my coffee and the day is all mine. I have a freezer full of ready-to-go meals made on rainy days, so I can keep going till I drop and still have decent food at the end of the day. OUT with me!
I can really relate to this, and also spend lots of time thinking and dithering. I did a taster permaculture course one weekend and one of the main principles is that you should spend 80% of the time thinking, sitting and observing and generally doing nothing, and only 20% of the time working. This sounds great to me but I have not achieved it :)
ReplyDeleteIf you spend the time observing and thinking about the best way your beds can work for you, then you will come up with the most practical long-lasting solution. I suppose the theory is that if you build the beds once and get it right then you save a lot of time re-building in the future?
Would the veg beds be OK for this year and then you wouldn't feel like you needed to make a rushed decision?
Judy
My garden season started yesterday and didn't go according to plan either, but I blame my husband squarely for that. He kept coming up with things that "just need doing quickly". Better luck today.
ReplyDelete@Judy: good advice from the permies, but they are talking about focused observing, which is not at all the same as dithering! These beds have been there for years, this is not a new garden.
ReplyDelete@Melanie: once you start it goes like crazy.
Good to have you drop by my place Thanks I'm busy too and only pretend to keep up with the web...gardening is so IFFY the old established things are dying out???weather totally different and who knows how to handle it when Mother Earth herself is in a dither....I can only hope I get some crop and stores..??? Transforming times for us and the planet.
ReplyDelete