peace and quiet and open air
Apr. 20th, 2021 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestIt was our wedding anniversary last Friday - 38 years! It is surprising (I think) how often our wedding anniversary is a really beautiful day, weather-wise. We've had bright, clear blue skies for several days now—just like our wedding day, which was glorious. Perhaps we should do Camp mid-April, if we can ever do Camp again.
The weather having been so sunny has actually tempted me outdoors to work. I am very much a fair-weather gardener, but I have done a lot of weeding lately! The wildflowers, as I can't quite bring myself to call them weeds, have taken over half of one of my carefully dug flower beds, and I'm trying to brace myself to tackle that, but there are also some more veg beds to be attended to. I probably ought to try to get the raspberry canes under control, but it is such a jungle in the fruit cage I'm not sure I even know where to start.
I've also planted seeds. The verbenas are growing splendidly, and I've just separated out the handsomer shoots and put them into their own pots. Two or three aquilegias have deigned to send up rather feeble shoots, and one... something else which I have forgotten, but it looks a bit more businesslike. Echinacea, possibly. But I have stolen FIL's cheap propagator and it is full of sweetcorn, tomato and courgette seeds. We shall see. If I get reasonable results I will plant more tomatoes. Does anyone know if butternut squashes and pumpkins are happy to be trained as climbers whatever the variety, or does one need to buy specific types in order to climb them? What about courgettes?
Oh, and,manna, the early rhubarb is burgeoning nicely. FIL has some in a rhubarb bed, I was forced to put mine into one of the giant pots, but it seems happy enough so far this year, and at least it is positioned to get plenty of sun, in our tree-surrounded garden.
I also received bare roots delphiniums and geraniums today, and they are now planted. There were only three plausible delphiniums of the ordered four, but I got eleven bits which I hope will make geraniums, and only ordered eight of those. They were all poking up tiny shoots, and I have put them into the weeded bed and weeded bit of the taken-over bed. The clematis is roaring up the fence, and the Japanese anemones look happy. One of the fuchsias is beginning to leaf, but the others are currently buried beneath hypersteroidal snowdrops. Weeding that part is going to be... interesting. I hope I can get the giant snowdrops out and plant them again somewhere else, but we'll see—what baffles me is how they got to be there, as I thought I'd removed the in situ bulbs when I planted my new ones.
I have a feeling that working in the garden is going to be good for me in several ways. It's reducing my stress—not just in that 'working with hands, sunshine, fresh air, wholesomeness' way, but also because one of the reasons I've been feeling stressed over my FIL is that there is so much that cannot be done while he is here with us. The garden has been one of those things. But it is very clear that he will not be working in the garden again. He's too frail, and I don't think he can remember what needs to be done. We helped him walk around the garden a couple of days ago—first time he has been outside in weeks and weeks, despite the lovely weather—and he wasn't happy, I suppose because he realised there was so much to do and he couldn't do it.
It'll also be good for me to get the extra exercise and the diminished screen time. These new computer glasses are not right. I can't define why, but I'm sure they are giving me headaches. So tiresome.
The weather having been so sunny has actually tempted me outdoors to work. I am very much a fair-weather gardener, but I have done a lot of weeding lately! The wildflowers, as I can't quite bring myself to call them weeds, have taken over half of one of my carefully dug flower beds, and I'm trying to brace myself to tackle that, but there are also some more veg beds to be attended to. I probably ought to try to get the raspberry canes under control, but it is such a jungle in the fruit cage I'm not sure I even know where to start.
I've also planted seeds. The verbenas are growing splendidly, and I've just separated out the handsomer shoots and put them into their own pots. Two or three aquilegias have deigned to send up rather feeble shoots, and one... something else which I have forgotten, but it looks a bit more businesslike. Echinacea, possibly. But I have stolen FIL's cheap propagator and it is full of sweetcorn, tomato and courgette seeds. We shall see. If I get reasonable results I will plant more tomatoes. Does anyone know if butternut squashes and pumpkins are happy to be trained as climbers whatever the variety, or does one need to buy specific types in order to climb them? What about courgettes?
Oh, and,
manna, the early rhubarb is burgeoning nicely. FIL has some in a rhubarb bed, I was forced to put mine into one of the giant pots, but it seems happy enough so far this year, and at least it is positioned to get plenty of sun, in our tree-surrounded garden.I also received bare roots delphiniums and geraniums today, and they are now planted. There were only three plausible delphiniums of the ordered four, but I got eleven bits which I hope will make geraniums, and only ordered eight of those. They were all poking up tiny shoots, and I have put them into the weeded bed and weeded bit of the taken-over bed. The clematis is roaring up the fence, and the Japanese anemones look happy. One of the fuchsias is beginning to leaf, but the others are currently buried beneath hypersteroidal snowdrops. Weeding that part is going to be... interesting. I hope I can get the giant snowdrops out and plant them again somewhere else, but we'll see—what baffles me is how they got to be there, as I thought I'd removed the in situ bulbs when I planted my new ones.
I have a feeling that working in the garden is going to be good for me in several ways. It's reducing my stress—not just in that 'working with hands, sunshine, fresh air, wholesomeness' way, but also because one of the reasons I've been feeling stressed over my FIL is that there is so much that cannot be done while he is here with us. The garden has been one of those things. But it is very clear that he will not be working in the garden again. He's too frail, and I don't think he can remember what needs to be done. We helped him walk around the garden a couple of days ago—first time he has been outside in weeks and weeks, despite the lovely weather—and he wasn't happy, I suppose because he realised there was so much to do and he couldn't do it.
It'll also be good for me to get the extra exercise and the diminished screen time. These new computer glasses are not right. I can't define why, but I'm sure they are giving me headaches. So tiresome.