Saturday 2 January 2016

The ninth day of Christmas

I planted most of Beth's plants she gave me - four tree ferns, two cabbage tree seedlings, a geranium, maidenhairs, the fruit salad plant cutting.

I bought a hanging basket holder from Trade Aid store, and put her cleopatra leaf begonia there. I plan to put more trailing plants there, when I find some potting mix.

Other than that, I did not do too much gardening as it got a good soak over the weekend.

I noticed one of my morning glories has got flowers, it is a brilliant indigo colour. It's twining itself on Fluffy's patch. I am a bit disappointed that the tobacco flowers aren't as highly fragrant as they were purported to be. And because of the rain, my white statice, which was drying nicely before on the plant, got soaked, and now it's no good for any dried flower arrangement. Thankfully I managed to cut the pink ones before the rain.

I don't know if they are melons or pumpkins but the cucurbit vines are spreading, And some sunflowers have come up, a few dwarf ones have already got buds.

Now I am reading a book called 'From the Ground Up' A Food Grower's Education in Life, Love, and the Movement That's Changing the Nation. The nation, being, of course, the US of A...I am 30 pages in and just as I suspected it's a Jewish American Princess who leaves her priveliged home to go live the hippie lifestyle on a commune, then comes back years later, broke and a single mother, to garden her parents place..which in turn starts this whole backyard vege growing fad.

So far, so neurotic.

It has a foreword by Alice Waters. Yea, I don't know who she is either.

Of course, I could write a similar book whilst leaving out my scandalous love-life and introspection but I suspect it might bore you to tears. So I think I may have to include at least some salaciousness to get published these days. Unfortunately, I did not up and join a cult, but I had a close brush with the naturists who live out near the Ranui Community Garden. One time, while out identifying weeds with the Twin Stream people, we came across the Naturist Club as the bush backed on to their property. Wandering Jew was growing everywhere. Someone had left their clothes in the bushes.

There was a hole in the fence. An escapee! We never did find who those clothes belonged to....