I turned up for Saturday for the workshop at Ranui Community Garden where we learned how to plant by the moon, make compost, use up our leftovers, and handle our seedlings with care. We were given two bags of compost, seedlings and seeds to put in our brand new beds, one filled with soil and one we need to make ourselves with our new compost bins (made from old recycling bins).
After that went to the manse and found the beds there to put the seedlings in, being extra careful not to create more mud tracks - this is the hazard of gardening this time of year, everyone needs gumboots with no holes in them. When Annette comes back next month she will have kale, parsley, and spinach to munch on. And possibly lettuce and peas, if my seeds grow.
My boss must think I'm nuts to be gardening on Saturday as he casually asked me what I do in the weekends. I feel like a garden nerd to say, well, I'm going to be gardening after gardening all week at work. He himself plays and coaches sport, or goes fishing, but I just started gardening and can't seem to stop.
I was never much of a sport player anyway. People were always trying to drag me to play it at school but chasing after balls never really appealed for some reason. Besides, after smashing the garage window playing cricket in the backyard Dad kind of banned us. I can't remember the last time I played a full game of anything unless I was being roped into it. All I can say is I don't get evangelised into playing sport unlike some people who just seem to walk down the street and get picked to join a team by random people in official uniforms. And that's fine by me, because once you join sports you can't get out of it, training three or more days a week, getting up early on Saturday and waiting and standing in the rain, refereeing games and putting up with parental abuse from the sidelines. Then having to watch it all on tv and keep up with it. No thanks.
Anyway so my backyard is not the place to play any sport. Dad wants to keep his windows intact.
Thanks to Margaret I have another hydrangea which is now in Sock's bed where the azaela was. I have given her plenty of compost and sheep pellets, and it's near the other hydrangea which is not in the bed, partly shaded by next door's pine. I was also given some New Zealand Iris, which went near the dietes (I've learned they are the bane of the landscape gardeners, worse than agapanthus) down the back, and some pretty ferns which I suspect are bracken but Margaret thought they were silver ferns so I am trialling them in my fernery. And then it rained.
