As the sun shines we make more and more hay.
It's the way of the seasons, everyone frustrated they can't garden when its wet, but then with more daylight hours you can't garden enough. Weeds grow, get pulled out then grow again.
Gardeners get stressed too, worrying that they can't do enough. But its not like I don't have my own garden to tend, which, if I was doing everyone else's, means my own is neglected. I don't feel ownership or kaitaiki of the whenua if I'm constantly being harangued about it or not allowed to do this or that. I thought about this as I stepped into the community garden and given the not so subtle message that I wasn't around enough. Well try looking after someone who may be terminally ill and caring for anyone outside your family just takes second place, I'm sorry and there are not two of me. Oh to be born a twin.
This is why I don't judge other peoples gardens. They do the best they can with the time they have. If it's not in their own backyard, there's the cost of time and fuel to get to the garden, tools, and other resources. Don't make a rod for your back is what I say as I pulled out the remaining broccoli and sprinkled what were meant to be wildflowers in the empty plot. A bit late. The wildflowers came with a dense A4 page of instructions that only rivaled the mushroom kit in complexity.
I thought you just scattered the wildflowers wildly around and flowers grew up wild. Why did they need lime and coddling and raking and scattering medium and 4-6 weeks of moisture AND roundup spray before hand?? That wasn't really the definition of wild. They should rename them something like farmflowers or certified bee pollination centres.
I'd been given a seed bomb and chucked it in my garden curious to find out when it would go off. The best seed bombs are tomatoes and citrus, particularly lemons. Why does gardening have to feel like hard work and drudgery, when instead it could be a seed throwing party? I would love to throw tomatoes and citrus around or squash grapes with my barefeet. Potato harvesting can be a treasure hunt, and weeding can also be a hide and seek game. With a machete.
But no within the norms of straight lines and machinery, crop circles are just aberrations. I feel this is what machines do, take all the fun out of it, until its just a mindless job requiring headphones and steel rulers and weed mat pins. Inputs and outputs. Thanks to primary industry and fake christmas trees. We have all these wilding pines, and we import fake christmas trees from China, who must wonder what crazy people buy this junk. Its ok I was once a crazy person too but after given too many paper (and chocolate) roses I just wanted the real thing.
