Garden vs Time

I'm curled up in bed at 1am writing a post about not having enough time to garden. I've been working in multiple jobs around the clock for the last couple of weeks and the poor garden is a bit neglected. The seedlings that I've raised from seed are way too big for their pots and need planting out, the weeds are crawling up where they can, and the grass is so long that my dog disappears from view when she walks across the lawn.

However, over the last year I've developed some great 'time insurance' systems, which means that the universe doesn't implode if I'm absent for a couple of weeks.  Here are a some of my faves:

1. The watering system.

Sounds complex, but in reality it's only hard for the procrastinator.

I buy the 'starter kits', simply because they're usually cheaper (mitre 10 often does '2 for $15' sales, for instance).  Oh and if you buy the kits, you don't have to look like a fool digging though the buckets of miniscule parts for which you have no idea of their purpose.  Just lay the pipe out in the garden, cutting at bends or t-junctions, and then stick in the upright spray bits (I'm not into technical terms).  Just a word of warning on the fitting of the upright spray bits.  There are little nozzle bits about 5mm in size that have to be fitted to each of the 'rigid risers'. Do NOT attempt to do this in the vegie garden. You will cry. Instead, sit inside one night with a mug of boiling water in front of the telly and a large bar of chocolate and/or wine, softening the risers in the boiling water and squeezing the bastard bits into the impossibly narrow pipes. Your hands will hurt, but that's okay because you're on the pretty path to sanctioned laziness.

The kit will tell you to measure the garden, to draw complex plans etc etc. which, if you're anything like me, will terrify you and result in the kit being abandoned in the corner of the laundry, gathering dust for 3 months. The manufacturer will also direct you to a website where you can develop your complex system, however, you have to have a conformist PC. In retrospect, I'm glad I have a mac and never got the opportunity to be overwhelmed by their program, because it's bloody easy just to go with it.  And luckily the system is fool-proof. If you make a mistake, cut the hose, buy a connector or wrap it in gaffer tape and HUZZAH you've a very snazzy-sounding 'watering system'.

If you want to make it even fancier, you can buy a computerised water timer, but a) that requires a lot more money that I can comprehend spending, and b) it means that you have to work out how many litres/hour your garden needs and I'm not really into that shiz. I have manual timers on each of my 3 taps, which means I just use my own judgement as to when the garden needs watering.  You can buy them for around $10.

Dial and walk away. Happy times

2. Mulch.

Until 18 months ago, I thought mulch was just the pine bark peeps put down to give their gardens a certain 'Aussie suburban' aesthetic.  Yes, I'm a fool. 

Mulch is sugar cane mulch, straw, pea straw on the vegie garden; wood chips around the natives; pine bark under the play equipment; gravel around the standard roses (again, I'm thinking of a specific aesthetic with this last example).  Mulch is great for the time poor gardener not only because it helps retain moisture in the soil and keep the plants at an even temp, but if you chuck on enough, it helps prevent a lot of weeds from sprouting.  Those that do sprout seem to come out more easily too, perhaps because they've grown tall at the expense of strength?

Oh and the sugar cane mulch gives the vegie garden quite a 'professional' look if you want to impress the neighbours.

3. Weed matting

I've just bagged out pine bark, and now I'm waxing lyrical about weed matting. Yep, I'm somewhat hypocritical.

Weed matting looks ugly, but if you want a semi-temporary solution to a lot of weeds re-sprouting, as I need in my post-weed seeding backyard, it's like black gold. Hmmm... maybe I should turn down the hyperbole a little.

After valiantly resisting the roll out (ha) of matting in my backyard, I finally decided that to keep weeding the same naked patches around the fruit trees over and over until I came up with my 'grand plan' for the area, was a false economy.  So I surrounded the area with weed matting over Christmas, and I've never looked back since. It's not going to be there forever, but I love not lying awake at night worrying about the evils that will sprout overnight.

4. The ability to go with it and not freak out about bok choi going to seed, grass overgrowing, or a couple of plants dying.

I will now try and sleep on my last point of advice.

Easter Weekend Gardening Part 1: the front yard

The distinctions between the vegie garden backyard and ornamental frontyard are slowly melting away.  Apparently the (now) old couple who built and lived in the house for 50 years had a deal where he would tend the vegie garden in the back and she would do the ornamentals and flowers in the front.  Of course, when I moved in the vegie patches were just bare earth with the exception of the rhubarb (oh and a lot of weeds!), however the front yard had a lot of cottage-gardeney kind of plants.  What's even more exciting are the bulbs that keep sprouting up.  Not a month's gone by without a new variety springing out of the soil, such as these brilliantly red flowering ones to the right and below (no extra points for the old daggy plastic edging though - I think that'll have to go).

Many people have advised me to live in my house for a year before planting so that I get to know about the weather, sun patterns and wind etc. to make informed choices, however, I was rearing to go.  However, the bulb thing is another reason to wait.  The ugly plastic fenced patch above, which is in an awkward position in the backyard, was first on my list to go when I moved in, yet 6 months later I'm enjoying the near constant changeover of bulbs.  These red ones are dying back now, and there are some pink budded ones just about to emerge.  It's kind of like bulb tag!

Anyhoo, my Easter weekend list had a lot of things on it, and gardening was not high on the list in terms of deadlines.  However, as gardening is a fantastic procrastination method, I actually got quite a lot of digging, planting, weeding and strategising done. 

Firstly I got myself a couple of tiny box hedges (left) in a first step to realising my life-long dream of creating a topiary of my dog.  I figure that my sculpture major should be utilised somehow.   I planted one in the front yard, and I think I'll put the other in the backyard, just in case I find that I get performance anxiety.   I was going to topiarise (?) my bay tree that I planted when I first moved in, however, they grow so slowly and I'm chomping at the bit here!

My other purchase was a large native that, according to the woman at the Hobart Farmers' Market, is apparently very good at screening out nosy neighbours, being sufficiently tall, bushy and quick growing.  I don't think she knew who she was up against, but I bought the Dodonaea Viscosa (or Hop Bush) anyway, and strategically placed it down the side outside my kitchen window behind the bay tree.  I do worry quite a bit about blocking light to other parts of my garden, however, there are some sacrifices you have to make...

At the New Town Station Nursery, I came across a large number of blueberry bushes.  Considering the number of punnets I go through each summer, I felt that their $20/bush price tag was relatively reasonable, so I bought two.  While varieties of plants usually have fairly abstract or esoteric names such as 'Tigerella' tomatoes, 'Cox's Orange Pippin' apples, or 'Good King Henry'; my selected blueberry bushes are called Brigitta and Denise.  I laughed when I saw the names, because only the night before I'd been drinking with two women by that name (one of whom is my PhD supervisor). As a result, the plants have become quite personified in my mind. 

I planted Denise, which is shorter bush growing to about 1.5 meters and which produces big fat berries, down the side of the house next to the pepperberry bush.  Apparently blueberries can deal with part shade to full sun, and while I'm a little concerned that Denise won't get enough, it'll be interesting to contrast it to the larger growing Brigitta who I planted in the comparatively very sunny front yard.

Denise (with a small Camelia in the b'ground)

My two other major tasks for the weekend were installing a watering system in the front yard to counter my laziness in watering, and fixing the front lawn and weeding around the f#@*ing roses (which I loathe but feel guilty about pulling out). 

I've never been much of a lawn fan.  I can put this down to a couple of reasons: a) I'm allergic to grass, b) I've lived in so many rental houses where the grass has been the bane of my existance - it's grown and I haven't had a mower, it's been weed infested, it hasn't been watered so it's died, it's been killed by overexuberant house parties etc. etc. 

Little wonder then that when I moved into this house, I planned to get rid of the lawn in favour of a front yard overgrown with plants and a fairy path down the middle. However, I think I'm coming round to the grass thing.  For one, I haven't enough money for all the plants in my fairy garden scheme; secondly I can see that perhaps it might provide a nice background to my future topiary (in a kitschy, Tim Burton kind of way). Plus the dog appreciates grass.  So my task for the weekend was to scrape off the mat of brown spikey weed seeds that had scared the grass away on the southern side of the lawn, so that I can plant some grass seed (while trying not to sneeze).  You can see the patch left behind in the image below; and the bags of weeds and seed in the image to the left.
 

The foggy bits in the photo are due to my watering system which I finally installed (woot!).  I should point out that strangely, it's cheaper to buy the bits for an entire Neta watering system than to buy a good hose.

The end of my epic post (but not on the weekend - vegie garden update still to come)