Monday 1 June 2009

Gardening is great...no really, well apart from the creatures I should love but don't...

We spent the day yesterday messing about in the garden. I am very proud to say that for a 'laid back' style garden it now has minimal identifiable (by me) weeds. I got rid of loads of sticky weed things, and bind weed, some nettles and randomly some grasses I'm just not keen on. I think grass in borders would suit a minimalist garden, but an overgrown laid back one. So it is on its way out.

We 'bought' brown bin from the local council this year, at a bargain of thirty five pounds which gives us two weekly collections of garden greenery. It's been brilliant so far, as I don't feel guilty (am imagining they compost it) for binning it yet don't need to deal with scary compost myself.

Although brave M did empty the blue bin of 'compost' that was left in our garden over two years ago by previous owners. Lots of recognisable tea bags, some bits of plastic bags and tin foil but some 'compost'. I don't think there were any rats, but there were certainly many small spiders. He put all this on top of the red ant nest we discovered (after some boiling water) so maybe...maybe with a bit more work we will actually have another vegetable patch and manage to grow some.

We have been eating the teeny lettuces I'm growing on my windowsill. Suspect they are only small as I accidentally got too carried away with the seeds and sprinkled too many. Nice though, although I did find out the reason some of the leaves are a little yellow is the soil may be lacking in phosphates. Now they sound appealing don't they? Anyone got an organic, non- creepy crawly way of adding phosphates in to compost/soil please?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I did gardening over the Bank Holiday weekend. I didn't really know what I was doing so I put on a rubber glove and yanked at the weeds and shoved them in bin bags, which I then took to the refuse collection place...we don't have such things to buy from our council as the greenery bin you mentioned. Hard work, but the garden looks miles better, and thankfully I didn't cut through the electricity wire to provide power to the shed...!

Anonymous said...

Gardening is really satisfying, at least when you do it, two rainy weeks later and all weeds are back less so...cutting back shrubs and trees is my favourite thing though.

JuanitaTortilla said...

That's what weekends are for -- gardening! :)

Of course you can take part in my giveaway. Don't forget to check back (at my blog) for the result! Good luck.

Juanita

Unknown said...

LOL, I didn't actually find it 'satifying' perhaps if it was not the start of the summer and I was not pregnant I might enjoy it...??

Actually scrap that, seven years ago, when B had just been born, hubby decided he wanted to put a shed in the garden, as we had just moved here....and this involved digging up half of the garden as it had a raised wall area (for weeds, no less). That took a week of backbreaking work, and even now, I don't look back and think it was satifying....I don't think I have green fingers....at all!!

Anonymous said...

Nothing is satisfying apart from lying on sofa when preggers. Even eating becomes a pain doesn't it as there is not enough room! Nearly time though.