The reasons for this neglectfulness on my part are many and varied. One has been the weather this Spring/Summer. Firstly spring was rainless hot and obviously dry which meant more watering which meant I needed to spend more time in the garden to keep everything alive which led to resentment by me because I could be doing so much else with my time. Then Summer was wet/hot and dry/wet/hot and dry. Long periods of damp, high humidity and overcast weather meant the plants became soft then the sun would come back with a vengeance, like a week of 30+ temperatures, and fry the poor little buggers, which led to me becoming very frustrated and again resentful (time wasted, nothing to show for my efforts) with the whole veggie thing.
Another reason for my Summer of neglect was due to me working nights in the Cab it means that when I do surface of a day time it is some where around 11 to 2 o'clock. This puts me right into the highest heat and humidity of the day. Needless to say getting me motivated to go out and do and hour or two of gardening at that time of the day is next to impossible. So there you have it, my excuses for having a poorly run down garden and I'm sticking with them.
Now on a positive note I was able to get out in the garden this morning and get some work done. First of which was plant some picking lettuce and some baby spinach.
So into a unused bed I added a bucketful of compost and a few handfuls of Rooster Booster, turned the whole lot over and in and bunged the seedlings into the soil. Easy as huh?
And last but not least watered the whole lot in with some fish and seaweed emulsion.
Just a photo of a ruby chard that managed to survive my summer of neglect.
This is my Rosella flowering. First time I have grown a Rosella so I'm keeping a close eye on it to see what happens next. I am hoping though that it is not too late in the season with Winter just around the corner.
Anyhow that's it for now, hopefully with some cooler Autumn and Winter weather I'll be able to get more jobs done out in the garden and come up with some kind of plan for getting through Summer around here.
Cheers
Stewart.
2 comments:
I've had such a similar summer - without the cab driving! It was such a disheartening season, and I wondered several times why I was bothering. Now the weather has cooled things are growing again, but I think too late to get anywhere before winter arrives.
A couple of ideas I've had for next year is either cover the vege beds with shade cloth (throw it over some sort of frame structure), or simply not plant anything at all between November and February - which is what http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/ do. Or even gardening only in a small shaded areas. I plan to do some experimenting next year and see what works.
Cheers
Cait :)
I had a slightly more successful summer than last summer. We have shade cloth over 3 raised beds which seems to help, I've noticed that things don't really seem to grow well in December (doesn't help being away and getting the neighbours to water), I planted some stuff in January which grew well.
I also planted less this time, my silverbeet (chard) looked really sad over summer but has really taken off now. I do think that shade cloth makes a big difference.
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