Sunday, March 21, 2010

Not going to plan

Bad day yesterday.  Woke up crabby - well it'd been a vile week, with massive stress due to our current lack of funds and the very painful decision that we're going to have to sell one of our cars - and yes I know you can survive with one car but living as far from public transport as we do, its going to mean life is just that little bit more difficult.

We've had another sudden hot spell, the last three days have been above 35 degrees.  The chickens had already decimated my leafy greens bed (beetroot, carrots, asian greens, turnips). So, feeling really pissed off about it all, I replanted the lot and put some chard and a few other odds and end around the outside of the bed to distract the chickens.  Six hours later the temperature had hit 37, all the new plantings were beyond dead and the chickens had got through my anti-chicken defences and laid waste to all that hard work.

Hot and crabby I decided to hide inside and read Jackie French, she always inspires me to keep going and keep trying. But not yesterday.

"March is a time of harvest," she said. Oh really, I thought.
  • The sun isn't as fierce - oh yes it is
  • The weather is cooling - oh no its not
  • Tomatos will be glutting - I have a handful of green cherry tomatos to show for my glut
  • Melon's will be ripening - I have about seven melon vines they are all dying of mildew (despite spraying with milk) and so far I have one melon about the size of an egg and two water melons about the size of peas
  • Pumpkins - not a one, not a single sodding one, they've all rotted off, well the two that even started anyway
  • Summer vegetables will be mature - no they won't they'll all be burnt off by the relentless sodding sun and no sodding rain that's dried out all your raised beds to the point where they can't hold water even if they want too
Yesterday I was quite prepared to cover the entire garden in concrete and paint it green.

Today the chickens have been banished to their new (nearly finished) coop.  Something has chewed through all the shadecloth I put around the bottom - already, after less than a week.  YAY.  The leafy green bed has been replanted AGAIN and is covered in wire and booby trapped with hand grenades.  Hubs and I have put in my lattice to provide a bit of privacy and grow something up (grape? kiwi? peas?).

I went around the garden and picked things to prove to myself that this is all worthwhile and I can get food out of my garden - and ended up with a small bowl of chilis and a handful of beans.  It hasn't  helped.

So I retired to the kitchen and made plum sauce, with the leftover plums frozen from spring

And got some sourdough starter started.  Which I'm thinking is going to be a very interesting experiment, in breeding new life forms in the kitchen at least.

Sigh.

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Anonymous said...

Hang in there, hon. It will get better.

Quixotic said...

I jusr dug out my tiny little patch and turned it over ready for replanting - now I just need to regain the use of my arms to plant some new babies!!

Hang in there - go hit something then have a wine.

E. said...

Hopefully autumn will be better fro the gardeb for you. Please keep it up eventually I will actaully plant my vegie garden and it will mostly be due to your posts.

Belinda said...

From what I have heard it's been a tough, tough gardening year in many areas of NSW. I hope things start to cool down and get all inspiring for you soon.

Kind Regards
Belinda

Cathryn Hein said...

I did the sourdough thing once. NEVER AGAIN. It was a complete and utter pain in the arse. You have to do some wet slap sort of kneading thing which just shoots sticky dough onto every conceivable surface in your kitchen which you then spend hours trying to clean off. And I'd better add that because of the constant feeding of the starter, it was actually quite an expensive bread to make.

Hope your garden comes good. I can relate to the lack of veges. I have about 3 cherry tomatoes ripening and that's it. Everything else has been killed off by mildew. Summer was such a disappointment I'm not sure I can be bothered with any autumn plantings.

Unknown said...

Aw thanks Mel, your words made me smile just when I needed it.

Thanks Belinda :) Your comments always make me feel better.

Hey Quixotic, let me know how it all goes. Would love to hear.

Cath, you're sourdough experiment made me laugh - sounds just like the sort of thing that'd happen to me :) I'll keep in mind what you said about the expense, honestly, given the number of disasters I have with bought yeast and a breadmaker, I'm not sure how well sourdough is going to go for me!!

And thanks for telling me about your garden, it kind-of makes it a bit better when you know its not just you. I too am feeling pretty underwhelmed at the thought of autumn planting.

gavgams said...

Sorry to hear about the car / finances.
As far as the garden goes
Well your very funny take on it .. and the Jacky French unreality of it... is bloody funny, quality comic writing.
Go for a regular column in the papers

E. said...

Hopefully autumn will be better fro the gardeb for you. Please keep it up eventually I will actaully plant my vegie garden and it will mostly be due to your posts.