[growth] I just want to murble about my allotment some more okay

[kaberett]

I didn't (unsurprisingly) get the greenhouse, but looking at it did substantially clarify my thoughts and the eBays do regularly contain less fancy greenhouses that, actually, probably will perfectly well do the job now I know what I'm after.

I have also found a source of relatively cheap used scaffold boards, those being what I have decided I want to construct my raised beds with, so hopefully I will get my act together to actually buy one of these greenhouses and then I will rent a van and get A to chauffeur me long-sufferingly around the place. (Preferably in time for this growing season, but I'm cutting it a little fine there.)

Finally, in terms of hardware purchase, I... had a pair of cheap shitty secateurs that I was using, on Sunday, to start condensing my various teasels into a form that would fit in the compost bin. (They've been standing since last summer so the birds have had all the seeds they were going to, and anyway the bin is ridiculously overengineered such that I can compost weeds in it, which is pretty great.) And I was getting slowly more perplexed about them seeming slowly less and less effective until the lower handle broke off in my hand, at which point I realised that the decreased efficacy had been due to plastic deformation, and while on the one hand this is somewhat irritating on the other it meant I could by some more secateurs that were actually fit for purpose now I was gardening more without feeling so guilty.

So I have! And I now own a pair of Kew-branded ratchet anvil secateurs (on which I spent significantly less than that, not least because I didn't need the sharpener because I already have a whetstone, thanks), and a second-hand Felco Model 2. (I'm fond of Felco not least because my mother was given a pair by one of her good friends lo these many years ago as, if I remember correctly, a wedding gift; he died a few years back, and then last year she was grumbling at me about how she'd finally had to replace them and nothing else on the market now was anything like as good as her thirty-year-old set from her friend. So I sort of Looked at her, and asked her what exactly the problem was, and collected them when next I was visiting and took them home and took them apart and replaced the spring and sharpened the blade and oiled the mechanism and now they are working just fine again, and most of the 30 minutes' labour was in fact working out what that style of spring was called and what size exactly I was looking to replace.)

In terms of my upcoming jobs and planting...

Well, I need to spend some quality time pruning the Ribes bushes various; the plot came with a red dessert gooseberry, a redcurrant, and what-I-think-is-a-jostaberry, all of which are a little neglected and tangled. Tidying them up was on the list for Sunday immediately after the teasels, but a pair of secateurs that couldn't handle a teasel was... erstrecht not going to cope with actual wood. They also need top dressing with manure and then probably mulching, but that can wait until after I've tidied them up a little.

Next door, I've come to the conclusion that what I want to do with my ground-level bed (squash, pak choi, and failed calabrese last year) this season is set some broad beans and peas going down the middle around now, and then sow quinoa down the edges some time later. On the one hand, it's not known that this is a good idea; on the other, intercropping legumes and quinoa is a topic of active research and growing trials, and it looks to me like it ought to be sensible, so no doubt you will collectively get Running Commentary while I experiment.

At home, it's time for me to get the purple chillis and the orange bell peppers started (if I'm going to); that can't really happen until we're back full time, and while I'm happy to heat the house to a temperature that is safe and adequate for me to exist in when I'm actually there most of the time, that is... less the case when I'm away. (I'm attempting to resist the temptation to acquire a heated propagator.) Also the tomatoes, though there the thing I really need to do is work out where I want to put them -- whether I want to grow them on at home again, or if I'll be looking to plant them out at the plot.

Which is a general problem -- the working-out-where-to-plant-things. I'm dithering but probably about to come down on the side of putting the saffron bulbs in around the base of the cherry tree; I think I know where I'm going to put the comfrey once it's established itself a little better; and I'm tentatively leaning towards growing the poppies-for-seed in a patch of mixed wildflowers. (WHERE, though, Alex, you need to work out where you're going to put this. Probably also in the general vicinity of the cherry, if we're honest.)

But. Yes. Priorities: getting misc. seeds started; actually sourcing and constructing my proper raised beds so that I can plant out into them (which will inevitably involve More Weeding); pruning and dressing the Ribes; and working out what I want by way of asparagus, because my mother has offered to buy me some crowns.

So, you know, if you have asparagus cultivar recommendations, please by all means go ahead! I prefer the stems to the tips, and I am resigned to growing at least some purple...

Comments

[kaberett]

Other things I am poking at: whether I can reasonably graft some plum onto a mature cherry (and offer some mature cherry in return); the viability, given that we mostly use a dishwasher, of being the terrible hippie who Grows Their Own Loofah to use by way of dish and cleaning sponges.

[alatefeline]

This is lovely and refreshing. I’m grateful for all gardening stories.

The one about repairing the 30-year-old heirloom tool melted my heart, though.

[mdlbear]

TIL that "secateurs" is your word for what we in the US call "pruning shears". Fascinating.

[archangelbeth]

*happily reads gardening stuff*

Good luck with all the planty things!

[jedusor]

I am definitely going to whip out the term "secateurs" next time I encounter a pair of pruning shears, that is an excellent word.

[sylvaine]

*chinhands* I love these posts of you getting excited about gardening, it's fantastic & I enjoy getting to vicariously live through you without actually having to do any of my own gardening xD

[kaberett]

<3 I thought you might collectively enjoy that one. :-)

[kaberett]

I was doing some pre-purchase research and I was so confused by the internet being adamant that they were called "pruners"!

[kaberett]

Thank you! :D

[kaberett]

Hee, I spent some time during pre-purchase research being really confused about why the entire Internet was calling them "pruners" now before I... worked out... what was going on... :D

[kaberett]

:D Thank you for saying!

[cesy]

This is so exciting to read, and is inspiring me to make more use of my herbs.

[lebannen]

Many things about this post make me happy, but the one that's particularly relevant to me is how "she'd finally had to replace them" is followed by evidence that said replaced item had in fact been retained with all parts identifiable for replacement.

... Was it a volute spring? I have just spent a while looking up springs, discovered this name and realised that I could possibly fix the purple secateurs with a £2 part off ebay. Because of course I still have them, even though I liked the green ones better *before* the purple ones broke.

[kaberett]

Yep, that's the one! They're remarkably cheap and they really do just slot in and make the thing work again :) I didn't quite get the right size -- I went for one step longer/more resistant -- but it seems to be working for her anyway, so!

[vass]

So I sort of Looked at her, and asked her what exactly the problem was, and collected them when next I was visiting and took them home and took them apart and replaced the spring and sharpened the blade and oiled the mechanism and now they are working just fine again, and most of the 30 minutes' labour was in fact working out what that style of spring was called and what size exactly I was looking to replace.

I love everything about this.

[booksarelife]

I love reading about your garden adventures!! There is a garden at our house that my mom does most of the work with, but some of that is she just has more time than my dad, but we never did anything more interesting than cucumbers, tomatoes, potentially zucchini one year? And some herbs plus mint. And then the wire fence sort of got crushed by snow and most of it is now flowers and herbs, I think. At the moment I'm in Athens which has several awesome farmers markets that apartment mates and I are trying to make a habit out of going to. (Also, somewhat unrelated (and also unsolicited advice that you can totally ignore) but if you ever end up here, Athens, at least in many of the not super touristy parts of
it, often has narrow/uneven/broken sidewalks that seem like they'd be somewhat hard to navigate in a chair, if you needed to use one, but also this is just my impression)

[fyreharper]

Do love hearing about your Plant Adventures :) and YAY for fixing your mother’s Good Pruning Shears! :has very little hope of correctly pronouncing your word for them: :p

Curious why purple asparagus is a Resignation?

[jedusor]

I've never seen "pruners" either, just pruning shears, but I don't garden enough to hang out with the kind of people who would use the term often enough to be inclined to drop a syllable XD

[kaberett]

(ALSO HI I have been REALLY APPRECIATING you being around here more and commenting more and so on and I should... say that! Hi it is lovely to see you & I really appreciate you Making The Effort. <3)

[jedusor]

it's pretty incredible how much of a difference ADHD meds + not having a super burnout job anymore makes to my everyday energy levels for stuff like commenting! for the record I have never stopped reading, I just wasn't engaging much for a while there because spoons.

[kaberett]

Resignation: I personally am a bit indifferent to purple (it's... a colour? it goes well with teal? I could... just have teal?) but me_and is Very Fond, so I'm going to be growing a bunch of spuriously purple things to make him happy, and do put-upon play-acted Resignation re same as performative wossname.

(ewt is also very fond of purple but this mostly means I get an excuse to try growing even more purple things for A while pretending I don't actually want to. :-p)

[fyreharper]

Aha - right, yes, not being SQUEE IT IS PURPLE would make a bit of a difference there! And yay for sillygrumbles / affection-via-vegetables :)