Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Inch by inch, row by row
Yes, I'm back to making my garden grow. It's the short rainy season, and while it hasn't rained in a week or so, the soil is now soft enough to work without simply sending clouds of dusts at one's nostrils.
Last year,when I used a hoe to dig my garden, a crowd of neighbors formed around me. I became the neighborhood entertainment. My method of holding a hoe (or perhaps the simple fact that I was using one) was apparently highly amusing.
This year, thankfully, I'm a normal and boring part of the surroundings. Occasionally people shout "Pole na kazi!" (sorry about the work!), but they don't stand and stare, and even when I do something weird in their eyes-like wearing wool winter gloves as gardening gloves-they don't come to grab the hoe from my hands and do the job for me. Which is just as well. I'm gardening more because I enjoy the work and watching the plants grow than because of the vegetables I'll acquire; the process is as important as the product to me. So it's nice that my neighbors no longer consider me incompetent, and that I can stand and slam my hoe into the soil in peace.
Also, my two new garden-related obsessions:
1) Water. Ever since the local water supply became super unreliable in November, I've been paranoid about water. All my buckets must always be full, giving me around 150 liters in storage. Since my garden is about to grow larger, I'm even more worried about water. It's probably time to buy another 60 L bucket for the purpose of holding garden water.
2) Fences. Animals wander around the neighborhood of the school, sometimes watched by their owners, sometimes not. There are donkeys, cows, pigs, sheep, goats. My garden is surrounded by a fence with thorns threaded through it, but it's not a sturdy fence, and a section of it fell apart in November, allowing a donkey into my garden. These days, you'll see me walking along the fence in the evenings, prying for weaknesses, and fixing them rather inexpertly by using branches and planks lashed on with twine.
I've built several beds, but haven't actually planted anything yet, as I'll be traveling for the next three weeks (I did put cow manure--straight from the cow's owner!--around my fruit trees). More garden news will be coming in mid-January, when I return from my travels.
Last year,when I used a hoe to dig my garden, a crowd of neighbors formed around me. I became the neighborhood entertainment. My method of holding a hoe (or perhaps the simple fact that I was using one) was apparently highly amusing.
This year, thankfully, I'm a normal and boring part of the surroundings. Occasionally people shout "Pole na kazi!" (sorry about the work!), but they don't stand and stare, and even when I do something weird in their eyes-like wearing wool winter gloves as gardening gloves-they don't come to grab the hoe from my hands and do the job for me. Which is just as well. I'm gardening more because I enjoy the work and watching the plants grow than because of the vegetables I'll acquire; the process is as important as the product to me. So it's nice that my neighbors no longer consider me incompetent, and that I can stand and slam my hoe into the soil in peace.
Also, my two new garden-related obsessions:
1) Water. Ever since the local water supply became super unreliable in November, I've been paranoid about water. All my buckets must always be full, giving me around 150 liters in storage. Since my garden is about to grow larger, I'm even more worried about water. It's probably time to buy another 60 L bucket for the purpose of holding garden water.
2) Fences. Animals wander around the neighborhood of the school, sometimes watched by their owners, sometimes not. There are donkeys, cows, pigs, sheep, goats. My garden is surrounded by a fence with thorns threaded through it, but it's not a sturdy fence, and a section of it fell apart in November, allowing a donkey into my garden. These days, you'll see me walking along the fence in the evenings, prying for weaknesses, and fixing them rather inexpertly by using branches and planks lashed on with twine.
I've built several beds, but haven't actually planted anything yet, as I'll be traveling for the next three weeks (I did put cow manure--straight from the cow's owner!--around my fruit trees). More garden news will be coming in mid-January, when I return from my travels.
# posted by Kristen @ 11:43 PM 
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