Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Yard
Hopalong:
Happy that's working well for you, Lighter. I don't have a neighbor I'm comfortable asking to come weed but I might be able to hire my friend's son again at some point. Just now I think I have another week before carrots thinning is urgent though, they're not quite 3-4" yet. So that's good.
I use a cushion etc. There's no way to avoid being on my knees however. When I had my raised beds rebuilt we used concrete blocks, which keep me a bit away from the center. It'll be physically awkward no matter how I do it but I do hope to get it done. Weird very cold snap coming up this weekend with a return to frost! I have some plastic sheeting I'll drape over the beds that night if forecast holds.
CB, I have that exact handle-stool! Bought it many years ago when I worked for the company that started Organic Gardening (the magazine and the movement). The pad's too thin to help but I add an old kickboard kind of thing...actually a squishier foam pad the size and shape of a kickboard, but softer; came with an "ab roller"--remember those?. I stick it across the kneeling section. Helps a bit.
It's unusual for spring to be so drawn out here and that's a gift. Although it's always spectacular, normally it seems to go from winter to 10 minutes of spring and then three humid months of summer.
Tupp, I have a chubby 73-year-old with a bad knee who keeps saying he'll do it....watching him get up and down hurts almost as my own knee! But he's determined to come plant the fig tree that he grew from a graft (neighbor's tree). I'm trying to figure out where it'll get enough sun but still be screened from the worst cold. Patio makes sense as it radiates heat but doesn't get a full 8 hours of sun. Nothing's poifect. A neighbor gave me a nice tomato start (plus cage) and I bartered old but okay veggie seeds with another person who left two Amy's Apricot seedlings (tomato, heirloom, cherry size) on my porch in trade. Read about them and they sound awesome. I really like the seeds and plant trading and gifting thing that's going on here...a neighborhood website's been a treasure.
And my Brit neighbor who loves gardening came over and weeded my front bed for my birthday! That's actually what I wanted (M gave me a third sweater, bless 'im. Needs training....some men think: Woman. Present. Oh, you decorate her. Out come pearls and sweaters. I'd rather have a hoe and hinted strongly that a couple hours paid garden help was what I'd REALLY like. He couldn't get his head around that for some reason. It is the thought that counts though.)
Hugs
Hops
Twoapenny:
Hopsie I was thinking more of a Lady Chatterley's Lover type gardener :) Lol, now I'm thinking maybe we can get you on some kind of zip line like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible so you can kind of swoop in and thin as you whizz past.
I think we kind of missed your birthday? Belated Happy Birthday to you, Hopsie, did you have a nice day? Yes I hear you on the sweater versus gardening thing; I am much keener on action rather than stuff. One of the nicest things a friend has ever done for me is come round and cook dinner. Simple pasta dish with salad, garlic bread and wine but it's just so nice when someone else does it and you can just chat, sip your wine and unwind while someone else cooks. Food always tastes better to me when someone else has made it.
The fig tree and other seeds sound lovely. It will be like a little orchard out there eventually, Hops, it sounds so nice. I'm still waiting on my compost to be delivered for my spuds to go in but the containers for them have arrived. I've got small containers at the back and small bags of compost I can use for those, I just haven't decided what to put in them yet. I'm wondering about putting some tubs out the front but things do get nicked from there so not sure yet - either go for something very cheap so that if it does wander off it won't be the end of the world or something so heavy that it can't be lifted. Someone I used to clean for years ago lived at the bottom of a very long track through woodland, beautiful house, and they had a very heavy wrought iron table and chairs in the garden - large table with eight chairs to match. That was stolen one night, they were sat in the garden till bedtime, went to bed and when they got up in the morning it had all gone and they didn't hear a thing. Amazing what people will do sometimes.
Anyway, I am digressing as always! I hope your birthday was a happy one and I hope that the garden starts to come together without your knee doing anything hideous xx
Hopalong:
Thanks, Tupp. Bday was quiet and sweet with an extravagant dinner by M, bless 'im. Coquilles St. Jacques, mit mushrooms...divine. It was my 70th and my consolation prize is gonna be a big party this time next year in my own back yard. Beer, wine and happy hugging people, I hope. I like bdays.
Idea? For your big tubs, since there are cheaper shortcuts to buying actual planters etc., how about: the biggest plastic trash cans you can find? You could put gravel or sand or rocks in the bottom 24+/- inches, depending on their size, then spray paint them some kind of color that works for you, even black. With the rocks and then all the soil weight, maybe they won't get stolen. Just a thought....same idea could be done with boxes, old crates, whatever. A metal animal watering trough would be great too. An old bathtub (not that I know how you'd get it home). I love gardens where people cleverly repurpose anything that holds dirt. (And even more I love thinking of elaborate back-killing complicated projects for OTHER people...ignore!)
I am avoiding my paperwork. Really trying today. Laundry's running, kitchen's tidier.
hugs
Hops
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on May 07, 2020, 07:41:58 AM ---Thanks, Tupp. Bday was quiet and sweet with an extravagant dinner by M, bless 'im. Coquilles St. Jacques, mit mushrooms...divine. It was my 70th and my consolation prize is gonna be a big party this time next year in my own back yard. Beer, wine and happy hugging people, I hope. I like bdays.
Idea? For your big tubs, since there are cheaper shortcuts to buying actual planters etc., how about: the biggest plastic trash cans you can find? You could put gravel or sand or rocks in the bottom 24+/- inches, depending on their size, then spray paint them some kind of color that works for you, even black. With the rocks and then all the soil weight, maybe they won't get stolen. Just a thought....same idea could be done with boxes, old crates, whatever. A metal animal watering trough would be great too. An old bathtub (not that I know how you'd get it home). I love gardens where people cleverly repurpose anything that holds dirt. (And even more I love thinking of elaborate back-killing complicated projects for OTHER people...ignore!)
I am avoiding my paperwork. Really trying today. Laundry's running, kitchen's tidier.
hugs
Hops
--- End quote ---
Ooh plastic bins with rocks in is a good idea, Hopsie, I hadn't thought of that! That would work well. Watering trough would be a good idea as well. It's a tiny front yard that (literally 6 feet by 2 feet, maybe a teeny bit more) so there isn't a fence, it's just paving slabs and then the main path that goes to the road and a smaller path that runs along the side between the houses so some heavy tubs and water troughs would be good, they could kind of go along the edge to make a fence but would still be easy to move around when need be. Ooh I like that idea very much, well done, Hopsie!
I'm glad the birthday dinner was nice, it sounds lovely. And yes, big party next year, in your lovely garden with all your veggies and fig trees, it will be heavenly :) xx
lighter:
Hops:
I think a large raised planting bed built for you would have been the perfect bd present.
A sweater?
Lighter
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