Sunday, October 31, 2010

The best-laid plans...

I was all set to write a ranty post tonight. All about Halloween and the nightmare it is for the overthinkers among us (that would be me, in case you were wondering). But, frankly, I'm too tired for ranting. Or even overthinking - which may well be a first.

I spent the afternoon in the garden, planting. Not weeding, planting. The fun part of the whole gardening game. The bare patch of blah under Mr6's window is now full of planty goodness. Things that we hope will grow in an area that offers nothing but hot, blinding afternoon sun, or complete shade for the rest of the day. Not for the faint-hearted.

The whole thing took me by surprise. I'd planned an afternoon of vacuuming and paper reading (less of the former, more of the latter). Instead, we spent some quality time at the garden centre, trailed around by two little boys who rate Garden Centres right up there with 'looking at houses' and 'buying antiques' on their list of least-favourite ways to spend a Sunday. Mr3 is easily bought off with the notion that Garden Centre also usually means that he will spend the next few hours up to his neck in dirt, digging, watering and generally making a mess. Mr6? Not so much.

Home we went with our load of gold-plated (well, one had to assume, given the price) plants, and straight into it. The trouble with planting is that it brings you very close to the garden. Close enough to see the weeds that you may have overlooked had you just been, you know, walking past. But I was a woman with a mission. I was not there to be taunted distracted by weeds. Or that's what I told The Builder when he wandered past at one stage and pointed out a few prize specimens.

"I'm not weeding today," I said. "I'm planting."

The look he gave me suggested that one could do both, but I was not to be waylaid by such tactics.

Having dug holes for, planted in and mulched around 30 plants, I'm here to vouch for the effectiveness of gardening as exercise. I'm shattered. In that wholesome, muscle-fatigue kind of way. Not that angsty, overthinking kind of way.

I can't wait to see how my new little charges fare over the next few weeks.  That's the beautiful thing about gardening. If you put all the right elements into place, technically it should all work well. But there are always surprises. Plants that succeed against the odds. And those that fail to thrive.

Ah well, it all just gives me something else to overthink.

{image: KetiArt/etsy}

15 comments:

  1. Lovely. The gardening, and that wholesome, muscle-fatigue kind tiredness.

    (Lovely husband and Charlie gardened together today. I overhead Charlie say "I fink I love gardening Dad." I suspect that roughly translates to "I love spending time with you, parent.")

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  2. I think you're right about Charlie's comment Lucy - they just love being with you, don't they? Mr6 seems to have grown out of it though... would rather play Lego... Sigh.

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  3. We have some lettuces planted at the moment and just put in some grape viney things to grow over a patio thingyamee, I check them everyday to see their growth. Luckily with this spring weather they actually seem to be growing before my eyes, love it.

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  4. Yay! Sounds like a perfect day. I would rather do 5 hours in the garden than 20 minutes in the house... What did you plant for the hot dry spot?

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  5. It sounds like you had a wonderful day, in the outdoors and planting many treasures.
    I love the garden as well, and so does my little one. She asked for a red rose bush for her birthday and the first bud just bloomed this week, she was delighted!

    I Hope your new friends grow beautiful.
    Have a wonderful week. xxx

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  6. i am not good in the garden...I love the idea of it, but don't get far in the reality of it...I hear good things about it though and I know M1 just loves spending time doing the gardening with his dad, although he is not a big fan of the whipper snipper and breaks into a sweat whenever his dad pulls it out of the shed...

    Watering the garden on the other hand...well, for M1,that is ALWAYS fun!

    Gill xo

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  7. I 'm just leaf clearing these days. There are some huge trees in our neighbourhood and I'm sure every leaf ends up in my little garden!

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  8. I am just starting to have interest in gardening as my backyard direly needs someone to tend to it. I'm amaze how someone like you can plant 30 things! Just reading your post made me feel exhausted. But I'm sure it will be worth it once they all bloom into beauties. Thanks for sharing.

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  9. I love my garden because I don't have to think, I just feel it. Yes that makes me sound like a nutter, but it's kinda how it works. It seems to be working so far. And yes, it is the only thing I'm doing at the moment that could remotely be classified as exercise :-)

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  10. I'm not much of a gardener, I think it's because of the weeds, instead of making me want to get stuck in there & pretty the place up they turn me right off! I've never really understood why we do halloween here & I haven't participated until now, but this year the kids were so exciting about dressing up, though I drew the line at trick-or-treating!

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  11. I can't think of a better way to counter the Halloween fury than a good spot of productive gardening. We did the wander around the Garden Centre yesterday as well, but all we came away with was an armoury with which to conquer the rampant weeds. I guess it's one step at a time here. At least there was no thought about the commercial excuse for bingeing on junk that seems to be taking over our Octobers. :-)

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  12. Pictures of your lovely garden please! In the last year I've become such a green thumb, and it surprised me no end! Couldn't stand being in the garden as a youngster, now I'm happy whether I'm weeding or planting, just as long as I'm in the garden. And I'm trying to convert Miss A at an early age, have been dragging her around plant nurseries since she was two weeks old. x

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  13. Agree, I'd love to see some pics of your garden! Oh dear, I just raved, not ranted about how much I love Halloween on my blog :) We had lots of fun though, which was entirely the point of all! However, I do need to get stuck into my garden...

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  14. THIRTY plants. I have garden envy (but my wallet is probably very happy about that). I also spent the weekend in the garden... weeding. Sigh. But, you know me, I quite like a good weed. It's such hard work, but so satisfying at the end of it. Come to think of it, why can't I feel that way about exercising!!! x

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  15. My 2 boys are not quite as, let's say engaged, in the garden as I am. That said, they are often at their most content when I am gardening. I love gardening (edible gardening, hence the name of my blog), so am probably very happy when I am planting, harvesting and watering. They seem to feed off this and often play together or just mill around (not always, but often). I lose myself when I am in the garden. One time, when I was planing potatoes I looked up at the clock and realised that Mr7yo's swimming lessons had started 10 minutes earlier. Ooops. It seemed as if I had been there for 5 minutes...when it was actually 45.

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