To
prove my point, after the very satisfying experience of eating the first
runner beans from my still-tiny vegetable garden, I moved on to the (exquisitely
dull but ultimately) satisfying task of yanking weeds from the car park
and drive. Weather: dull, cool, overcast with the occasional cloud burst.
Ground conditions: wonderfully soft and damp but not water-logged –
perfect, in fact, for weed removal. State of mind: resigned. Friday,
2pm.
3pm
including 15-minute rain-and-coffee break.
4pm
phone has rung four times, and rain stopped weeding for a further ten
minutes.Rather deceptive this, because much has been removed from behind
the pile of stones.
5pm
serious boredom leading to frequent side-tracks; I found myself doing
thrilling alternative activities such as weeding the front path, pruning
back the Rosa canina that regularly invades the path, tidying
up in the chicken house. It’s getting more and more difficult to
stick to my resolution. Which may explain why my photos are looking remarkably
repetitive...
6pm
brilliant idea! I found Lee’s battered old raincoat, so I don’t
wander off and find something else to do every time it rains (except during
the very heaviest bits…). But now the ground is getting slightly
soggy; it’s difficult to shake the mud off the roots and my gloves
are getting clammy. Why after all this work do these photos look
so samey?
7pm
do I remember sweeping the floor in the living room at some point over
the last hour? I believe I did. Anything to get away from this. But then,
suddenly, the sun came out. A raking light hit the woods on the other
side of the valley, catching the rising mist. I grabbed a beer and came
back with fresh vigour to my task. Now look at it! It’s a different
place altogether.
Saturday
L suddenly decided to join me. On the very last train. My bones were aching when I picked him up at Chiusi station shortly before one. But here we are, undaunted, out in the car park. That pile of stone that has been sitting there every since we fixed the house up has to go. And the final wooden barrier has to be put along the valley side. Then there’s the whole drive to get to work on. Deep breath.11.45am (yes, I know, but we had a late night…) I start on the drive, L on the stones. The I delegate the construction bit to L: his weeding boredom-threshold is very low, as is my listening-to-him-moaning threshold, so it’s better that he gets something less mechanical to do. Agropyron (Elytrigia?) repens. Couch grass. It’s the bane of my life. It’s no comfort to learn that its rhizomes can be used as an anti-flammatory and to treat prostate problems. It’s giving me huge painful blisters on my digging-tool-wielding hand. I’m pulling it up, and dragging up patches of hard-packed gravel, creating ideal conditions for more weeds to leap in there. I’m trying to stamp in all back down afterwards but I’m not having all that much effect. Can I be bothered to start the car up and drive back and forth over it a bit? No, I can’t.
L suddenly decided to join me. On the very last train. My bones were aching when I picked him up at Chiusi station shortly before one. But here we are, undaunted, out in the car park. That pile of stone that has been sitting there every since we fixed the house up has to go. And the final wooden barrier has to be put along the valley side. Then there’s the whole drive to get to work on. Deep breath.11.45am (yes, I know, but we had a late night…) I start on the drive, L on the stones. The I delegate the construction bit to L: his weeding boredom-threshold is very low, as is my listening-to-him-moaning threshold, so it’s better that he gets something less mechanical to do. Agropyron (Elytrigia?) repens. Couch grass. It’s the bane of my life. It’s no comfort to learn that its rhizomes can be used as an anti-flammatory and to treat prostate problems. It’s giving me huge painful blisters on my digging-tool-wielding hand. I’m pulling it up, and dragging up patches of hard-packed gravel, creating ideal conditions for more weeds to leap in there. I’m trying to stamp in all back down afterwards but I’m not having all that much effect. Can I be bothered to start the car up and drive back and forth over it a bit? No, I can’t.
3.30pm
I see L is flagging with the fence construction. And my weeding has lost
any charm it every had. (Did it?) I join him, with a bit of barrier-building,
and a bit of weeding and reorganising what is, rather ridiculously, my
onion patch along the valley side of the car park. I’m not sure
that I’m ever going to get any onions from here. The bulbs I kept
pulling up by mistake looked very much the same size as the bulbs I planted,
except now they have straggly green bits sticking out the top. I’m
not sure that they’ve appreciated being swamped by weeds for months,
though I guess this is what must have kept them alive for all those hot
hot weeks when I didn’t think to provide irrigation of any kind.
Shade and no evaporation. On the other hand, no growth either. And the
pathetic greenery – not to mention the many flower stalks shooting
up – really doesn’t bode well. The more leaves, the more rings.
Right now, I seem to be heading for two- or maximum three-ringed final
products. Maybe I’ll just describe them as scallions. And the flowers
will look pretty…
Sunday
10am and I simply can’t face any more gravel weeding. I
shovel some more of my lovely compost into the second raised bed in the
vegetable garden, and plant out some sad-looking lettuce and tomato seedlings
that have been sitting about for far too long in their tiny root trainers.
In the first bed, my only fear is that everything will choke everything
else, so well are they growing. All right, it’s not going to feed
many people but hey, I enjoyed my beans. Of course the huge courgettes
that were threatening to engulf everything else that I yanked out of there
last weekend and planted on the preciptious slope nearby are really struggling
to get a root-hold. I think two of the three plants will make it, but
I’ve definitely slowed down their development.
With that under my belt, I make a determined attack on the other side of the drive and find, once again, that though heavy weed cover may keep things cool, it doesn’t do much for growth. My poor artichokes, which were looking so very healthy not that long ago, are now not half such splendid specimens. Will they forgive me? Will those artichoke heads I left on burst out into magnificent flower? Will the leaves suddenly multiply? I do hope so, because they are such splendid, architectural things when they’re happy. And I desperately want mine to be happy.
With that under my belt, I make a determined attack on the other side of the drive and find, once again, that though heavy weed cover may keep things cool, it doesn’t do much for growth. My poor artichokes, which were looking so very healthy not that long ago, are now not half such splendid specimens. Will they forgive me? Will those artichoke heads I left on burst out into magnificent flower? Will the leaves suddenly multiply? I do hope so, because they are such splendid, architectural things when they’re happy. And I desperately want mine to be happy.
