retirement project
May. 16th, 2026 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednaydujI've been spending a fair amount of time on gardening. Two years ago we grew 3000 cherry tomatoes. Last year Ken decided gardening was too much work so we didn't do it. But now I have lots of time, right? I seem to be kind of screwing it up. We do container gardening because our soil is contaminated with lead paint, and I didn't really read the instructions very well and I bought the wrong kind of dirt, and I put the fertilizer in the wrong place and a bunch of other stupid things. But probably the plants will survive anyway.
We are putting the containers in an enclosure which has a hardware cloth base and a deer netting top, and I had to put these things together. I needed help for some of the things because they are two person jobs, but a lot of it I managed to do myself (perhaps badly, see above.) Deer netting in particular is an obnoxious substance to deal with, because it flaps around in the wind and tangles with itself and you can't see what's going on to de-tangle because it's just little strands of tiny black threads. I haven't yet set up the electric fence, which we run at the base of the hardware cloth to deter chipmunks and the like. I did set up the rain barrel and have been using its water for my container set up.
Then my friend Cally asked for help with her garden, which is at a community garden in my town (her yard is unsuitable for gardening because it is completely shady), because the person she'd lined up for doing watering on the days when she can't (which is most of them) had to move out of town unexpectedly, and I agreed. If all the tomato plants that Cally planted produce like my tomato plants two years ago, we will really be drowning in them!
The community garden used to be a mile and a half from my house, on the flats, very convenient for bicycling, but the town decided they wanted that space for (yet another) ballfield, and arranged for some space up on top of the hill in town, so it's now a 4 mile ride up a moderately noticeable grade. So far I have driven there once and bicycled there three times.
I'm also growing basil, so I can make pesto, and eightball squashes (spherical zucchini), but they haven't come up yet. On the other hand it's been kind of cool, so maybe the seeds just got a late start. It will be warm in the next week, so maybe they will notice that it's time to sprout. And if they don't, I will try sticking some new ones in the ground.
We are putting the containers in an enclosure which has a hardware cloth base and a deer netting top, and I had to put these things together. I needed help for some of the things because they are two person jobs, but a lot of it I managed to do myself (perhaps badly, see above.) Deer netting in particular is an obnoxious substance to deal with, because it flaps around in the wind and tangles with itself and you can't see what's going on to de-tangle because it's just little strands of tiny black threads. I haven't yet set up the electric fence, which we run at the base of the hardware cloth to deter chipmunks and the like. I did set up the rain barrel and have been using its water for my container set up.
Then my friend Cally asked for help with her garden, which is at a community garden in my town (her yard is unsuitable for gardening because it is completely shady), because the person she'd lined up for doing watering on the days when she can't (which is most of them) had to move out of town unexpectedly, and I agreed. If all the tomato plants that Cally planted produce like my tomato plants two years ago, we will really be drowning in them!
The community garden used to be a mile and a half from my house, on the flats, very convenient for bicycling, but the town decided they wanted that space for (yet another) ballfield, and arranged for some space up on top of the hill in town, so it's now a 4 mile ride up a moderately noticeable grade. So far I have driven there once and bicycled there three times.
I'm also growing basil, so I can make pesto, and eightball squashes (spherical zucchini), but they haven't come up yet. On the other hand it's been kind of cool, so maybe the seeds just got a late start. It will be warm in the next week, so maybe they will notice that it's time to sprout. And if they don't, I will try sticking some new ones in the ground.
