Once upon a time, writing was my hobby. But I kinda of sucked at keeping up with that, and that meant that, as my posts got further and further apart, I spent just a couple of hours a month occupied with my “hobby”. To put this in perspective, Andy spends at least 2 nights and Friday afternoon down the barn working on his cars, and he’d stay longer if it wasn’t for me hanging around and wanting attention. (Who’s that callin’ me an attention whore?!)
Basically, if I didn’t want to turn into a sad person who sits at home alone most evenings watching TV that she doesn’t care about, I needed to find me some sort of hobby. Ironically I’m now hobby-blogging about my hobby, which just goes to show that I am fickle and ridiculous.
So, what hobby did I choose? Oddly, I chose gardening. It’s a completely illogical choice, in that my life so far has seen a chain of dead or nearly-dead house plants stretching out in my wake. I can grown cactuses, but that may be due in large part to my tendency not just to underwater plants but to simply NOT water them. Great for cactuses. Great for household water consumption. Not so great for the dead plants.
I suppose rather than choosing a hobby I suspected would be a pain in the backside and down near impossible for me to master, it more chose me. Our new house has a nice garden area, and whilst it was covered in beautiful Forget-Me-Nots, it was secretly running a little wild. We’re talking bindweed, dandelions that would put the triffids to shame, and a marching army of slugs who devoured an entire petunia in one evening. I found five slugs on it – 5 slugs, and it only had four leaves!! So I set about turning, and digging, and weeding, and before I knew it I was out there most evenings, hunting out the baby bindweed with ruthless dedication, planting various plants (all hardy, all perennial, all low-maintenance – I’m no idiot!), and even attempting to use some magic non-chemical slug killer stuff to give the plants a fighting chance.
The strange thing is that I’m enjoying it. Standing in the greenhouse and watching to see seedlings grow, watering with dedication, getting muddy and damp and impressively tanned – it feels wholesome somehow, like what I’m doing is as good for my soul as it is for the garden. And OK, so it’s only been a few weeks, and there is a reasonably large chance that it will all die a dramatic, expensive and depressing death (or that I may simply be distracted by something shiner) – but it’s a chance that right now seems smaller than the chance of me carrying on.
So.. there may be some gardening posts popping up around here, and this is fair warning – hopefully I won’t make it too boring, and who knows it might actually be of use to people. Is there a burgeoning network of amateur gardener blogs out there? Young ones? Or am I going to be a lonely voice? So… time for some piccies!
This is the before picture… the flowers hide a massive not of weeds, plus some lovely tulips…
And the after photo – rest assured they are well watered, the photo just makes them look very dry. I’ve also transplanted some of the Forget-Me-Nots, which are a bit straggly…
No before photo unfortunately, but this is the font patch that was previous concrete and weeds… now just needs some potted plants to brighten it up, and some Wisteria up the wall!
And my favourite the herb garden – only being slightly slug nibbled and the moment, but still seeming strong!
Do you enjoy gardening at all?
