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ewtIf the world goes to shit and we're reduced to foraging and subsistence farming to live, I'll be the one sitting in the corner, hugging my knees and rocking back and forth because I nearly got crawled on by a spider. Or a woodlouse, or an earwig, or an ant...
I really dislike my inability to deal with crawly things. I'm going to have to go back out and finish what I started (transferring the contents of one of the landlady's old bins into a strong binbag so that the bin men can take it away and so I can use the actual plastic bin as a water butt, or failing that (it might be too tall for greywater) as a container for the potato stack), but got so jumpy I decided it would be better to take a break and come in and wait until I've stopped shaking and my heartrate has settled down and I've stopped imagining all the crawlies.
Why do I do this stuff when nobody is home?
I'll never be a proper hippie :/
On the bright side: the old b0rked picnic table is now upside down and being used as a (bigger, better) compost heap. I've lined it with an old duvet cover I hate, and covered it with a blanket, weighted down so it doesn't blow away. There was some pretty rich soil down at the bottom of the heap. Also I think some of the chestnuts (mostly wormy) might have been sprouting but am too twitchy to sort through just now and find them, much as I'd love a sweet chestnut tree. And the old compost cage, which was too cagey to really work and didn't have a lid, is empty, so I can use that for some of my climbing things.
Also: the chamomile is HUGE. I didn't expect it to get so big.
Note to self: tomorrow afternoon, spend some time boiling the kettle and pouring it on the anthills. If you don't, there will be no strawberries, because the aphids will have eaten up all the strawberry plants. Fule. Should have done this when the ants first started appearing. Now there are loads of the little bastards. They thrive in warm dry soils, like what we've got right now as it's warm and dry.
Also to do: get compost, dig and delineate vegetable beds, start more vegetables in seed trays, sow dill in situ in the front garden, sow flax in the little thing where the wild garlic grows, consider acquiring copper tape/wire/something else copper to stop slugs eating everything in sight, get the potatoes started already or there won't BE any, do newspaper mulch and plastic bottle watering funnels everywhere that it's appropriate. And the greywater stuff, but that's for another day. I need to get the growing things in the ground, now.
The other lemon dropped off my lemon tree, but it is making new leaves again. I do not grok the ways of lemon trees. I think maybe there shouldn't be woodlice in the soil, though, although I'm not sure. And I'm too squeamish to get them out myself.
If anyone wants an Aloe vera plant, I have six. I can't believe how hard it is to kill these things.
I'm looking for spider plants for the kitchen, and for a maidenhair fern or two (so pretty!) for the loo.
Right, off to tackle the rest of the binbag project.
I really dislike my inability to deal with crawly things. I'm going to have to go back out and finish what I started (transferring the contents of one of the landlady's old bins into a strong binbag so that the bin men can take it away and so I can use the actual plastic bin as a water butt, or failing that (it might be too tall for greywater) as a container for the potato stack), but got so jumpy I decided it would be better to take a break and come in and wait until I've stopped shaking and my heartrate has settled down and I've stopped imagining all the crawlies.
Why do I do this stuff when nobody is home?
I'll never be a proper hippie :/
On the bright side: the old b0rked picnic table is now upside down and being used as a (bigger, better) compost heap. I've lined it with an old duvet cover I hate, and covered it with a blanket, weighted down so it doesn't blow away. There was some pretty rich soil down at the bottom of the heap. Also I think some of the chestnuts (mostly wormy) might have been sprouting but am too twitchy to sort through just now and find them, much as I'd love a sweet chestnut tree. And the old compost cage, which was too cagey to really work and didn't have a lid, is empty, so I can use that for some of my climbing things.
Also: the chamomile is HUGE. I didn't expect it to get so big.
Note to self: tomorrow afternoon, spend some time boiling the kettle and pouring it on the anthills. If you don't, there will be no strawberries, because the aphids will have eaten up all the strawberry plants. Fule. Should have done this when the ants first started appearing. Now there are loads of the little bastards. They thrive in warm dry soils, like what we've got right now as it's warm and dry.
Also to do: get compost, dig and delineate vegetable beds, start more vegetables in seed trays, sow dill in situ in the front garden, sow flax in the little thing where the wild garlic grows, consider acquiring copper tape/wire/something else copper to stop slugs eating everything in sight, get the potatoes started already or there won't BE any, do newspaper mulch and plastic bottle watering funnels everywhere that it's appropriate. And the greywater stuff, but that's for another day. I need to get the growing things in the ground, now.
The other lemon dropped off my lemon tree, but it is making new leaves again. I do not grok the ways of lemon trees. I think maybe there shouldn't be woodlice in the soil, though, although I'm not sure. And I'm too squeamish to get them out myself.
If anyone wants an Aloe vera plant, I have six. I can't believe how hard it is to kill these things.
I'm looking for spider plants for the kitchen, and for a maidenhair fern or two (so pretty!) for the loo.
Right, off to tackle the rest of the binbag project.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 04:23 pm (UTC)If you have a spare chamomile seedling / cutting we could do a swap ...
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 05:39 pm (UTC)If you're in London then we could meet up for plant exchange or you could come and see my
dumpgarden in all its, er, glory.no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 05:32 pm (UTC)I heartily dislike aphids. They are about the most consistently damaging thing in my garden. And the ones with wings keep landing on me and squishing when I try to pick them off.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 05:41 pm (UTC)I find a bed of straw keeps the slugs off things. It hurts their foot.
If in the process of social meltdown Britain also becomes much warmer, you will probably be the only one who doesn't get malaria.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 05:49 pm (UTC)If in the process of social meltdown Britain also becomes much warmer, you will probably be the only one who doesn't get malaria.
Perhaps. If I do get malaria and there is no good medical care I intend to eat lots of mugwort, because that's the closest thing I know to drugs that are currently effective against malaria. Of course, if they over-use artemisin to the point of resistance then I'm screwed.
Having grown up in mosquito-infested bits of Canada, I can just about tolerate mosquitoes. They don't break my brain nearly as much as most other bugs do, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 06:13 pm (UTC)There is of course the option of drinking lots of gin and tonic, for the quinine :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 07:12 pm (UTC)spider plants are fun. also rather easy to care for, I seem to remember. I'm opposed to having anything to care for that doesnt give a serious return in emotional bonding, so plants are right out for now. if it doesnt talk or meow, it needs to stay outside.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 12:22 pm (UTC)Anyways.