Green Machine

Speights Supervises the Growth Plan

I have to confess that I am not much of a gardener. When you are so time poor, gardening was something that seemed to cease. The current garden is one that has been designed by survival. If it lives after minimal watering, weeding & tending after a vicious Summer, it gets to stay, if it doesn't, well it's dead anyway. In my first house in Gisborne, my then partner was very green fingered, and the thought of a cottage garden was quite appealing to a first time home owner. It was also helped by the fact that it was designed & planted by a professional, so was pretty low maintenance.

My First Crop

My one area of 'greenie' tendencies flourishes with vegetable gardens. I love to cook, I love to eat & I really love to cook & eat things I have grown. My father is prodigious vegetable gardener. He has multiple plots & produces enough veg across the year to feed a small African nation, even though there is just him & Mum at home. He has instilled a strong sense of the importance & pleasure of deriving food from the land. So earlier this year I might have mentioned that I had a raised garden bed built & in May Ross (my Dad) helped me get it started. The one major challenge we have had comes in the form of a 105kg K-9 who seems to think my veg plot also doubles as a mastiff bone depositary. After many weeks, tears & canine adjustments we now have a good crop of celery, parsley, salad greens & even a few brassica's survived the oversized paws.

The 'grow the Cucumber in the bag of compost' technique.

With Spring starting tomorrow; tomato's, basil, a courgette & cucumber have joined the ranks. More importantly I am going to have my first attempt at spuds. These are grown in a purpose built 'potato bag' so should be safe from 'you know who'. Ahhh I can taste the results now - Move over River Cottage the Waghorne wonder patch is well on it's way!

Meanwhile.... My niece's shrug is almost done, steady progress has been made on my tie front cardi & in return for helping out my veg patch I am going to do a work vest for Ross.