I am dreaming of strawberries.
Luscious sweet berries that Argy and Bargy will pick the summer through. A bumper crop that I will need to cover to fend off the queuing blackbirds. Fruit so bountiful that I shall need to start making preserves and pleading for friends, neighbors and family to take the berries that I cannot use.
Now back to reality.
Sadly, said strawberries are still in little pots. They have been sitting on the back step since I bought them at the last Whitehorse Farmers' Market. I think they are missing a bit of soil after being trodden on by two marauding boys. By sheer luck, they were watered once when it rained ... and the wind was blowing in the right direction.
Gardening isn't a strong point.
I do love it, but feel that I am always muddling my way through. When I pruned my roses a couple of weeks ago, I virtually razed them to the ground trying to even everything up. I have a plum tree that lost all its leaves in summer, flowered in autumn and looked distinctly unwell by the start of winter. When I last weeded, I wondered why so many weeds seemed to have bulbs and not roots (the jonquils are going to look a little sparce this year). And last winter I grew broccoli, cauliflowers and snowpeas all in one small planter box on our front verandah. Visitors to the house made polite comments like My, I didn't know that those vegetables could co-exist in such close proximity.
So you see, the strawberries are probably doomed.
Pfffft... don't worry, just roll with it! I grow my veggies in planter boxes ridiculously close to each other as well, and they turn out great (who cares what the back of the packet says), and as good ol' Peter Cundall from Gardening Australia says, roses are the most forgiving of plants and will thrive after good hard pruning (my rose pruning can be especially brutal!). And you know, those Jonquills perhaps would like a new position to grow this year? It's also my opinion that if a plant can't survive in my garden after being accidentally neglected and forgotten, then it doesn't deserve to be there anyway ;-)
ReplyDeleteLove your advice, beth j. Thanks - its very encouraging, for someone green-thumb-challenged like myself. After reading your blog, I now know that its perfectly ok for one's roses to look like they have been consumed by a herd of cows!
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