Wednesday didn’t Count.

I set off into the #MakeMayCount with a whiz and a bang with a superhero mentality of all things are possible.  In my head I can see each of the projects I want to achieve broken down into individual chores and it does all seem possible, and I get all excited. 

And then I race off like a bull at a gate and throw myself into it all like I have boundless unlimited energy.  Only I don’t.  I was lulled into this false sense of my abilities due to the slackness of April.  I didn’t push myself at all so there was no opportunity to be reminded of my MSsy weakness and for a while there I felt normal which was actually really lovely despite the lack of productivity.  

It isn’t like things weren’t done at all recently, which is probably part of the problem – I’ve pushed myself too hard.   I have been chugging away with my path hoeing and rock building routine.  Having clear paths is great as, like I mentioned, I can see ‘other creature’ footprints and it looks like the rats have been having a right old party so I think it may be time to move the rat trap to an area of more intensive activity.  I also only have 5 shots left in the rat trap, so I need to get a new gas canister.  This is a good sign as it shows I’m making a dent in the population.   It also means I get to visit the garden centre.  This is probably not a good idea as temptation has no limits there.

I also made good progress with the rock and have managed to encircle the frame and meet up with the other side.  So now all I need to do is go up.  I’m really impressed with how it is coming together.  I can’t say it is like the vision in my head yet, but in my extensive research – looking at large rocks up and down the country out of the car window, wishing I could just bring one home, they come in all shapes and sizes and shades of grey so anything random I come up with is going to be perfectly fine, so long as you don’t see the fabric beneath or any fingerprints. 

I also got a delivery of some spring bulbs I have been waiting a long time for.  I was starting to get anxious, especially for the tulips.  Because we don’t get frost here on the coast, I ordered them nice and early to put them in the fridge for 6 weeks to simulate the cold.  Given that the weather has continued to be quite mild apart from a blip a month or so ago, it is probably a good thing.  So, once they emerge from the fridge where I put them straight away, they will find themselves in consistently cold weather and not yo-yo from the chill of the fridge to warmish weather and then find themselves in the cold again, so it was probably for the best.

Also in the package were some ranunculus tubers that I want to soak and plant out sooner rather than later and finally some iris bulbs that are beginning to sprout so I need to do something with them in the immediate.  But I want to incorporate them into a wildlife pond makeover.  I hadn’t had this high the #MakeMayCount priority list, so I guess this list needs a rejig or I need some help or set it aside for now.  I could plant the sprouting bulbs into pots for now and plant them later.    I’m just one person with an enormous vision that is too big for my limited capabilities.  But how to you eat an elephant?  One spoonful at a time.  Not that I’m advocating eating elephants. 

Then I got a call from Hubby the Un-Gardener that he’d found some bricks I’d been looking for, so we dropped everything and raced out to collect them.  ‘Collect them’ doesn’t describe it.  I needed about 600 for my project and it was one of the last pieces in the gathering of supplies before I can throw myself into the creating of the new garden project.   This meant picking every single one from the neat pile they had been stacked in and moving them to our vehicle.    I have to say, several days later, they are still sitting in the vehicle as we muster the energy to repeat the process and put them in the garden.  And they will need to be moved at least once more to end up in their final spot.  Sometimes I can see why it is easy to shy away from big ideas. 

Since then, I have fed and watered my lime tree in a pot and my new port wine magnolia as their leaves were looking a little less green than they should be, watered the seedlings being nurtured in the dome and because I had a spare 15 minutes, I trimmed all the spent flower stalks off the Gaura.  This was a good example of what I intended with the #MakeMayCount thing.  Ordinarily a 15-minute window would be written off as not big enough to do anything worth making a difference so nothing would get done.  The Gaura has been on the list for a while and now it has been done without much fuss at all.

And then at the end of the day I did my weekly Q&A live chat session on the Yates.co.nz Facebook page.   I’ve been doing this, talking all things vegetable gardening since 2014 and enjoy chatting with other keen gardeners in the comments section.  Although this week we talked about how to spoil a gardening mum for Mother’s Day.  Speaking of which I sent my Mum’s gift off – I hope she likes it.  Hubby the Un-Gardener asked me what I would like.  Last year the gift turned into a project that ended up in a magazine, so I have to be careful what I ask for…

And now it is another magnificent blue sky day and the garden is calling to me…  I think it missed me.

Come again soon – I’m back on track.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)