Mulch anyone?
I'm a maelstrom magnet. Okay, maybe not maelstrom. Try disaster diva. Me and Murphy's law?
All year I have been looking out of my kitchen window at my neglected garden. During my crazy year of busy-ness, there was no time for weeding, mulching, pruning or planting. The garden was relegated to the bottom of the priority list. (This, in part, may have had something to do with my lack of a green thumb and having a dodgy back.)
After walks around the neighbourhood with the dog, I would return feeling extremely envious of anyone with a weed-free, mulched, well-tended garden, and the view from my kitchen window became harder and harder to bear.
So, when our next-door neighbour asked our household to take part in a sustainability study as part of a course she was doing at Swinburne University, and we had to show that we were going to follow through on our good intentions to save water, I decided to re-mulch the back garden.
The timing of this decision was unfortunate. It was during the VCE exams, which meant my seventeen-year-old son was unable/unavailable/unwilling/un-everything to do with anything garden-related. My fifteen-year-old daughter was fully occupied with…well…being fifteen.
This left me. Because our block is on a slope of mind-boggling proportions when it comes to considering how to move mulch from the bottom of the driveway to the top of the back garden, I went to Bunnings, deliberated for half an hour between cane and pea, and came home with twelve blocks of pea straw. These, I cajoled the student into unloading from the boot of the car and delivering to the back of the house. Which he did. In that he turfed them over the side gate.
After a lot of weeding, dosing up on anti-inflammatories, and rolling the heavier-than-I-thought pea straw up the hill to the garden beds, I was ready to zip off the plastic and sprinkle it around the plants. Easy peasy. Half an hour max. I could almost taste the cup of tea I had promised myself on the back deck while I admired my handywork.
But life wasn’t meant to be easy. The pea straw was packed never to come apart, and about three hours later, sneezing, covered in dust, sweat-soaked hair flat to my skull, I had doubled the dose of anti-inflammatories and was battling the clock to be done by dark.
For several weeks I enjoyed the view from my kitchen window. Garden beds mulched and not a weed in sight. My beautiful, sustainable garden. The rains came and soaked the earth and my pea straw, like a blanket of angels’ wings, would make sure none of the precious moisture escaped.
Then it started. One by one. Tufts of green pushed through the straw. I couldn’t believe it. The view from my kitchen window was changing back to how it was. Weeds! How dare they defy my marvelous mulch.
Not to be defeated, I donned gardening gloves and went out to do battle, but was horrified to discover the weeds were… little pea plants.
Little pea plants!
I yanked them out left right and centre, but I couldn’t keep up. Within days the whole of the garden was awash with green. A sea of little green pea plants.
Because I’m not a gardener, (Oh, yes – I can hear you say it, ‘Der.’) I don’t know if they are Sweet Peas or the edible, garden variety. I’m waiting to see.
At least the chooks are happy.
If only I’d chosen the cane straw.
A cane field in the Eastern Suburbs.
Sweet.
All year I have been looking out of my kitchen window at my neglected garden. During my crazy year of busy-ness, there was no time for weeding, mulching, pruning or planting. The garden was relegated to the bottom of the priority list. (This, in part, may have had something to do with my lack of a green thumb and having a dodgy back.)
After walks around the neighbourhood with the dog, I would return feeling extremely envious of anyone with a weed-free, mulched, well-tended garden, and the view from my kitchen window became harder and harder to bear.
So, when our next-door neighbour asked our household to take part in a sustainability study as part of a course she was doing at Swinburne University, and we had to show that we were going to follow through on our good intentions to save water, I decided to re-mulch the back garden.
The timing of this decision was unfortunate. It was during the VCE exams, which meant my seventeen-year-old son was unable/unavailable/unwilling/un-everything to do with anything garden-related. My fifteen-year-old daughter was fully occupied with…well…being fifteen.
This left me. Because our block is on a slope of mind-boggling proportions when it comes to considering how to move mulch from the bottom of the driveway to the top of the back garden, I went to Bunnings, deliberated for half an hour between cane and pea, and came home with twelve blocks of pea straw. These, I cajoled the student into unloading from the boot of the car and delivering to the back of the house. Which he did. In that he turfed them over the side gate.
After a lot of weeding, dosing up on anti-inflammatories, and rolling the heavier-than-I-thought pea straw up the hill to the garden beds, I was ready to zip off the plastic and sprinkle it around the plants. Easy peasy. Half an hour max. I could almost taste the cup of tea I had promised myself on the back deck while I admired my handywork.
But life wasn’t meant to be easy. The pea straw was packed never to come apart, and about three hours later, sneezing, covered in dust, sweat-soaked hair flat to my skull, I had doubled the dose of anti-inflammatories and was battling the clock to be done by dark.
For several weeks I enjoyed the view from my kitchen window. Garden beds mulched and not a weed in sight. My beautiful, sustainable garden. The rains came and soaked the earth and my pea straw, like a blanket of angels’ wings, would make sure none of the precious moisture escaped.
Then it started. One by one. Tufts of green pushed through the straw. I couldn’t believe it. The view from my kitchen window was changing back to how it was. Weeds! How dare they defy my marvelous mulch.
Not to be defeated, I donned gardening gloves and went out to do battle, but was horrified to discover the weeds were… little pea plants.
Little pea plants!
I yanked them out left right and centre, but I couldn’t keep up. Within days the whole of the garden was awash with green. A sea of little green pea plants.
Because I’m not a gardener, (Oh, yes – I can hear you say it, ‘Der.’) I don’t know if they are Sweet Peas or the edible, garden variety. I’m waiting to see.
At least the chooks are happy.
If only I’d chosen the cane straw.
A cane field in the Eastern Suburbs.
Sweet.
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