Sunday, February 10, 2008

An apprentice

I have a gardening apprentice. I wasn't looking for one, but she was so keen that it was churlish to refuse.

May I introduce to you my apprentice, Brighid. She is twelve months old and it was her enthusiastic copying of my transplanting efforts which both wound me up and showed clearly that I was going to have to find an outlet for her green fingers - a more appropriate one.

So we set to work on the invasive garden patch. I had more bokashi to bury and so we worked on that, finding weta (I think) larvae as we dug. Brighid has an interest in soil testing. She found a large clod of earth and held it to her face like a hamburger and took several bites.

She acquainted herself with a number of tools and has an admirable ability to fall over multiple times with forks and trowels in her hand without piercing her stomach. Useful skill.

Brighid is an enthusiastic tomato taster and today even felled a tomato plant in its pot. She seems to prefer green tomatoes to red ones.

The invasive garden patch now has bokashi buried in it and pea straw on top along all of one side. I've cleared the weeds along part of the second side (third and fourth sides are fences) . Favourite Handyman muttered about clearing the tree stumps but I don't want sterile suburban lines. The stumps can stay and more things can grow over and around them. I've also arranged (you might say ordered but I really was more gentle and polite than that) for FH to start a new compost patch on the edge of the invasive patch next time he mows the lawn.

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