A Little Gardening.

Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson

 The first year we were here we grew pumpkins.  Pumpkins were all that would grow.  They came up in the compost & we were grateful.  We could eat the fresh green tips, the flowers & finally the fruit ~ & we did.  They were a cross between the big Queensland Blue & the stripped Jap & were the loveliest pumpkin to eat. Our kids were weaned on mashed avocado because avocados came free round here & one variety or another was always in fruit.

Queenslanders know that if you buy a block of land with the topsoil intact you are incredibly lucky.  Ours had been razzed down to the clay & ironstone & it baked in the heat until it set like cement.  The first year I got a bare 1/4 inch of black soil after dumping load after load of compost & mulch was ever so exciting but however exciting hardly enough to grow a weed in let alone a garden. We bought soil ~ probably the same soil the clearers had nicked off the place originally & I built up garden beds.

We sit on top of a little hill with lovely views over Ooncooncoon Bay but the roadside faces west & west in the Queensland subtropic summer is no fun at all.  It is hot.  It is muggy. The storms roll in with thunder & lightening & the temperatures soar until the rain steams. It doesn't so much fall as permeate the air. So the first order of business was shade, shade, shade! It is wonderful how much a good shade tree drops the temperature.

And each year round about August/September I buy seedlings, because I am far too lazy to propagate from seed, & plant out my veggies.  For most of those years I have had little hands helping ~ then they got big & took over & the garden got too big for me to manage & they grew things no~one wanted to eat, & weeds no~one wanted to weed &... well, you know how it goes.  I stopped gardening. Things got cut down I wanted to keep & things got erected that I had no idea how to dismantle & it was all too much work & I hadn't created the havoc & then of course they all left home. I had got out of the way of putting in my garden but this year I got the urge again so I weeded the little patch I like to use & tilled my soil over leaving the passionfruit & parsley alone & I planted out the things we actually eat: little cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, lettuce... I mulched. Heavily. Then CG came home...!!!

I have corn.  I don't grow corn.  It is water heavy & robs too many nutrients from the soil. I have unmulched things in pots drying out on the verandah.  I have silverbeet dying in the sink because no~one wants the trouble of planting out so many little seedlings. I have a number of *surprises* because nobody remembers the name of what got put in, *sigh*

 And meantime the pomegranate is flowering in it's pot for a third year because I can't find a big enough spot to put it & the peach is producing peaches it is too small to keep above the ground; I didn't put that in either because I prefer nectarines & the child who did is no longer here.

But as each plant pops its head through the mulch growing strong & sturdy I get a strange satisfaction, all the more bizarre because I enjoy the growing far more than I enjoy the fruits of my labour.  Another few days & I will have to tie the tomatoes & cucumbers & I should probably put the basil in the ground only I now Have corn where that was meant to go.

I have other things waiting in the MOTH's bush house: our first azaela & I do like azaelas; a raspberry though the MOTH swears they won't grow here; butter beans which will. Then, perhaps, if the summer storms drift round us & the hail doesn't cut everything to ribbons & it doesn't get too hot too soon or rain too much we will get a harvest before summer.