Three years ago, just as I started this blog, life took me on an unexpected adventure to India where I now live.
Equally unexpected was the rapid advent of Covid-19, which brings me back to Australia, and working from home for a time.
The vege patch has been virtually ignored since I left in 2017 with the exception of a couple of wild sown tomato plants, an eggplant and some rocket seed I threw in when I was briefly home last November. Jim has planted a row of fruit trees since I left and my arrival home coincided with the first crop of oranges. We harvest these on a ratio of 5:1 us to possum – which is fine. I’d like to think that India has made me kinder and more open to sharing with man and with beast …
An unexpected delight was an asparagus plant, miraculously growing in the most forsaken corner after three years of abandonment. Ironically, asparagus flourishes if ignored for the first few years. So I chopped its fronds to the base, covered what remained with mulch and presto, two days later asparagus popped up.
This sign of life against all odds, producing a stem or two every few days for my two weeks in self-isolation became a beacon of hope, not just for the garden but more. A sign that if we just sit quietly for a time, things will be okay.
What else I’ve been up to:
Emptied the fetid compost bin and started again. I resist detailing the incredible benefits of a container of your own urine on a compost every few days but google it!
Contemplated an infestation of grasshoppers, beetles and very hungry caterpillars, all of which had overtaken the fig tree, so I cut it right back and now eye the new shoots on the way to the patch and remove any hungry insects by hand.
Turned a few beds and proved that it is virtually impossible to germinate spent seed in poor soil (who would have thought it).
Discovered that our new puppy, Agnes the wonder dog, can and will find her way into a netted garden and find joy in digging up whatever you planted
yesterday.
And so we begin again.