I've Been Gardening Again

In the aftermath of the storm - and with the arrival of some lovely warm, sunny Spring days - I decided it was time to plant at least some of the summer veggies. It was Pisces' fault because I had mentioned I needed some potting mix and as we were passing by our local garden centre on Friday he suggested we pick it up and have a coffee at their very pleasant cafe - Waldecks in Stirling if you're interested. Naturally enough I then wandered off to look at the seedlings - well, what else would I do with temptation mere steps away - and stocked up.

We came home with tomatoes - lots of tomatoes because I found some heritage ones I wanted to try and I'm none to sure of how successful they'll be, capsicums, more sweet corn, zucchinis, a couple of different kinds of basil, spring onions and two different cucumbers to add to what I planted last week. Over the weekend I planted all except the onions because I wanted to make sure the aphid problem really had finished first. Now, apart from the onions, all I need for this first planting are pumpkins - they will fill up any vacant spaces and some more beans, bok choy and lettuce although I will be doing staggered follow up plantings of most all the way through the season.

All this planting and warm weather means I've had to hand water daily. That's very time consuming so this morning I decided it was finally time to get out the sprinklers. At least that was the plan.

I went out early - Puss thinks I should wake up at daybreak to dispense food and clean litter trays and luckily my body clock works that way, too, so we're both waking up at about 6:00 AM these days - and the first sprinkler would not connect with the hose. Dammit. The second wouldn't either. nor the third. Things were getting desperate when I finally found one that did. It was only a temporary solution though because the veggie patch is an awkward shape and to get an even coverage without wasteful overlaps I need all four sprinklers.

Pisces was awake by then - and extremely grumpy  - but he worked his garden fittings magic and finally we got the two most important sprinklers working. Why sprinklers that clicked into place on the hose perfectly at the end of Autumn no longer work I have no idea - but I've now handed it all over to himself to play with. I'm just hoping he'll have managed to resolve it by Saturday, which, if it doesn't rain first, will be the next time I need them.