Re: [gardeners] Planning Ahead
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 03 Nov 1997 15:10:55
At 12:48 PM 11/3/97 +0000, you wrote:
>I got some news today that sort of knocked the wind out of my sails.
>I'm going to be having abdominal surgery and I thought I was going to
>be doing this around Jan - Feb. Today I found out that it's probably
>going to be done in 6 - 7 months. (No, I'm not dying and it's not
>something I really want to talk about.) From a gardening point of
>view this is disasterous. That would put me having surgery in the
>May - June region -- right when the veggie garden gets planted.
>
>One of the problems, as you all know, is the much awaited January
>Catalog Arrival Festival. It's the January CAF that gets me through
>most of the winter what with the debating, planning, laying out the
>gardens a few dozen times, more debating, planning and finally
>ordering. Even after the ordering is done there's the laying out the
>beds several times over to help get you through those gray days. I
>look forward to the CAF and post-CAF times as one of the high points
>of the gardening season.
>
>Now I'm in a quandry. Should I order seeds and hope? What will
>happen to my gardens when I can't tend them during the summer growing
>season? My spousal unit is definitely not a gardener. While he'll
>happily pick a tomato (guess I'll plant them) he's such a non-violent
>person that he'd never pull a weed -- he might kill it. (Yeah, I
>thought he was just lazy too until he explained this life and death
>and violence thing to me.) The problem is that he might not find the
>tomatoes with all the weeds growing.
>
>And my flower beds -- what am I going to do when I can't get out
>there and pull weeds? Do you guys know what bindweed can do in one
>uncontrolled year? Letting bindweed run wild in your flower bed is
>akin to letting kudzu go next to your house -- you might never find
>your flowers again. I've never found a thickness of mulch that was
>thick enough to stop bindweed. Well, that's not true. It doesn't
>grow under our house so I'd have to say that a 20 foot deep pile of
>much won't have too much bindweed growing in it.
>
>Help, help, help! I've got to plan ahead. Tell me what to do.
>And please, don't tell me not to panic. Panic is all that's keeping
>me from going nuts.
>
>Liz
>
Shucks Liz, it'll all work out. I had my last heart attack in the middle of
August, peak harvest time for us. Since I do all the canning, preserving
and freezing it just didn't get done that once. The whole family was
standing around waiting for me to kick off to see who got the pressure
canner and the 40-quart stockpot. Think of your surgery as a time of
transition and when you find out who your friends really are. Besides,
gardening is kinda like sex, three-fourths of the fun of it is the planning
and thinking. ;-))
George