About this time every spring, my fingers begin quivering to get into the soil again, planting beans, corn, tomatoes, all of which would vanish in the frost. If I still had two working legs, two fewer decades and 36 hours in every day, I'd be working on a new stone wall, enclosing a new potato garden, or some other garden project to make use of perfect weather to be in the garden, except when it's raining.
If you have a hankering for a water garden, a flying fox between two sturdy trees, a backyard pizza oven, or a new above-ground garden, this is the perfect time to get out there and do it, before the summer sun frizzles you after two hours of garden work. (I do recommend the outdoor oven. I longed for one for decades and it provides deliciousness and fun.)
If your ambitions are smaller, here are some slightly wacko projects to keep eager gardeners busy until its basil and eggplant planting time. Don't be deceived - the projects below may look silly, but they work, and are enormous fun.
Front-door spuds
Take one shopping bag, the kind of woven "I have no idea what material this is" bag given out in supermarkets, or the better-quality ones at literary festivals, book shops et al. Fill it with water and see if any drips out. If it doesn't, poke some small holes in the bottom.
Now place about 30cm of good compost, potting mix or soil in the bottom of the bag, and plant two seed potatoes i.e. ones guaranteed disease-free, not those sprouting in the back of the vegetable cupboard next to the brown spotted kumara and soggy onions. Water the soil in the bag till damp, Now hang it on your front door knob, or back door knob, or anywhere that gets six hours of sun a day.
Keep the soil moist, but not so wet it dribbles dirty smudges down your door and onto the doorstep. Be reticent with your watering.
As soon as the spuds poke leaves above the soil, add more soil/compos/potting mix, plus plant food according to directions on the packet, though if its good home-made compost no more feeding should be needed. Keep going till the bag is full, and the potato leaves are peering out the top of the bag, which should now be filled with soil as well as an increasing number of potatoes.
If you are lucky you'll see them bulging, getting bigger and more numerous. When the potato plant leaves die down, tip out your spuds and count the harvest, then rinse the bag and hang it up to use again
Spuds on the front door knob can become "pet potatoes" for kids, as they check their progress each day when they come home. I've never known a kid to refuse to eat their pet potatoes, though they should be consumed with due ceremony and delight.
You can also hang your bag of spuds from the clothesline, or even buy specially designed "above ground" bags especially designed for growing spuds where your home has only concrete or pavers, not soil.
This is an excellent time to plant potatoes, and any time is good to teach kids where food comes from - and that growing it is fun.
Hen and chickens in a teapot
Hands up all those who have attractive teapots that have not been used for over two years, because a teabag or two is more convenient? My hand is half up - I do make a proper pot of tea about one time in five. But I also have teapots that have cracked or lost their spout. There are too many memories in a good teapot to throw it away.
Instead, fill the pot right to the top with compost or good potting mix, water it, then add more potting mix as the first lot will have subsided. Then plant one "hen and chicken" plant - blue grey rosettes that multiply quickly so your single "hen" will soon have half a dozen "chickens" or even "grandchickens" of their own by the end of summer, spilling over the edges of the teapot.
You could use almost any succulent or tillandsia in your tea pot garden - any plant that needs little water, because you can't add too much to a teapot or its soil will become sour and waterlogged ... just a very little, maybe two or three times a week, and a feeding every fortnight till growing well. Teapot gardens will also accept a few months of neglect, too - you just won't get very many chickens.
Strawberries in joggers
I used to get quite sentimental about kids' joggers in the days when every kid I knew outgrew their footwear several times a year. Rather than throw the joggers out - and if they are too shaggy for the op shop - fill each jogger with potting mix and plant a strawberry plant in each shoe. Place the joggers in a line along a sunny wall; feed weakly and weekly, and water two or three times a week. You should be eating berries in about two months' time, with another crop towards autumn, depending on the variety you buy.
Once the joggers start to sag too much to be useful containers, say a final farewell and transplant the berries, either into the next lot of outgrown joggers, or in the garden, or just possibly a most elegant ceramic strawberry pot.
The strawberries will taste as good no matter which way they are grown, but the line of joggers will be much more fun. Gardening gives exercise, a sense of peace, and the comfort in a changing world that if it comes down to it, you too can grow a year's supply of tucker. But gardening should also be fun.
This week I am (possibly, if I get around to it):
- Scraping the moss off the paving with a special long-handled scraper, though a spade does nearly as well, or even a metal egg flipper tied securely into the broom handle.
- Digging out a few dahlia tubers from the big clumps to establish new clumps elsewhere. The only dahlias that have survived the last few years in our garden are exceptionally hardy types indeed.
- Trying to sneak as much young kale as possible into soups or savoury mince or even pizza, before kale either goes to seed or turns sulphurous and metallic-tasting in summer, as well as tough. One medium kale leaf is the maximum you can add to a banana and nut smoothie before you notice a change in taste. Berry smoothies can usually disguise two kale leaves. Kale is extremely good for us. It's just a pity it hasn't been bred to become even more tender than the modern varieties, and to taste like, well, not like kale;
- Hoping the loquat trees bloom then fruit soon, to lure Possum X from defoliating the two avocado trees in front of his palatial residence i.e. the roof space of our house. I must also rig up some possum guards so he can no longer climb up the trunks of the trees, though if I do that he'll just devastate something else. Best, perhaps, to wait for the loquats to bloom and lure him away.
- Admiring the first wild clematis of spring. Much, much more to come...
- Filling vases with a dozen variations of hellebore flowers. Hellebores were once the most boring flowers in the garden. Now there are seedlings springing up with so many shades, colours, patterns and petals designs, all held well above the dull green leaves, that can be mown down after blooming once the plants are three or four years old.
- Trying to remember to feed the lemons and limes that have been feeding us and many others so prolifically through winter and spring. A pale-leafed lemon tree is usually a hungry one, either from lack of plant tucker, or because it has been too cold to find enough nourishment.
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