Gardening

April 28, 2008 10:54 A.M. Weight: 356.5 lbs.

Another cause for celebration – I managed to get some gardening in yesterday, giving the lawn the first cut of the year (yes, I know it’s late!).

I am not a natural gardener, and cannot honestly say I enjoy digging and planting. This house is the first home I have owned with a garden, and for the first few years, I just mowed the lawn, and used it as a place to sit.

However, last year, I decided to make an effort, and created two beds for planting. One was planted with tomatoes, the other with wild flowers; I also tried growing strawberries in a pot.

The flowers flowered and then died, and I can’t say I got any great pleasure from them. But cultivating the strawberries and tomatoes (and a row of giant sunflowers, planted on a whim) did give me a buzz, and food for the kitchen.

It also made a major effect on my general fitness, which was really the whole point of the exercise (no pun intended). This year I intend to plant even more tomatoes and maybe peppers and courgettes (zucchini) too. Over half of my strawberry plants survived the winter, and should crop even better this year. Having learned a bit about strawberries last year, I’ve transferred the plants to a strawberry planter, with lots of holes for developing the runners they send out into new plants.

The garden also has a pear tree, which was terribly overgrown and blighted when I moved here – it was supposed to be growing along a wall, but had been allowed to branch out across the garden path. The year before last, I cut it back to the trunk on a kill or cure tactic. Last year, I carefully trained 3 branches on each side of the tree, and cut back everything else. These branches are now looking very healthy, and though I don’t expect a crop of pears this early, it will be nice to see even some fruit develop.