It is Spring, I have seen it with my two very wet eyes

Anyone who lives in Wellington will know that it was not a fun week to be a gardener. We did work, most of the week, and also spent a long amount curled up in front of our various fires and space heaters. We had to dry off all of our work clothes as quickly as possible over the evenings, so our houses smell of warm dirt; our washing machines are going to take an absolute beating this weekend trying to get all of the mud out (don’t tell our landlords).

What I'm obsessing over this week

It’s been a pretty fun week, because clients are still sending in their dog photos after our Dog Issue, and now more are emailing me to talk about how they have quietly despaired over their vegetable growing (or lack thereof). Can I just say- I do not understand why everyone wants to grow tomatoes all of the time? Are they your favourite food? Why! Why that one thing! They are quite complex creatures- can we not obsess over something a bit easier? My quiet unspoken belief is that Real Gardeners are obsessed with growing potatoes. I don’t know where it came from- but anyone can grow potatoes, especially in Wellington. If you want to be a better vegetable gardener, switch it up, grow potatoes. Your success rate will go through the roof.

Tartine the Boston Terrier

All in all it’s been quite an emotional week! I wanted to talk about this new book I’m reading, The Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger, but that was too emotional for me. I think I am a bit too dry for it, having studied Intentionality at Victoria University already. It is a beautiful read, and does open your mind to how plants function. But I feel like a lot of it is a commentary on how badly humans relate to the plant world, and how stuck inside of our existing paradigms we are. But I have to admit, I stopped reading. It can go next to that book about fungi that came out a few years ago and was the same.

Some Good Practical things I do fully endorse, though-

Fungi of Aotearoa by Liv Sisson has come out recently and is just fantastic. This book is something you can flick through instead of turning on the TV, and you can bring it with you when going on a bush walk, so you can identify all of the cool stuff you find.

I heard about The Light Eaters on the Joe Gardener Show. The Joe Gardener Show is one of my favourite podcasts- Joe is so down to earth, thoughtful and excited about gardening. He also does videos and all sorts, so if you’re not into podcasts you can still check out his content. I love him.

What staff learnt about this week

Our weekly focus was “Is it Spring yet? If it is, let Zoe know.” Gardens tend to experience the initial rush of Spring growth at different times, and this can lead to some properties becoming absolutely filled with weeds, while others are still dormant and quiet. Unfortunately, which garden is full of weeds is quite hard to predict at this time of year!

Behold Glenda’s lawn. I mowed it 7 days prior to taking this photo. It looked great, I swear!

Highlights: I found a sack of cocoa husks, the lovely mulch we used to use all the time, and that prompted me to spam call our old supplier, who has advised that they stopped answering my calls because they’re out of the game. But Palmers Plimmerton are still selling them, cheaply, so I’m going to go and load up the ute and shower everyone’s gardens with them again. The sack was in my shed, so I managed to get the worst part of a Karori garden all tidied despite the weed explosion, woo!

Lowlights: This is happening a lot along the seaside at the moment- plants are trying very hard to grow out of season and dying back, then budding and dying back. There isn’t a heap that we can do about it. You can see that all of the buds are at the tip of the rose- that indicates that it’s doing its best to push out lots of lush growth- but it’s too cold to sustain. And we haven’t even pruned them yet! So in cases like this it is best to try to not prune too much, as taking all of that energy out of the plant by cutting back the tips will handicap it in the second half of this year. At the same time, that is too many buds for one small spot, the rose will end up looking like an umbrella, so I knocked some of them off with my thumbnail.

No interview this week

The two people I had lined up are suspiciously dodging my calls! One is on Jury Duty, so I forgive her. The other one, though.. *shakes fist*

I hope that you have a lovely weekend and you weren’t too soaked this week!

Zoe