Rainy Day Gardening

Guess what!  It rained today.  How unusual, it started with heavy rain and by mid afternoon it was spitty rain.  I am think I might have to start making up more words to describe the rain as I've seen all types all of the time over the last month.

As I have to work all day tomorrow, I decided I'd better do a little gardening today. 

It's my dad's birthday tomorrow and my mum's on Wednesday so I started the day off with a visit to wish them well.  Morning tea turned into lunch and I had an enjoyable catch up with them.  We left about mid afternoon and made a quick stop at the warehouse for some seedlings and seeds.

I have decided to plant a lot of my vegetables from seedlings and not grow my own this year.  But I have to confess I baulk at buying carrots and corn in punnets.  To me these are definitely best grown directly in the garden.  I bought radish, beetroot and spring onion seeds, marigold, mini cauliflower, capsicum (even though it's a bit early), two lots of lettuce and red onions in seedling form.

I have been a bit overwhelmed looking at my neglected and weedy garden.  I have decided that there is only one way to eat this elephant and that is going to be one metre at a time.  While looking for a book for my fathers birthday yesterday I came across One Magic Square.

I have often looked at the one square foot gardening books and thought they'd be good for a read, but when I saw this I just had to have it.  I haven't read it all the way through yet but I am liking what I am reading.  I think it might be just the ticket to get my garden cleaned up one small patch at a time.  So with the principals of this book in mind I planted out the small garden square at the start of my deck and the first section of the garden alongside my driveway.  If the sun ever shines I'll take some photos.

One of the best things about this book is it doesn't advocate growing vegetables in straight rows or big mono crop plots.  This is not my style either.  It also is against killing pests - also my style although I am into total annihilation of slugs and snails (a pet hate of mine).

I'm off to draw up some plans for the next little plot and will try to get it planted over the next week.