A nagging malaise accompanied me home from work today.\u00a0 I didn’t know why or what it wanted with me.\u00a0 It just was.<\/p>\n
For the third blazing hot day in a row my poor gardens, Smith, Jones and the Lorelei, were plunged into deep Summer just days after the end of a cool, wet Spring.\u00a0 I hadn’t been to Jones for a few days, hadn’t mulched the thirteen toddler eggplants, three adolescent tomatoes, and four middle-aged broccoli plants,\u00a0 and knew they had been baking in the near 100 degree sun, mulch-less soil exposed, evaporating what little moisture was left in the ground.\u00a0 I determined to nip both malaise and dry soil in the bud and dashed to Jones.\u00a0 Funny, a storm picked that moment to threaten, dark clouds looming, wind blowing, thunder in the distance, but I didn’t care.\u00a0 I was kilted and ready and needed the shot of energy a burst of gardening would inject.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
At Jones, as the dark clouds loomed and the thunder boomed, I got right to work.\u00a0 I planted four pepper plants and picked chard for supper, then as big, fat raindrops began to fall I spread mulch, nice warm leaf mold, around the plants.\u00a0 The ground was dry on top and only a little moist underneath, even though I had watered it a few days before.\u00a0 This mulch would help preserve water in the soil.\u00a0 As we dashed back to the car, done with the brief tasks and still ahead of the rain, I realized the big drops were still just big drops, not enough to water Jones thoroughly if that’s all that fell.\u00a0 So I watered the garden, dashing to the spigot, dashing to drag the hose to where I needed it, gushing water at the base of each plant.\u00a0 It’s wasteful and less effective to water a garden by spraying the water willy-nilly over the plants.\u00a0 I call that washing the garden.\u00a0 To effectively (and more quickly) water, I hold a hose at the base of the plant and let it run for five or six seconds or more, giving each the deep drink it needs.\u00a0 I finished, dashed to the car, rain still splatting, lightning still flashing, and drove home.<\/p>\n
Back at the Lorelei, the garden in front of our apartment, the rain was hardly falling and the thunder seemed less (though we live only three blocks from Jones), so I decided to water here, too.\u00a0 If I lived in my own house, all I’d need to do would be get the hose and turn it on.\u00a0 Living in an apartment, I have to drag all 100 feet of it out, drag the end of it to the outside laundry-room door, run through the apartment out the inner door into the apartment building’s hall, and into the laundry room.\u00a0 Then, I open the door to the outside, grab the hose I left there, and connect it to the utility sink and turn it on so I can begin to water.\u00a0 It’s a real bother, but I have to do it unless I want to irrigate the Lorelei one bucketful at a time, a job that would take forever in the summer.<\/p>\n
I finished the job with real rain falling.\u00a0 I was so sweaty from speed gardening in this heat, I was glad for the refreshing drops.\u00a0 I wondered if what I was doing looked funny to any neighbors who happened to glance out their window to see the odd, kilt-wearing fellow who lives on the first floor watering his garden in the rain.\u00a0 I was glad I did it because the rain stopped soon afterwards.\u00a0 It would not have been nearly enough for the Lorelei.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A nagging malaise accompanied me home from work today.\u00a0 I didn’t know why or what it wanted with me.\u00a0 It just was. For the third blazing hot day in a row my poor gardens, Smith, Jones and the Lorelei, were … Continue reading