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Sunday 31 May 2009

Things I have learnt today

1) Those spiky plants all over my garden that I had been led to believe were red hot pokers that my mother had given me are in fact weeds. They have the same foliage, but they are still weeds.

What makes this discovery very irritating is that I have been caring for these weeds for some time now, and have even moved some with great care from one side of the garden to the other, watering them lovingly with organic plant feed.

2) Also the 'lavender' plant is not a lavender. I looked at many pictures of lavender on the interwebs and it resembles none of them. And it smells odd. Not in a lavender way.

This actually is not too much of an issue because the thing is dying. Which makes a change from most of the things in my garden, which have just disappeared without trace.

3) After finding my carrots and tomato plants utterly decimated, I am in the market for some ready-grown tomato plants and some kick-ass slug pellets. I refuse to feel bad about this. I have washed cotton nappies in eco-balls and white vinegar before hanging them out to line dry for a total of six years; it's time the environment and I had a bit of a falling-out.

4) Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre is a fine book. It is everything I hoped that this would be, but wasn't.

11 comments:

  1. Sorry to laugh, but that weed story is funny.

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  2. I think your carrot problem could be down to mice! I planted 2 whole packets, laced them with slug pellets .. and not a single one has appeared ... well they probably did appear, but I didn't get to them before the mice did ... grr.
    x

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  3. Vernon God Little is one of my favourite books! I think I read it in one sitting.

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  4. Ooo! I have Vernon God Little sitting right next to my bed as we speak! And I think I have that other one on my wishlist at Amazon, but now I can delete it.

    As for you carefully tending the weeds, well. I'm not laughing AT you. I'm just laughing in your general vicinity.

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  5. Sorry, I laughed, too.

    But I think I may have done this myself a few times . . .

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  6. 'Weed' is such a value judgement, don't you think? One person's weed is another person's flower. I say embrace the things (carefully if you have to), but embrace them.

    Mother Nature loves these plants and it's only human pigheadedness that makes plants 'weeds'. Embrace them! (watch out for the prickles though).

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  7. Slugs are evil. That is a scientifically proven fact.

    So don't feel guilty about nuking them.

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  8. Hey, toss me a photo of that not-lavender. It could be some funky version, like Spanish lavender or lavender stoechas or some other weird variation. I could confirm and you could feel good about yourself. And maybe offset the not-red hot poker awkwardness...

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  9. Sounds like the time my husband cherished a weed all summer that he thought was a tobacco plant. (We were in NC so he felt obliged to try to grow one). He even set up a drip irrigation system for it when we went on vacation!

    I'm afraid to say, I laughed then too ;-).

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  10. that story about the weeds
    *falls off chair laughing*

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  11. I have found a solution to my slug problem. Tis a hedgehog. Only problem is he keeps raiding my milk.

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