Cried and cried while finishing Shardik. It was wonderful. I love crying at make believe.
The Stars My Destination is supposedly a top ten all time in sci-fi. I was not impressed. Excepting Vance, who doesn't count, I don't think sci-fi has ever really moved me.
In other news have my first race of the year tomorrow. My knee doesn't hurt. But it's not right. I doubt I'll break 8 minute pace tomorrow for this 10k but it will be a celebration of (more or less) good health. Have only been running 15 to 20 miles a week and not very fast. It doesn't hurt but it's not right and if I pushed it I know it would get worse. Might have to try forefoot running.
Today it was 50 outside and not supposed to get really cold next few days. Never have I wanted spring more. Ordered a cold hardy fig tree. Planted grapevines recently. Fish are starting to eat, even the koy a bit. The goldfish will eat whenever there's no ice.
In retrospect I killed a few trees not understanding that if the soil is hard clay with awful drainage, it's no good at all to dig a hole and use good soil in the hole. Just turns into a small pond and the roots rot. Have to use raised beds. Killed two trees this way. A third one I think will eventually die from deer antlers. The deer even eat the bamboo leaves.
Still there is D and S. How strange that is...
Things can stretch I think.
Played Handel's Largo today. The tune can't seem to stay in my head. It's just very different somehow. Want it to become ingrained. Not sure what it is about it.
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Thursday, September 29, 2011
If you have enough different hobbies/chores, you can procrastinate by doing one instead of another.
So this first year in the raised bed enclosed garden, we planted very late. And tried:
broccoli-caterpillars, etc seem to love it
peas-I think they needed to be staked like tomatoes??
beans-loved the vining but strings were no good
cucumbers-I think planted too late, not enough sun lately, except for not fruiting, grew like crazy though, spread out and took up too much space actually
carrots-not quite ready yet, looking good though, I think
peppers-ok, far from prolific though
also some sunflowers, and hydrangas.
Next year want to do onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, a few mammoth sunflowers and finally green beans provided vining nonstring green beans exist. Maybe carrots again. Maybe some beans??
Cucumbers seem to take up too much room and I don't really like the taste anyway. Broccoli is a pain because of the pests. Peas seem like they'd be a ton of work relative to results.
So this first year in the raised bed enclosed garden, we planted very late. And tried:
broccoli-caterpillars, etc seem to love it
peas-I think they needed to be staked like tomatoes??
beans-loved the vining but strings were no good
cucumbers-I think planted too late, not enough sun lately, except for not fruiting, grew like crazy though, spread out and took up too much space actually
carrots-not quite ready yet, looking good though, I think
peppers-ok, far from prolific though
also some sunflowers, and hydrangas.
Next year want to do onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, a few mammoth sunflowers and finally green beans provided vining nonstring green beans exist. Maybe carrots again. Maybe some beans??
Cucumbers seem to take up too much room and I don't really like the taste anyway. Broccoli is a pain because of the pests. Peas seem like they'd be a ton of work relative to results.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
I have a relatively flat side yard that is roughly 100 by 60 feet. I'm really not a fan of mowing the lawn. I find it:
1. a wasteful use of fossil fuel.
2. land upon which you could instead have food bearing plants.
3. land which could instead be a habitat for wildlife.
4. Fascist? What exactly is so nice about having each blade of grass exactly the same height anyway? It's almost like a pseudo-moon landscape. I find it creepy. Like from a wrinkle in time when each boy stands in the driveway of each house bouncing a ball in time with each other. Much creepier are all the old lawn nazis who seem to go around at night with a tape measure into their neighbor's yards. And personally a field just of tall grass looks far nicer to me.
I had further read a book saying that replacing your grass with a garden (preferably right there in the front yard) was a sort of revolutionary action at the local level, (which is the only place where you can do anything worthwhile thanks to corporate news media.) (Except you can't ever do anything worthwhile.)
Occasionally I've pointed these things out to the potato people and they scream, "Snakes!" It's very hard to believe that's really why they're so militant about their grass, and the idea that they would lie and give that as the reason when it's really... what? Kind of pisses me off...
Anwyay, my wife unfortunately is somewhat the same and so it's been somewhat of a battle to try to put stuff in place of this vast expanse of grass. So far though I've cut out a 15 by 25 foot section with a pond. Which, for all her past arguing, she certainly likes to go out to it multiple times per day to feed the fish.
Secondly I've planted 5 trees. The deer destroyed the japanese maple. Half the kwanzan has been eaten by the deer. The apple tree is mostly eaten and looks to just be barely hanging on. The ten foot tall red maple doesn't look as good this year as last. Not sure why. Possibly because the soil doesn't drain well here. The weeping willow... I should have learned about the different types of willows. The trunk of this one is almost like bamboo, which wasn't what I wanted. I thought that was just how they look when young, but no. Also the wind, (even with staking it) is really pushing it. And willows fall over easily. I did fence in the willow as otherwise I'm sure it'd be dead. Still the deer have repeatedly destroyed parts of the fencing, despite using very strong metal stakes.
Finally I went and bought a red maple that's more than 15 feet tall. I'm worried though the awful drainage will cause the roots to rot. But I do have a really nice large red maple on the other side of the house. Which Asplund is planning to take a large chunk out of because it's close to power lines and the potato people lawn nazis next door complained to the power company because of some fight they're having with other neighbors about leaves blowing into their yard.
Gee, it's kind of annoying if I write it all down at once and I even left some stuff out.
But now I'm taking another chunk out of this massive useless yard. I'm putting up a 20 by 18 foot section raised bed garden section. With deer fence around it. Raised because the soil acidity isn't quite right for blueberry bushes. Fence because the entire thing would otherwise be gone by the very next morning. Two 12x4 foot raised beds in the middle and a two feet wide one all around the outer perimeter. Probably will mostly be perennials/berry bushes as I don't actually like gardening quite all that much. But, happy today to be getting rid of more useless lawn.
1. a wasteful use of fossil fuel.
2. land upon which you could instead have food bearing plants.
3. land which could instead be a habitat for wildlife.
4. Fascist? What exactly is so nice about having each blade of grass exactly the same height anyway? It's almost like a pseudo-moon landscape. I find it creepy. Like from a wrinkle in time when each boy stands in the driveway of each house bouncing a ball in time with each other. Much creepier are all the old lawn nazis who seem to go around at night with a tape measure into their neighbor's yards. And personally a field just of tall grass looks far nicer to me.
I had further read a book saying that replacing your grass with a garden (preferably right there in the front yard) was a sort of revolutionary action at the local level, (which is the only place where you can do anything worthwhile thanks to corporate news media.) (Except you can't ever do anything worthwhile.)
Occasionally I've pointed these things out to the potato people and they scream, "Snakes!" It's very hard to believe that's really why they're so militant about their grass, and the idea that they would lie and give that as the reason when it's really... what? Kind of pisses me off...
Anwyay, my wife unfortunately is somewhat the same and so it's been somewhat of a battle to try to put stuff in place of this vast expanse of grass. So far though I've cut out a 15 by 25 foot section with a pond. Which, for all her past arguing, she certainly likes to go out to it multiple times per day to feed the fish.
Secondly I've planted 5 trees. The deer destroyed the japanese maple. Half the kwanzan has been eaten by the deer. The apple tree is mostly eaten and looks to just be barely hanging on. The ten foot tall red maple doesn't look as good this year as last. Not sure why. Possibly because the soil doesn't drain well here. The weeping willow... I should have learned about the different types of willows. The trunk of this one is almost like bamboo, which wasn't what I wanted. I thought that was just how they look when young, but no. Also the wind, (even with staking it) is really pushing it. And willows fall over easily. I did fence in the willow as otherwise I'm sure it'd be dead. Still the deer have repeatedly destroyed parts of the fencing, despite using very strong metal stakes.
Finally I went and bought a red maple that's more than 15 feet tall. I'm worried though the awful drainage will cause the roots to rot. But I do have a really nice large red maple on the other side of the house. Which Asplund is planning to take a large chunk out of because it's close to power lines and the potato people lawn nazis next door complained to the power company because of some fight they're having with other neighbors about leaves blowing into their yard.
Gee, it's kind of annoying if I write it all down at once and I even left some stuff out.
But now I'm taking another chunk out of this massive useless yard. I'm putting up a 20 by 18 foot section raised bed garden section. With deer fence around it. Raised because the soil acidity isn't quite right for blueberry bushes. Fence because the entire thing would otherwise be gone by the very next morning. Two 12x4 foot raised beds in the middle and a two feet wide one all around the outer perimeter. Probably will mostly be perennials/berry bushes as I don't actually like gardening quite all that much. But, happy today to be getting rid of more useless lawn.
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