Monday 20 April 2009

I don't do gardening

I'd better apologise in advance for this, but I expect there'll be quite a bit of garden related nonsense here for a while. You'll note that I don't actually call it "gardening", but this is because I don't do gardening; plants and green leafy stuff are things that grow in spite of my intervention, rather than because of it. The real gardening is done by Blight-of-my-life, which suits both of us and also gives the plants a fighting chance of survival. The only time that I get involved in garden-stuff is when it veers off into the realms of Civil Engineering; sheds, patios, fences... and greenhouses.

I suppose I only have myself to blame for this. I worked in the building industry some years ago (decades ago, actually) and although there is no way that I'd want to make a living like that anymore, I get quite a kick out of making a nice job of something that other, less experienced/foolhardy people, would have done by a professional.
Just don't expect me to do it without grumbling.

A couple of years ago, we decided that the garden needed a serious overhaul. We replaced some horrible wibbly-wobbly paving slabs with a new patio, put up a new wooden shed, modified the existing brick shed to cope with new recycling bins, replaced some fencing and moved the existing greenhouse. As usual, it all took much longer than planned, but eventually the effort paid off. The garden was no longer an embarrassment and by the end of the summer, the greenhouse was stuffed with yummy tomatoes.

Of course then Blight decided that the greenhouse wasn't big enough.

"I quite fancy growing melons this year, as well as tomatoes. Do you think we could fit another greenhouse next to this one?"
"Grrrrrr!!"
"What did you say?"
"Nothing dear..."
"It can be my birthday present"
This is a sneaky shot, for which I have no legitimate defense. After all, what kind of miserable sod would begrudge his partner a birthday present she genuinely wants, rather than the speculative purchases that most blokes resort to. (Did someone mention 'Ann Summers' by any chance?)
"Grrrr"
"What?"
"I was growling", I reply with surprising honesty
"Why?"
"Because I'm thinking of all the digging and concrete and piles of soil and other stuff that we'll have to do if we get another greenhouse."
"It won't be that bad, will it?..."

Well, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the greenhouse has arrived. There's a long, thin cardboard box, a kit of parts for the base and a load of panes of glass. Before I can put all this lot together, however, I have to clear an area of turf, then dig out and concrete the foundations.
This on its own should be no cause for alarm; after all, I've done it all before with the existing greenhouse... Come to think about it, I've done it twice with the existing greenhouse. No, the bonus challenge this time, is that there's an old and sickly section of privet hedge intruding into the space where the new greenhouse needs to go. The only practical solution is to dig it out and replace it with some new fencing.

...and I've got to get it finished before the tomato plants have got too big.

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