Why I Quit The Gym
Last week I had 3 cubic metres (about 4 cubic yards) of lovely organic compost delivered. It is very nice compost and I hope it will grow me all the vegies I can possibly eat this summer, because it almost killed me getting it down to the vegie garden.
I don't have any off-street parking, so I had the compost delivered in the street and then shovelled it into the wheelbarrow then barrowed it down 17 steps and around 6 corners to get it down to the bottom of the block. Then I did it again. And also again. For six hours. Next time I am planning to order less than 3 metres of compost. Much less. I made these raised vegie beds in the bottom garden. I am going to make paths in between them with bark chips. Currently, the unplanted garden beds look slightly sinister, like graves. At some points on Monday afternoon I thought I was going to need one..
But then I remembered I am practising Stoicism, and began to enumerate all the virtues of my situation. I am strong and healthy enough to barrow compost onto my garden all afternoon. What a blessing! I am only going to remain strong enough to barrow compost if I continue to barrow compost. I am a fortunate person who has the means to buy compost and the ability to grow organic vegies for my family. The rain gods went somewhere else for the afternoon so I could barrow compost in the sunshine. I never in my life worked as hard at the gym as I do at barrowing compost, but lifting weights at the gym never contributed in the slightest to the production of organic silverbeet. In fact, the gym cost me $12 a week, and now I work in other people's gardens and my own, get an amazing workout and earn money instead. Ha! I try not to feel smug as I work in the sunshine in other people's gardens and get to play with their lovely dogs and talk to their chickens and listen to birds and develop great back muscles as I shovel mulch onto their gardens, and get a very nice shoulder and upper arm workout while pruning their apple trees. And all the while they are working in an office somewhere. Poor poppets.
At sunset, my lovely neighbour from up the road brought me a glass of wine and we sat on the back deck and watched the sun go down and the stars come out and I looked at the quite large pile of compost that is now at the bottom of my garden instead of in the street, and planned my next vegie beds and was very quietly happy. Then I went to bed and slept for thirteen hours straight.
Comments
Patricia/FL,USA
What an achievement, isn't it the best sleep after a satisfying day of outdoor physical work? Nothing else comes close.
Those veggies, they will taste so much more delicious for this effort.
cheers Kate
I'm genuinely impressed. Three cubic metres is my absolute limit for any materials in any one day. Far out! But then, you won't regret it either. :-)
I'd be interested to hear how you go, but I find it takes a few weeks for the stuff to, I don't know what the right words are, but sort of settle in. In another year, the soil will look like rich black sand / loam. That is what my grandfathers vegetable beds used to look like when I was a kid.
Can't wait to read the reports about how your garden grows over the summer.
It has dried up a bit over September, but I feel that we have just had October's climate because that is usually dry. Time will tell.
I still haven't dared plant out the corn yet. Have you ever tried the three sisters method of growing corn?
Chris
17 steps! 6 corners! Again and again! For 6 hours! I am surprised that this blog post's title is not "Why I went to the hospital". But good for you - I see that you have been working (pun intended) your way up to that.
Pam
Fran, wow, I am always blown way by your hard graft plus great plans and ideas. I love the straw bales around the fruit trees idea. Brilliant!
Chris, if I had known beforehand that 3 cubic metres is all you would tackle in a day, then I would never have tried to do it, because you are the legendary Chris and a big, strong man. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, plus that sheer bloody-mindedness that sets in near sunset at the end of a long job!
Three sisters gardening - yes, tried it once, the beans took over the corn. I will try it again this year, but let the corn grow up a bit first, then add the beans and pumpkin.
Pam, ha, yes, that was always on the cards. Was it persistence or stupidity with dumb luck?? Or is that the same thing except that stupidity without dumb luck will end you up in hospital?
Meg, distant memory already, but not so much that I'll be ordering 3 metres of anything again.. and my neighbour left me the bottle, so all good:)
Linda in NZ
Barbie, you are so right, once the prep work of barrowing manure and compost onto the bed is complete, the planting is a delight:)
Tanya, I am such an independent bugger, sometimes you'd think I was a man in a past life. Trying to embrace the work party vibe, may get there soon:) Bless you for your lovely offer xxxxx