I know it’s not halloween yet but

It’s been a strange few days. It has been gloriously sunny and warm – that’s just for starters – and I have been outside catching up on the gardening weeding and nurturing baby seedlings both inside and outside of the grow house. I think I’m going to have to call it the “Tomato House” this year as besides all the tomatoes that I’ve grown from seed this year, i.e. Brandywine, Ox Heart, Roma, Black Krim and Black Russian and a stripy green one which I can’t remember the name of, quite a few volunteers from last year have popped up! That includes Tigerella, Wild Currant, Gardeners Delight and Moneymaker. I am determined to be strong and strict this year and trim all side shoots and pull out wimpy seedlings but already I am slightly overwhelmed. I mean, I have the most flourishing kale plant, but it’s inside the grow house. I didn’t plant it there, I have never had kale inside the grow house, that would be just stupid. I haven’t even had the kale seed around the grow house. So the scary question is “Where did it come from?” Has the wind picked up the seed from the kale outside and miraculously blown it in through the door and then dropped it in the planter 10 metres away from the door? Perhaps one of the birds that has flown in from time to time has secreted (or excreted it) it in the planter?  Or does Mr Kale have a master plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD one grow house at a time, eek! Meanwhile I’ll keep using it in salads and soups etc. I have left the one outside in flower deliberately as it is over 18 months old and I plan to collect the seeds but the one inside was growing long before the one outside was flowering.

And then there’s the rock melons….  I planted three seeds in a little pot. Only one grew but that was okay and I kept watering it and giving it encouragement daily.  Then I noticed something that looked like rock melon sprouting up in the bed of the grow house – two of them. I hurriedly planted the little one from the pot but alas, I don’t think it is ever going to catch up with its brothers, sigh. Of course, the rock melons are going to have to magically weave their ways around all the tomato plants too.

I have a theory about capsicum. I think that it’s vindictive! I don’t eat capsicum because it repeats on me – over and over and over again. But M likes it so for three years now I have been trying to grow capsicum. I don’t care what colour, red, green or yellow, it’s fine. I have a mini chocolate capsicum, bought as a seedling from a shop two years ago, but it’s sooooo mini once the seeds are discarded there’s barely anything left! So once, again I’ve planted  green and  banana yellow capsicum seeds and so far a big fat nothing! Just ‘cos I said I didn’t eat capsicum it’s sulking, hrumph…

But back to the strange few days. M is up north putting up a grow house in Burnie. He left on Sunday with the trailer loaded up and will be home sometime tonight, Tuesday. My question is, why is it that when he is away I stop eating sensibly? I always cook from scratch but what is my problem with doing it for just me? So instead of two regular evening meals with veggies what did I do? I ate a chicken leg on Sunday night and last night I went crazy and cooked a mushroom omelette. I have salad in the fridge, did I eat that? No. I have an assortment of veggies in the fridge and the garden, did I bother? No.  Consequently I have made a vegetable soup for tonight and crammed as many veggies in as I could to have with my freshly baked sourdough bread. Soup is good when you have no idea what time he will be home. But I do this every time that he’s away. My theory is that because I can get so much more done when he’s not around to interrupt divert me that I end up doing too much for too long and then just can’t be bothered doing anything else in the kitchen. What else could it be?

But, to put the whole darn thing into complete strangeness – I woke up this morning with a cold. In one nostril only. Streaming  all day, dew drops a major hazard and rib crunching sneezes. This afternoon I even had to have a little lie down. I have not been near anyone with germs, I only went up to the corner shop to collect the weekend papers  once. If you leave it until the Sunday you can get both and have a real news fest! M has been away and I have not been outside of this house/garden for a week (that sounds a bit sad but I like it like that). So am I back to the wind dropping germs into my left nostril, I know it wasn’t a bird, I would have noticed. I think.

I haven’t even started on the story about the dog………          

                                                                               

Jan