Source and Source

Oh shit! I had thought that I had a few more days to write my September Garden Journal... I was really going to slack off this evening after having a few days of heads down writing for a different project... my brain is shot and mind is melted... but I must get my garden journal out for @simplymike! Garden Contest is here

So... apologies in advance if I sound rushed (I am...) and slightly incoherent (I am....) and a bit tired.... (I am)!

September was the first full month since returning back from Australia and the winter over there... and the European summer which had just past... apparently it was great weather over here! Anyway, it meant that we had a bunch of things that needed to be done in the garden. Stuff that we had put off... and annoying things like the garden deciding on growing regardless of whether or not we were there....

The Back Garden

The first thing that needed to be done was the mowing of the grass... actually, our garden wasn't quite so bad... you should have seen the common area out by the canal... it's a jungle, and I swear that I would be able to lose a kid in there!... or even myself! However, somehow... our toddler managed to learn how to say... "Are you cutting the grass today?"... and then laughing her head off... I'm suspecting my wife for teaching her that... or maybe the older girl...

... anyway, I was hearing it everyday, every few hours... everytime that we went outside... so I cut the grass. I was considering leaving the child in the long grass near the canal to be lost forever... but I will probably need her when I reach retirement and go senile....

... the blackberry bushes... as I had mentioned in my previous journal... we had unwittingly planted the invasive variety (why the hell are they selling that type at the garden centre???.....). Anyway, we thought that it was probably a good time to start tackling it... before it got inside the house and strangled us in our sleep. So, slashing away the top bits... and then grabbing the roots and levering it out with the shovel. It had grown quite a bit... and was quite securing stuck in the soil, so it did take quite a bit of effort to get it out... and then following the roots to see where else it was getting to...

The nasty little thing had started to pop up in strawberries and started to choke them... well, it is the end of strawberry season anyway... but still... it's a bit of a mean thing to do!

So, I got to work pulling it out... when I discovered that the new shoots of the blackberry had THORNS! The original parts hat we had planted didn't have them... OUCH! So, I carefully grabbed around the thorns... and OUCH!.... so I used the shovel to lever them out... and OUCH!... so I grabbed them by the exposed roots and OUCH!>...

.... I got the gloves....

Now, according to @simplymike, they will pop up again and again like plagarists and scammers on STEEM... oh wait, she didn't say that exactly.... but it is the same thing. I'm going to suffocate them with #newsteem tulip bulbs. Speaking of which... my wife said that she was going to plant them this week... four weeks ago! So, I guess I'm going to plant them... or they won't get planted again... but I have no idea where to plant them... my best guess is that they need to go in the soil somewhere... but apparently, I can't just dump them all over the place...

Meanwhile... my wife looked up how to prune back the lavender... apparently you should do this each year, or at least more often... before it gets too woody... so, we aren't too sure if this is going to survive the winter... it looks pretty severe to me, but then again... all pruning looks pretty damn severe!

@birdsinparadise (I think...) suggested that we should dry the herbs before they die... so, that will be the project for this coming week... basil, parsley and thyme... we will hang some and then use the dehydrator on the rest... maybe make a few more bags of pesto!

The Front Garden

To be honest... we were supposed to have drawn up rough plans for this... I think that was my job... to have a small garden replacement and a little bike shed... however, we did take a tour of the old town and had a look at all the various bike sheds that people had made... just to get some ideas.

Okay... so it was a touch weird to go into people's front gardens (or just off, on the street....) on a quiet Sunday morning and start taking photos of their bike sheds... actually, there were a few people that just looked at us from inside... a bit weirdly... there was even a couple that came out... but when I explained what I was doing (in my terrible Dutch...), they didn't call the police on us... but instead opened up the shed and the guy started telling me about how he had built it... and how he did it...

I think I'm more fond of the ones that are partially underground... but we would have steps and a ramp I think... the ramp is going to be quite steep, there is no way around that... the gardens aren't that big... so steps would help, as the rain here would make a steep slope pretty treacherous. I also like the ones with the vines around or on the side... we were planning to have earth on the top, so that we could still grow stuff on the top... but we would have to check about the weight of the soil...

We probably would go with an open faced one, the doors are kinda cool, but I could see that they would get a bit stuck after a while... the roller doors are pretty strange for a little bike shed though... although, it does have me thinking about some serious automation!