Dadstuff Diaries: Green Thumbin'

Beans

One of the things I thought I'd take the opportunity to develop while staying at home for a year was my green thumb.  I've never really been successful with plants, but then again I've never really applied myself actively to gardening.  With us in a house now with an actual yard (as opposed to the tiny courtyard of our previous place), plus a general theme of nurturing going on in my life, it seemed appropriate to give this a go.

So Exhibit A to the left here is evidence of the success I've had thus far.  I thought it would be best to start with something simple that I could mulch back into the soil and beans fitted the bill.  Had about 35 plants come up, around 8 of which appear to now be actively producing beans throughout the summer.

I've also put in a few tomato plants and a couple of capsicums to see how they go.  So far so good (albeit with lots of tender ministrations, and the occasionally bit of begging and pleading as I water them).  Immediately after putting them in we had about a week of really hot weather which wilted them a bit, but thankfully since then Canberra's been experiencing cooler and wetter days.  And this has been a little bit odd too - it's like the whole town has resolved not to complain about the rain given how dry it's been for the past several years.  So there's no general conversation at bustops and wherever along the lines of "geez, how annoying is this rain, eh?".

Looking out onto the back yard as I write this I see an expanse of green lawn, and I can't help thinking how unproductive it is.  We've got the little play area thingy out the back for the boy, but we're not really "lawn people" here.  It's like the space has to be producing something (even if it's a sense of aesthetic pleasure) in order to be valid or something.  Given that we're having some success with plantings like the rogue pumpkins we're starting to plan the construction of better garden beds and where we might be able to put berry bushes and the like as well.  It wasn't that long ago that we planted a fig, plum and cherry tree in various spots with an eye to fruit in the years to come.