Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Of spacing, pigs, and veggies

One the deep joys of planting your own veg is watching your beloved kitty cat find this nice, almost clear piece of ground and not only ornament it, narrowly missing your carrot seedlings, and then methodically scratch out a quarter of a row of same seedlings to cover it while you yell at her and try to get fluffy-bumness's attention (it's a long way from a door, barring the kitty door) and the windows have fly-mesh. Then a little later, you see her Wednesdayness,in search of kitty tootsie rolls, in a garden dogs supposedly cannot enter, digging for buried 'treasure'. That I grow anything at all is a minor miracle. I do wonder if our 'healthy food' is merely all the antibodies.

The pig continues his excavations. I shall forget butchering him and sell him to Gina Rhinehart. He's getting still bigger, and decided to have a tentative taste of my trouser leg today, and got a wallop on the nose from which he retreated looking very contrite. I doubt his sincerity. He's starving pig, or so he tells me. Pigs have a purpose. They make Labradors look like fussy delicate eaters. Mind you I was glad not to have my camera with me this morning. I gave him about a liter and a half of milk that had separated after being frozen. I literally thought he might drown, he had his piggy snout right underwater while he was trying to get it in as fast as possible. He then looked at me, black snout with a milky ring and milky whiskers and did his desperate 'more?' grunt. The Labradors were NOT amused. Spare milk is theirs. They used to get quite a lot back SA. Here, not so much, as we are not getting a fixed amount from the dairy, and it costs a lot more. Roll on the cow.

Talking of planting I really have to get this spacing thing right My potatoes - which started as 5 rows, are now knee high, and a solid impenetrable mass. The boiled turkey poo or something has worked to some extent I think. Whether I now get any potatoes as hilling is a real challenge, is another matter.

1 comment:

  1. Herb of Grace. I'll look up the scientific name as that may be the local name in Virginia. Grandmother had it at the edge of her herb garden. There it is an evergreen. Anyway, in the spring when the dirt is first disturbed, and therefore _most_ attractive to our dear kittehs, make a tea and spray it on the soil. Cats despise the smell of it.

    It will also repel some of the insects that like to eat your tasty herbs. And it looks pretty.

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