WINTER TASKS
Finishing tasks within a short time of starting them is, simply put, not one of my defining characteristics, I’m sorry to say.
Even projects I’m passionate about can drag on in an almost-finished state for a long time. I’ve several of these lingerers out in my garden right now: a mostly-prepared site amongst the trees where the teepee is going to stand; the ribs of a huge tunnel house calling out to be covered in the screeds of plastic rolled up on the ground beneath them; half a recycled brick path; a not-quite-completed hammock high in the silver birch made from a huge ex-salmon farm net… my list is a full one, but it doesn’t weigh as heavily on my mind as it does on the minds of those who share the garden with me, namely my wife, sons and daughter and their various children.
They patiently wait while I prevaricate, knowing they can’t speed me up ‘cause I’m not for speeding.
The half-finished project that attracted the most comment from my lovely whanau is the sandpit.
I began its construction months ago, even wrote about it in glowing and confident
terms, but it stayed in a pre-finished form all this time, while I busied myself with lesser issues, such as earning a living and negotiating the same daily challenges gardeners and non-gardeners alike face.
But all that has changed!
I’ve finally put the finishing touches to the sandpit; most importantly, the sand, and populated that with the sort of equipment children love to move and shape sand with, and it’s ready for its first player.
Sand’s a tricky material to acquire if you don’t have a trailer, but borrowing one from a friend overcame that impediment and half a dozen wheelbarrow journeys from driveway to sandpit frame has it filled and looking beachy.
It was at that point that I realised I didn’t much like the term “sandpit”. The pit part being the unromantic bit, I’ve renamed ours “play beach” and hope it meets the approval of all who visit it.
It’s very well situated, this play beach of ours.
It sits under the spreading arms of a big silver birch that will provide shade from the summer sun, nestled amongst tall alexanders and sweet cicely. It is also sheltered from the wind by a wall of climbing nasturtiums ( Tropaeolum tuberosum).
No child could have anything other than a good time in there. They’ll dig sand with a handleless hoe and scootch it up with a redundant Spintiller head, mould it into castle-like mounds with old terracotta plant pots, make it all sloppy with water from a tin watering can and pat it down with the back of a discarded hearth brush… maybe.
Most likely, they’ll do whatever they want with things I haven’t provided, but that’s what children’s play is all about and I’ll be absolutely delighted to see it.
Having finally completed this seemingly simple project, I’m now inspired to tackle the rest of my half-finished businesses.
I’ll start by screwing in the new handle I’ve fitted but not secured into the head of my best old shovel. It has sat in the workshop, waiting patiently for weeks now, resting perhaps, but most likely frustrated at my lack of attention.
So while I’m feeling chuffed and a little righteous about task-completion, I’ll make some suggestions to NZ Gardener readers around jobs that can be done at this time of the year. Perhaps I’ll even do some of them myself, and have them done before the next issue comes out.
Task 1: Sharpen your spades
This is advice I can confidently give and promise to follow myself. My spade gets a lot of use and performs very well, thanks to its ever-sharp head.
Having a keen edge on a spade reduces enormously the effort required to do spade work and allows tasks that might have previously seemed too heavy, to be done with ease.
I sharpen with a file, but peening with a hammer is better, if you know how to do what traditional users of scythes, for example, knew intimately. While the file method removes some metal where peening does not, it does the trick and makes a very sharp edge. I fit my spade through the pickets of our wooden fence as a kind of vice to hold everything firm while I use the file and that works a treat.
Task 2: Assess the form of the trees and shrubs in your orchard and berry gardens
It’s easy to see their true shapes while they are leafless, making decisions about whether to prune and where to do that, most effective at this time.
Look to open the shape of orchard trees and bushes out like a cupped hand with fingers spread, so as to allow as much light and air as possible into the centre of the fruiting plants.
If you are making cuts that require a pruning saw, paste with pruning wax or a similar preparation to exclude opportunistic fungi that seek out exposed fresh wood and set up camp thereon.
Task 3: Check the gutters on your house and outbuildings
If, like mine, they fill with leaves in the autumn, you’ll have left the job too long if you are just coming to it now, but better late than never. Collect the leaves, or goop if that’s what you find, for your compost heap and brush clean the inner surface of the guttering, if you collect water from your roofs.
Next year, and this is a note to myself, clear autumn leaves as they fall; it’s a much more pleasant job when done in a timely manner.