Plant diaries (Day 2) 24 June 2013

Woke up this morning for work and before I got dressed I rushed outside, expecting to see a forest, but to my surprise and abject disappointment, the lack of any development whatsoever was glaring.  Feeling a little crushed and dead inside, I consoled myself by thinking that my expectations may have been a bit optimistic, but not unreasonable, considering the love and attention I had put into the previous day’s toil (in the soil).

I picked myself up from the short brush with clinical depression through reminding myself of the rabbit and tortoise story – slow and steady, like a hat, and feeling that the soil was still adequately moist (and soily), went to work.  A big task for the day was out of my hands, the guys’ first encounter with the sun.  Now our balcony gets a decent amount of sun, but like an elephant on a conveyer belt, it moves.  Luckily dale (the roommate) was at home, and he was entrusted with marking the sun’s path across the balcony and establishing the optimal SUS - sun exposure spot, in which the pot will ultimately come to settle. 

Like a nervous mother, looking at her kid’s first trip to shark cage diving, I couldn’t help but worry about my seed’s wellbeing.  I may have left work a little early ‘to beat the traffic’, and was relieved to see that the pot had moved from whence it lay earlier in the morning.  This means Dale had done his job and the seeds had had a serious sun party.  We then sat down and he explained how the sun had behaved and we debated the perfect pot position.  After a quick check-in with the newly-planted homies, it was time for the parsley to move into its new home.  The seeds were drained and transplanted into sector 4 of the pot in a very delicate procedure, which can only be described as ‘putting the seeds from a bowl into the soil’.

Still no growth from anyone’s sector, but maybe everyone was waiting for Parsley to move in.  What’s a party without the parsley?  They (you know ‘they’, they very smart), say that germination is the most important part of the growing process, as despite the lack of progress on the outside, under the surface there is a whole magical mix of nature’s elements brewing – like a poop.

Plant diaries (Day 1) 23 June 2013

It was Archimedes who is thought to have said to someone that “The only time a man truly knows his worth is once he dabbled in the fields of horticulture”.  So in line with my quest to true enlightenment I decided to let out my inner gardener and turn my balcony into a vegetable garden.  These entries will document my journey to a life of fresh herbs and battle against the elements; dry soil, and bulimia.

So the first step was to go to a nursery – Keith Kirsten’s on Jan Smuts.  The problem however, having never actually grown anything in my life, is that I had no idea where to start.  But along came Sipho, a titan of growing live things; the god of pot plants; the master of marjoram.  And like a light guiding a sailor to the Philippines, Sipho took me through the basics of planting things in a pot, i.e. getting a pot and getting stuff to put in said pot.  I tried to impress my guru by telling him all the things I intended planting when I go home, like pumpkins, spinach and peppers.  But while Sipho said that the pepper and spinach would grow well, he laughed at me when I mentioned pumpkin –rolling his eyes and said that pumpkins only get planted early spring.  I was so embarrassed and tried to pass it off as an ice-breaking joke “Obviously I wasn’t going to grow pumpkin in the winter S-money, I was just testing you and you passed” (amateur Rhyno).

I wanted to grow a few things, but didn’t really want to buy a lot of pots, thankfully Sipho came to the rescue, apparently one can grow a number of things in a single pot.  So got some marjoram, parsley, Piquante peppers and red ruby spinach to all live together in the same pot-community.

Just as I thought that I was all ready to start growing some serious veggies, Sipho dropped a bomb.  I needed a layer of gravel for my pot, but the nursery only sells 20kg bags.  Who is going to use that much gravel?  I have got through life to date, never needing gravel, and couldn’t foresee any large gravel-based demands coming up in the future.  So I promised Sipho that I would make a plan, but instantly felt ashamed, as I knew I was lying to my sensei, my Mr Miagi, as I had no idea of where I was going to find gravel.  I wasn’t even 100% sure of what gravel is?  Is it just little rocks? Aren’t ‘gravel’ and ‘road’ synonyms?  Must I now go dig up road?  Do I need a spade?  Sipho suggested that I get a brick and just smash it.  How do you smash a brick?  Don’t you normally use bricks to smash other things?  Surely bricks have been established to be quite solid and difficult to smash, seeing as they used to smash things.  You wouldn’t exactly try smash something with a carrot cake.  I was beginning to see that growing would take a lot more skill, creativity and test my being to its centre before I get to see the literal fruits of my labour.

My gravel dilemma was sorted through a sudden brain wave, when I was at my parent’s house.  My pops had an old fish tank, which everyone knows uses gravel as a base.  Seeing as there were no more fish (now I can come to terms with fishy the goldfish’s passing, as he died for the sake of a greater dream), I was sorted.  Now with all the ingredients at hand my excitement started to grow evermore. 

As I got home, like a kid in a candy, I quickly assembled my pot + drip tray (not very labour intensive – no engineering degree required); coated the pot with a thin layer of gravel; and filled the rest with a bag of fresh soil. 

Put the seeds in the pot, planted a finger-width from the surface (another gem of advice from Sipho), and was careful to put each species in a distinct sector.  You can’t have Piquante peppers (maro)jamming with the spinach – it’s just not done.  Maybe in a more progressive society, with less barriers and social stigma, different herbs will be able to grow together, intermingle and flower in the same sector, but lo, for now they must be settle for being in the same pot, only a dream a few generations ago, where the powers that be insisted on separate pots for different species – oh how savage we were, will we ever be forgiven.

Peppers, spinach and marjoram were sown (ye I sowed my seeds), but the parsley had to wait, as they required a 24-hour lukewarm soak (as is common knowledge).  The last task was watering.  As a novice gardener, this proved to be somewhat stressful.  I had no idea what the right amount of water would be for these seeds.  I felt so responsible for their wellbeing.  Too much and they would drown, too little and they would dehydrate.  Google said the soil needs to be moist, so I went for a conservative 3 cups, evenly spread.  I think I did well, as it had a really good moisty soily feel after.   

So that’s it, step 1 – the planting is done and I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow to see some serious balcony foliage.