The two Salad Rocket seedlings have germinated and broken through, the first is strong and doing well but the second looks a little bent and gnarled, we await the outcome of the day. I have placed Team Veg on a small table in some moderate sunlight...the unfortunate thing about moderate sunlight here is that it quickly becomes blazing hot.
Fattah our gardner has become very interested in my little horticultural project and has already dubbed Team Veg's table the Nursery. He plans to construct beds to house the infant plants. I am not entirely happy with this as this is my hobby and I am keen to retain all rights to the sense of acheivement and indeed eating rights. That said this is one of the first things Fattah has truly engaged in so it seems crazy to desuade him.
Infancy beds...and I am pretty sure this is not a standard gardening term..... are being constructed behind the house in big tin troughs. The soil we have been sold is of pretty poor quality filled with dead wood and material that realistically will not biodegrade quickly in this climate. Which brings us on to compost.
I have to be honest compost brings back memories of the grass pile at the end of our garden when I was a child. The pros of this compost pile were three fold:
a. Useful for hiding behind in hide and seek.
b. Useful for treating as a castle and standing on top of.
c. Handy source of pollen rich material to throw at hay-fevered sister.
the cons:
a. Sooner or late when hiding behind a compost pile the smell of the leaching dampness of rotting vegetation gets the better of you. Very little can be worse (in purely compost terms) than leaning on a thin layer of dry grass cuttings only to get a hand full of gunk or kneeling only to arise with damp gunky kneed.
b. When King of the compost castle there was an inevitability to the shoe full of grass the lingered about with you for the rest of the day. The most frustrating element was when switching from compost based games to running based games. The running action would undoubtedly work the grass into areas unreachable with out shoe removal. Many is the time I have face planted through trying to run whilst also scratching at loose dried grass in my socks. I think it gave me the air of enraged Quasimodo.
c. DON'T MESS WITH MY SISTER.
All this leaves me a little apathetic about compost, but Mark Diaconc is sure that compost is the root to better veg.....although he does advise adding urine in a 4 to 1 ratio with water to your compost! I must seek the counsel of the mighty Goggle. Yes Goggle will have the answer, is urine in 35 degree heat a viable composting tool?
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