Gardening with your eyes closed

Well, I'd like to learn more about the less-than-perfect conditions that some of you must work with/through in order to do your gardening. I thought of this a few hours ago while planting some dianthus outside of my church building. I had to keep closing my eyes as the wind was blowing so hard. I kept getting whirls of debris flying about my head and had to make the best of things by squinting.

I would like for us, as we all post about adverse conditions, to remember to find the humor in such things. This isn't meant to be a gripe session, but just a way to share with one another about some of the things we have to overcome to enjoy our passion of gardening.

For me, it's wind. I've decided to make the best of it by gardening with my eyes closed. :)

Well this time of year it's these little annoying gnat thingies that swarm around my head and try to enter any orafice they can find, ears, nose, eyes, mouth... I just walk around the yard waving my hand around my head while I take my daily tour. The neighbors must think my yard smells really bad. lol

I hate it when I have to listen to the neighbors blaring the t.v. or radio. When that happens, I get out my Walkman. If I have to listen to something electronic, it will be the sounds of my choice.

The heat in the summer is a killer, too. I don't do anything in the summer that requires staying in the sun for more than about 15 minutes.

I have to avoid the sun b/c of Discoid Lupus. I thought my gardening days were over but , my DH put lights up around the flower beds.

For me, it's sun. I make the best of it by Gardening in the Dark. :-)

I garden sitting down because I can't get down on my knees or stand for very long. Also I garden with my eyes closed due to dust too. And then there are the buffalo flies that we have every few years now. They are thick this year so we have to wear netting over our heads and long sleeves and long pants. The mosquitoes (dear things that they are for feeding my birds and bats) tend to bite me right through all my regalia.

But at least I can garden and enjoy my yard in the shade of my old oak tree. Someday soon I will have lots more big trees (I hope they will grow fast ) and then I can do almost my whole yard without leaving the shade.

I guess it would be I am finding I have to do more sitting , My back is getting where I can't stand the bending over to much anymore. Also I will vote with the wind it blows my hair in my eyes but besides that I can't spray, mulch or do anything with the wind blowing unless I want it all in my face.

I would have to say it is the discomforts of fibro and arthritis that bug me the most. They limit my time and abilities and I don't much like that. Chilly weather, especially if it is also quite humid, really gets to me. I'm impatient of real spring to get here. I don't do summer heat well either. Like some of the rest of you I do a lot in the evenings and also in early morning hours before the heat gets settled in for the day. Then then there is that maddening high pitched 'screaming', flying insect that seems determined to get into my eyes in the evenings. But I still prefer to be outside yardening whenever possible.

I have to do my gardening by proxy now--I watch and supervise from my yard chair, while my DG & my teenage mentoree (is that a word?) do all the work.

This might sound great to some people, but I long to reach over and pull a weed or two, pinch the tips of my plants to make them get bushier, lift the fallen limb out of the bushes (that I see, but no one else does), etc.

But I'm not complaining. At least I get to do this. I have two free hands to swat skeeters with, enjoy the outside air, hear the rustle of the leaves, the birdsong, and see the textures of my flowers and touch them a bit.

I've had many good long years to garden and I've enjoyed each one of them. I am content with the blessings that I still can enjoy.

Now, having said all that, which actually is true, I must confess to uttering a viscious snarf or two at a an old long-time weed enemy. And I can even manage to lift a leg to stomp a slug or two.

And I can still mo-o-o-ove swiftly enough if approached by one of those really really ugly, nasty, yucky, humongous, crawly spiders!!!!!!!! I know, I know, they are the gardener's friend, eat nasty bugs, wonderful creatures, ya, ya, ya, and all that! It's just that they seem to like me a whole lot better than I, ugh, "like" them!

If they had a brain in their head bigger than a BB in a boxcar, they'd just have sense enough to stay w-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay away from me. (I only stomp the ones I see headed toward me, or those determined to stay in the area I'm in.) Ewwww, make my skin crawl!!!!!!!!! (shudder)

Fire Ants!!!! No matter how careful i am, i always seem to end up right in the middle of one. Of course i dont know it, until they have all gotten in to place, one hollers the "attack" command, and they all bite at once.
After that, its the amount of traffic that seems to have tripled on our road. I seem to forget what im wearing and im sure ive flashed a car, or two.....or three, (that was just today, lol). Just cant bring myself to garden in full attire. Especially in this heat.
Jen

LOL MSJen, You need to move to Idaho where there aren't as many people and NO fire ants.

NO FIRE ANTS!!!!!!!!!

Here, Pond, let me send you some! You don't know what you're missing!!!!!

Right now DW does the real work while I'm the Go-fer. "Get water, bone meal, potting soil, regular dirt, the other trowel." Thus allowing me to help and drink bourbon and smoke cigarettes at the same time. She does flowers, I do veggies. She has much better results. Frank

Sounds like a successful symbiotic relationship to me.

Judith you can keep those fire ants at home!!!!!!

Aw Shucks! 'n I had 'em all boxed up already!!!!!

Now what am I gonna do with 'em?????

DON'T answer that!!!!! That's not nice!!!!

I was bitten by a fire ant when I lived in AL and I broke out in hives and my ankle (where it bit me) swelled up so badly, I couldn't even wear a shoe. It was awful. I couldn't believe ONE ant could do that.

I was told that the next time I was bitten, it would either be a whole lot better or a whole lot worse. Fortunately, for me, it wasn't nearly as bad.

OUCH smilin! I think I would avoid them with a ten foot pole. Maybe even a twenty foot pole. They sure sound nasty!

Judith you could dip them in chocolate and eat them!

Yeah, but I can't chase them down. And the ones crawling up my leg get sqooshed before they bite me, so they're not juicy anymore.

It would be nice if we could avoid them, but they hide underground, so you don't know where they are. Sure, there are a gazillion of them in their huge anthills, but their second cousins are running back and forth underground between their numerous anthills.

It's a real thrill digging in the garden planting stuff when you disturb an underground nest. By the time you realize it and pull back the shovel, they are already covering the shovel and handle, and halfway covering your body. They move really fast!!! And all of them chomping on your body furiously!!

Pick up a fallen limb to carry back into the woods (our compost pile) and realize after the first 2 steps that you are now covered with ants!!!

You do the hula-----we do the fire ant dance!

Really, Pond, I must send you a few boxes of them. By the time they get to Idaho, they should be really hungry!!!!!! There's nothing quite like it.

I'm with you in the wind...... I believe I have raked the same corn leaves across my yard half a dozen times by now. Every day the wind changes direction, I think, and I get to move more - I wish that farmer across the road would hurry up and get that field disked!!! The bright side of course, is that I'm getting off my duff (and computer) and getting some exercise!!! LOL

Wind, yes, that would be it. In the winter, the wind.

I realize we don't have to deal with the "inconvenience" of snow, but in winter way down here in the south, our oak trees, (which are not deciduous) continually lose their leaves and even though the trees never get anywhere near bare, and they stay green, they still keep losing their leaves. Even though the grass growth slows way down, you have to rake the leaves if you don't want the grass to die.

In summer our winds come from the east, you rake to the west (but then leaves don't fall in the summer)

In the winter the wind blows every which way, I hate raking leaves and my dh fired the yard man. I'd rather be down on my knees in the dirt than rake leaves.

Molly

This message was edited Apr 18, 2004 7:49 AM

Smiln, I feel terrible in not having a negative situation to report with regard to gardening. Here in the Great Northwest, the Navel of the Universe, home of the world renown Giant Carniverous Banana Slug and lawn moss capitol of the world gardening is as perfect as though you were in Eden. Of course there are minor setbacks now and then like rain dripping down your neck as you try to keep up with the incredible growth of weeds, armys of slugs waging war against defensless little seedlings, mosquitos hiding in the seemingly everpresent puddles of rainwater and an all too short summer ( summer arrives when the rain gets warmer). But seriously, it seems we all put up with a variety of "inconveniences" for the sheer joy of gardening.

balvenie,

You do have less-than-perfect conditions to garden in - from time to time. You just have the most delightful attitude that those inconveniences aren't much when compared with the joy that you obviously get from gardening.

My worst gardening conditions is working against poison ivy. When we first built our home here, we were enchanted with the woods behind our house until both my daughter and myself came down with a nasty case of allergic dermatitis from the stuff. The woods are packed with it.

Some of the seeds are carried into the beds by, I would assume, the birds/wildlife that feed, poop, and drop the seed that sprout into plants. Other offending plants may be from stray roots that remained in the beds when we first started cutting flower beds around here. We also had outdoor cats, and I know that we were also exposed and developed the rash from them since all of us are well-aware of what poison ivy looks like.

So much for my dream of a woodland garden filled with azaleas, hostas, and winding paths!

Smilin' sorry about stealing your thread.

I think I would rather put up with thistles occasionally in my garden than poison oak or poison ivy to accidently get into. Button weed isn't fun to pull because their roots go to China and are strong, but I still prefer them to hot AND humid days. Wild morning glory is nasty but pretty and I will take that over fire ants anyday.

Almost all the corn leaves and stalks are gone. We had terrible weather thru the early morning and by noon, most of the mess was miles north of here. Then it hit a system coming from the north and clashed!!!! WOW! We ran to Sioux Falls to pick up DS glasses and on the way home got caught between the two systems. Couldn't hardly see to drive and couldn't hardly keep it on the road. There were a couple of tornadoes 20-30 miles of us and one 3 miles SE of town. Scary business! So I'm looking at the bright side - hardly any raking left to do! :)

Well, having moved more or less from tornado country, down to the land of the occasional hurricane (at least you get warning!), I guess I don't have much to complain about here in sunny, well, sometimes rainy, FL. Except for the mosquitoes, fire ants, poison ivy, heat, humidity..... Sorry, I said I wasn't complaining.

You know, I've been inundated with poison ivy/oak all my life, and I've never seen it bloom, or have berries. How in the world does it get spread around?????? Well, besides the humongous root system. It must have seeds?!?!?!?!?

I think poison ivy roots must travel 3 feet in a day. They grow SO fast and are so tough to irradicate.

I had poison ivy on my feet once after a camping trip in high school. For years afterward, I would get some of it every summer. After awhile I finally traced it to the leather sandals I was wearing back in high school. Those oils are potent!! I tried washing them and wore them once in a while to see if I would break out and everytime, I'd get red spots so I finally threw them out! End of rash!!

Yes, poison ivy does have berries.

http://www.nk.psu.edu/naturetrail/speciespages/poisonivy.htm

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/berries2.htm

I think this must be the cockroach of plants. It will survive anything.

For me it is lack of private time in the garden. Since we live in an apartment the sweet people who live above us are always on their balcony when I am out pulling weeds. I don't mind company but when I am pulling weeds with my backside in the air it is not the time I would choose to be watched :~) That never was my most attractive feature and like the rest of me it has gotten bigger but not prettier with they passing years.

Hey, Zanymuse,

If they don't enjoy the view, they can always go back inside!

I used to worry about stuff like that. Now I figure whatever I expose to the world is okay. People have a choice to watch or not. Now if they start selling tickets for your performance, you should at least get a sizeable % of the take!

Zany, just paint this on the seat of your gardening pants:

Howdy!
Show's over - go back inside

I think my biggest obstacle is the heat in summer. When it gets hot here, I think I'll spray myself well with bug spray and take a flood light out at night with me to weed. We've already decided to put the sprinkler on around 2 or 3am since we're up, anyway. That way the water won't evaporate right away, but it will also be daylight soon and the moisture will dry off the leaves once they get some sun.