I've been THINKING about gardening.
Just thinking!
But today I actually worked on a rolling shelf unit that will be used at the fencing club. And I went to the club for our weekly advanced saber practice. We have a fantastic coach from Chicago come in for the Tuesday practices, he gives private lessons and today we stayed late so he got to fence several of the people who were at today's practice. I also had 3 of my best Purdue fencers show up for today's practice. One of the Purdue fencers got a lesson. The other two just came to do high level fencing.
I skipped going down to the regular Tuesday practice at Purdue. I make 95% of the Tuesday practices on the main campus but honestly I'm pretty exhausted physically. I think I really need to get a lot more exercise into my daily routine. I stopped due to arthritis and now I get fatigued too easily (and gained weight too). I've been running EXTRA fencing sessions and working more with the University of Illinois/Chicago fencing club. Plus my private club. And still with the Purdue University club. And now a Purdue extension campus too. So I'm literally running around from campus to campus to club to campus to club . . . and I'm just worn out. So tonight I'm taking a break.
Also, I just drugged up one of the dogs. Big storm front coming through. Thunderstorms and tornadoes predicted. I want to sleep.
I've been thinking about gardening as well.
My back yard has little room for a real garden and the squirrels tend to rob the tomatoes and peppers. So mostly I am putting in floral sets, Inpatients and marigolds.
The inpatients are lovely, prettier than marigolds. However, squirrels hate marigolds, so I am getting even.
I currently have five new celery plants started from store bought stalks we planted over the last few months.
I eat two stalk pieces a day so this will be useful. They will live in the greenhouse this summer.
I will have five tomato plants and maybe three peppers, but they will be in the Greenhouse.
We did let the Koi Pond go dry over winter. A hawk discovered it last fall and removed the school of small koi. So, we shut off the water supply to it. That cut at least $150.00 a month of the water/sewer bill. The pond bottom was natural, so water seeped away daily and had to be replenished. That trickle air orated the water.
I plan to dig up the pond bottom. Really rich loamy soil. Placing it in the flower beds and tomato planters should give be a bonus crop.I calculate about 12 cubic feet of loamy soil.
I will be digging the pond deeper and set the bottom with a vinyl liner and a sump pump system for the waterfall. The plastic bottom will cost about $150.00 but payback in a month or two.
I plan to have two pumps. One very small one for a trickle to keep the water oxygenated. And a large one for the waterfall which will come on occasionally and only for show.
I already have the pumps and waterfall kit, along with bags of big round stones and colorful gravels, so very little cash outlay. Some PVC pipe perhaps and a large diameter garden hose are in the garage waiting their assignments.