Back in the back forty

Time today for a bit more housekeeping. In the house, you ask? No. Never mind the bloody house. No, back in the “back forty” (ha, ha).

I really should have taken a photo a month ago when the daffs were in full bloom all over the back. (One flowering thing bloody Bambo won’t eat.) It looked fabulous. Now it’s time to trim them all back.

One thing, now that I’m looking properly, is growing (and growing) increasingly clear: the weeds didn’t get (or perhaps did not read) the memo. This is a rock garden, featuring heather and lavender. No other vegetation need apply.

Well, except ferns. We like ferns. Wherever they wish to pop up they are very welcome.

As for the rest, they’ve got to go. So I start weeding.

What, I hear you ask, does the broom have to do with anything? It is actually playing quite an important role. It is allowing me to sweep away the bloody pine needles (which, moistened over winter and adhering together like mud, are encouraging weeds to spring up apparently out of nowhere).

Two hours later, much better. There’s still a considerable amount to do back here, but I think it’s time to kick Stella off the zero gravity chair, make a cup of tea and read the paper.

For now, job done.

Sorry!

With apologies to friends whose gardens may currently be buried under two or more feet of snow (yes, Jane, I do mean you), this is early February on Gabriola.

Last autumn, to celebrate my land (and rock) scaping work out back, I planted dozens of daffodil bulbs. They are the only thing bloody deer absolutely, positively will not eat. It may not be easily discernible from the photo below, but they’re coming along nicely. Friends on the island who get more rather more sun than I do this time of year, already have daffs in bloom. (Again, sorry, Jane.)

Something new for this year. For the first time ever, I have a sort-of greenhouse. A friend on the island who has one like this swears it does the job, so I figured I’d go mad and splurge fifty bucks on one.

Despite the dozens of pieces arriving in a box without instructions, I managed to figure out how to put the frame together.

When I started unfolding the cover I was suddenly reminded of the toxics talk roadshow I did around BC back in the 1990s. At one point I would always ask: “Has anyone here ever pulled a PVC shower curtain out of the package and felt as if you were being gassed?” Invariably there would be a couple of nods. And then I’d say: “You were.” I would then explain about the various component chemicals in PVC that escaped as soon as the plastic was unfolded.

Oh, crap, I thought the other day. The plastic cover for my mini-greenhouse is PVC. Why didn’t I think to check?

And then I thought, am I really going to take the whole thing apart and try to send it back for a refund? Is there any chance I could get a refund? Almost definitely not.

And then I wondered what sort of chemicals were likely to leach out of the PVC when the sun got on it and what might those chemicals do to any seedlings sprouted inside it for my supposedly pesticide-free garden?

And then I poured myself a drink.

We shall see.