Sunday 24 May 2009

Gorgeous Day

It's been a gorgeous day here with wall to wall sunshine. In between washing and hanging out laundry, I read for a bit in the garden, and then I started to do some gardening.

Last year was a bit of a disaster in my vegetable patch, because even though I'd covered my vegetables with fleece or netting, I woke up one morning to find that all my salad plants had been decimated overnight by marauding slugs and snails.

I read recently that coffee grounds left around the salad patch are a good barrier for slugs, so I've been saving them up, and today I planted some lettuce seeds in a square area and surrounded it with coffee grounds. Unfortunately I ran out before the square was closed, but I think I have enough time, before the seedlings come up, to drink enough coffee to complete the square.

I've outlined the shape of the square, you can just barely see the coffee grounds, and the green line shows where I started and the red arrow shows where I ran out.

I hope this works, because I got very annoyed last year when I lost my whole crop.

I'm looking after Hooli this weekend and I got quite cross with him because he was digging near the boundary fence. I told him to stop, he'd pause, then start digging again, and just when I was ready to really yell at him, he pulled out a squeeky rubber turkey dressed in a santa costume.


He was so pleased with himself, he kept making it squeek.

I once read that squirrels bury nuts all through the summer and autumn, for use in the winter, and then can't remember where they buried them. Well I reckon Hooli must have buried that turkey at Christmas time, and remembered it all these months later. Does that make him smarter than a squirrel?

5 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

"... I reckon Hooli must have buried that turkey at Christmas ..."It's a real [toy] turkey in this case, but your sentence could have worked no matter what. :)

•°°• IcyBC •°°• said...

I wish I was there to help you drink coffee so you would have enough coffee ground for your square..

I also save my coffee ground to put in my garden!

Shammickite said...

My coffee grounds go into the compost bin at the back of the back yard. Tea bags too.
That Hooli, he's very clever, and he knows how to make the toy squeak too... brilliant! My golden retriever, Wendy, had a squeaky pork chop which she loved to throw around but she never learned how to make it squeak!

Donna said...

Hope the coffee grounds work for you! We've put coffee grounds around acid loving plants before (e.g., azaleas) to give them a little boost.

How funny that Hooli remembered to retrieve his toy! LOL!

Jeanette said...

That Hooli is too funny! He was gonna get that toy even if he had to be yelled at the whole time!