Category Archives: Off the (Gardening) Wall

This post was penned by our correspondent somewhere in the airspace between Bozeman, Montana, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It's amazing how much gardening can get done when you're under the gun.

Several weeks back James Alexander-Sinclair (Blogging at Blackpitts Garden) wrote about how everything was suddenly catching up with him at the end of winter, and how it was all his fault. (Ever a slave to logic, he titled that post "Sand On The Toes Of A Wallaby." Go figure.)

I know exactly how he feels, except the part about its being my fault. I don't know whose fault it is, but surely not mine. (Maybe his?)

Take the last post (mine), and the missing final post on soil blocks. The latter was supposed to go before the former, but since it didn't, the latter will have to go after the former. Or, to put it differently, the final potting block post was supposed to go up before the Nature Conservancy post, which was supposed to go up before Earth Day, but, well, not so much. Once I'd fallen behind with the soil blocks posts, the ED post was doomed. Sort of a “for loss of a nail the shoe, the horse, the battle, the kingdom was lost” situation.

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All right, I admit it: I have not been entirely straightforward with you. In the midst of this long hiatus, I had knee surgery. Total joint replacement, in fact, the fringe benefits for which included going to total joint replacement “camp,” a two hour meeting which was, thank goodness, far more useful than its chirpy literature, strewn with exclamation marks. Nothing makes me feel more curmudgeonly than being told that I will be prepared! and that everyone is going to work together to make sure that my experience is top notch! Grrr.

Fortunately, everyone did work together, though when they were all doing so in my room at the same time, most of the work involved pushing through the crowd: the nutritionist, the physical therapist, the occupational therapist, the case manager, the pulmonary expert, the phlebotimist, the anesthesiologist, the hospital nurse, the surgeon’s nurse, the surgeon herself–it’s extraordinary how many people were involved. On several occasions one of them sent others away because the oxygen levels in the room had dropped dangerously due to overcrowding.

All went well, and after four days I came home, where I am strictly forbidden to vacuum or cook. However, no one forbade my turning a compost pile, and the stool I use for showering works great in the greenhouse. So you can guess what I’ve been up to.