(no subject)

Yesterday O and I got round to putting into action our plan to try to grow vegetables in my and G's garden. We picked a plot which turned out not to have been cleared of weeds for several years, and it took most of the day to dig over. It's about 9 m^2, and the soil seems clay and rich, with lots of stones. In the end we planted a row each of parsnips, leeks, courgettes and cauliflower. We're also going to start off some tomatoes and garlic in the greenhouse, and pot out my two bay plants there, at the end of the week (we meant to do it yesterday, but ran out of time and energy). The work was very tiring, but in a healthy-seeming way (though I seem to have done something to my thumb - it's all pins and needles still). It turns out that planting vegetables is comparable to military activity or academic research: 90% tedious stuff (digging and weeding, in this case) and 10% intense and more interesting stuff (actually planting the seeds). Our activities in the garden seemed to both fascinate and alarm our cats - they kept approaching to see what we were doing, and then one of us would make a noise with a spade or throw a weed into the heap, and the cat would flee in terror.