Monday, May 20, 2013

Garden Work Today - It Was A Bit Tougher Than I Remembered

Today, I planted, in pots, about 15 tomato plants, one eggplant, six Jamaican (I think they were Jamaican) Wax pepper plants, a basil plant, a bunch of cilantro (in one pot) and six cucumber pots. I used a 50-50 mixture of composted soil from my compost pile and bagged commercial garden soil for about 40% of the plants, solely bagged garden soil for about another 40% of the plants, and pure composted soil from my compost heap for about 20% of the plants. I also planted some green beans and tomato plants in the ground. I have less suitable ground in which to plant vegetables this year because my neighbor put up a six foot high privacy fence along the small strip of in the ground garden I had available to me in the past. It will get a lot less sunlight this year so I opted to put almost everything into pots that I could place, and move, around on sunny spots of my backyard lawn. I will still plant the remaining vegetable plants along that fence and hope for the best with them but do not expect them to do that well; I have a few tomato plants left over. 

I put in a good four to four and a half hours of light to medium physical labor. Well, I should say light to medium for most folks. For me it was medium all the way through. Damn, it has been a year and six months since my cancer treatments ended and a year and two months since they first said I was cancer free and I am still miserably out of shape. I guess being diagnosed with an inactive thyroid, back in September of last year, due to the radiation treatments having destroyed my thyroid has not helped but I have been taking a pill for that. Granted, the doc has had to increase the dosage a few times and I think she will have to do so again once or twice before I feel back to normal but you would think by now, or at least I would think, by now, that garden work would not be much of a chore for me. I was wrong, it was more than I expected. Then gain, it was nowhere near as bad as last year so I have improved since then even considering the thyroid thing. Really though, I have got to get mine arse to a gym and cannot understand why I have not been motivated to do so.

Oh well, as for the garden, I am hoping it grows as well as others have in the past for me. Last week I planted a few perennials on the side of my house that gets the least light. They are supposed to do well in less than six hours of sunlight, I hope so. Some of the perennials I planted last year have come up again this year and are quire promising to make a nice display.

All the best,
Glenn B