My garden, yes it has come to this.
2007-02-18

My first printed column in LeftLion newspaper is coming up and in bloody typical God-hates-Rob fashion, I am struggling to come up with things to complain about. The sun was out today, I got some new subscribers to the blog last week, the new job is awesome, the neighbours dogs have been silent for ages (I think one of them died, HOPE HOPE), and it’s time to start gardening. Life is good (except for Kate's job, but that is fodder for another blog entry).

One of the great things about England is how early you can get going on your garden. You wouldn’t dream of planting anything in February back in Cowtown, you’d be too busy medicating your chinook headaches and defrosting your eyelashes.

This is my first time EVER planting vegetables, so I am PUMPED. I can’t remember being this excited about anything. It’s pathetic. Grandpa-style slippers? check. Crossword book in the shitter? Check. Hate everything on the radio? Check. Excited about gardening? Check. What’s next?! Sucking down Mylanta by the bucket and massaging my enlarged prostate?!

My mother-in-law bought me this vegetable planner wheel type thingie that tells you when to sow seeds indoors, how deep to plant the seeds, when to plant them outside etc etc. Just to give you an idea of how lame I am, I love it so much that I am creating a flash version for the upcoming Canuckistani site. When I came up with the idea, I thought to myself, "Should I make a cool first person shooter?" No way. "A cool, new sim that will take the gaming world by storm?" Nah, fuck that, an animated garden planner is obviously the way to go. That will get me the Flash site of the Day award for SURE.

Below are some photos of the progress on the garden. You can check them out at my flickr site along with some photos of the house. I was going to originally include the photo of the Sherwood photos I hung up and and talk about how I made the mounts for them by hand, but I figured if I added crafts to an entry about gardening I would have to hand over my testicles. There is a photo in there of my new Alan Fletcher poster, that's at least a little bit cool, right?

The most astute of you will notice that there are some photos of my living room. If you happen to be an enterprising chav who likes the look of my TV or the supercomputer, you’ll notice a photo of the new house alarm as well. It calls all my neighbours if there is a break in. If you have read this blog at all, you will know that my neighbours are psychotic pit bull owners and are home ALL THE TIME. I hope your life insurance is paid up.

While I am on the subject of the neighbours, last time I spoke about the ones in the other half of my house (the NON-psychotic ones) I mentioned they were Asian, but I didn’t know what kind. I can now tell you that they ARE in fact Chinese. I Gung hei fat choi’d them and gave their son some lucky money as today is Chinese new year (Happy year of the pig to any Chinese readers). In other news, the Chinese Dad knows how to kill a man simply by looking at him, and he never sleeps. Chavs be warned.

The photos:

People who remember the photos of the garden last year will remember my back wall and the little blue flowers that I planted there. I have replaced them with the three dogwoods above there this year. Annuals are a waste of time IMHO. All that work last year on the flowers and now I have jack shit to show for it. Fuck that, bring on the bushes. I am officially deep-sixing the “fruity” in my garden this year.

Magnolia tree going in the bottom corner. Ok, maybe that’s a little fruity, but I am poisoning the grass to make room for it. Killing stuff is manly. HIGH FIVE!

Radishes and Peas in the mini greenhouse and Coriander and basil on the kitchen sill. If you look closely, you’ll see some are sprouting already. I have got tomatoes upstairs in the spare room as well. My buddy, (and source for all things gardening) Owen tells me that it is WAY too early for tomatoes. If I have to spray hundreds of aerosol cans into the air to expedite global warming to ensure their survival, I will do it.

If there is one thing that is true about me, it’s that I am all about the spite.