PAPA SMURF MADE ME DO IT

He looks all cute an innocent, doesn’t he? But I blame Papa Smurf. Back in December last year I made a deal with myself, to buy nothing for whole year. This did not include food, gifts for others, stuff for the garden, and my hair colour and make-up. Why the deal? Originally I had budgeted to take a year off after Jarvis, but that year passed and I had no desire what so ever to return to work and be apart for him.

Papa Smurf

I had done so well, all new clothes were made from fabric in my fabric stash. New bath towels for the new house, were purchased with gift cards given to me for my birthday. Everything else I passed on. As the year went by it got easier, and easier to not buy. It just got easier to not want ‘stuff’, stuff that I really didn’t need.

However, yesterday I went to Bunnings. Oh that place how I love it, Bunning and Spotlight share my love equally. The lady in the garden section at Bunning knows me; I went in to get coriander that was it. But right there at the front Papa Smurf called to me. In fact all of the Smurfs called to me, to take them home and introduce them to Herbert, Basil, and Corri.

Herbert, is the big guy, Basil is wearing orange, and Corri is the pipe smoker.

Justin gave me the three garden gnomes, gifts that I adore. They sit happily at the back door, but Papa kept whispering he would look so smart at the front door. So I broke my rule. Then I broke it again. The stand behind Papa was also given to me by Justin, all year I have wanted to fill it with pretty flowers, but I knew this was bending the rule of buying stuff for the garden that was practical.

So now we have Papa Smurf and some Raspberry Fluff Petunias sitting at our front door. I am questioning, am I going to enjoy them? Or am I going to feel guilty each time I walk past them. 

Raspberry Fluff seedlings. 

My new coriander, which was the start of all of this. 

IF YOU BUILD IT

Growing up I always took for granted that Dad would over take most of the backyard, in every house we lived in, with a vegetable garden. Dad likes to be doing “stuff”, even now when he is in his mid-seventies, he still likes to do “stuff”, and he says he gets bored with only working part-time. So I knew Dad would be perfect on so many levels to help me with my new project.

Even before we moved in this house the one thing I hated was the backyard. Before we signed the rental agreement we were promised it would be cleaned up. Twelve months of phone calls and emails to the real estate agent, the back yard still looked like part of an abandoned house. With Jarvis getting older and starting to walk, I knew there was no way I could ever let him into the backyard to play; it would be just too dangerous.

So with the dual reasons, of wanting to clean up the back yard and wanting to plant my own veggie garden, the clean up began. It is amazing what one 74 year old man and two women in their 40s can do. I think it also helped my sister was in a pissed off mood when she came over. There is nothing like a woman angry at her partner to get her welding a sledge hammer with amazing gusto.

Over the space of four days, we demolished the old pool and fence. It probably would have been quicker, bar for the fact my father is a man possessed when he gets a chainsaw in his hands. Never trust him when he says he is “just going to trim those trees back a little”. It took eight trailer loads to the dump to clean up. We kept what boards we could to re-use. But before I went to France, we were left with a clean backyard. ok, a big dirt patch, but it was free of dangers.

This week, dad and I have started to build our, (and I will have to say our as this will be as much Dad’s project as mine) garden beds. Next is the trailer loads of dirt and a final clean up. Then we can get planting!

I know it is crazy to go to all of this work in a rental, we won’t mention Jarvis’s bedroom, but I think it will be worth it. Not only will we save money in the long term, we will get fresh vegetable and herbs. Plus most important, I can control what goes into our food. I can either keep our produce organic, or at the very least use fertilizer and pest control that I approve of.