Gutting Gremlins in 15 Minutes or Less

My mother would have said that I was "chewing nails and fixing to spit spikes." And she would have been right, too. 

After a very long afternoon working on my eBay files, I was ready to burn my inventory log and kick the computer to the curb.  As it was, I yelled at the cat and exiled her to the screen porch.  There's a limit to how much a person should aggravate herself (and any adjacent felines), so I decided that it was time to go to the garden.

Time is short for working my garden right now; and money is in short supply, too.  But I can still work with what I've got.  I figure that if I just give the garden 15 minutes a day that's something I can manage.  Lots can happen in 15 minutes with just me and a pair of old cotton garden gloves.  Really.

The pea bed was first.  It's a small bathtub I painted green.  Well, almost painted--I ran out of spray paint when I fixed it up several years ago, and never have seen the point in finishing.   There's fencing at the back of the tub for the peas to grow on.  And I've used some older rusty fencing to cover the surface--had to do that when my neighbor's cat decided that the peas were a perfect place to nap.

Lots better!  Needs a bit of compost and a scrape up with a weeder but otherwise it's good to go.  One of my favorite things in the world is eating fresh peas right out of the pod in the garden.  No matter how many peas I grow, they never do get to the house for cooking.

Then the tomato pots.  I had planted some tomato seeds in February but, alas, they didn't survive my bout with pneumonia.  I'll plan to buy some seedlings soon.

These pots are also in need of compost but they're looking much nicer already.  It's funny how much food this odd little garden has grown over the years.  I'm sure it will grow more this summer if I just keep working at it.

Since I had five minutes still to spare and since I found a sad half-alive onion set that someone gave me, I worked on two more pots. 

Gloves off.  Ready to go back to the house.   The wild ferns at the back of the garden are really filling in and they look so pretty.  They're God's handiwork; not mine.  My container garden will never be picture-perfect but it's very worthwhile and it repays me for any effort I put in.

I'm feeling lots more calm.  I even let Daisy the cat rejoin me in the house.  And I'm looking forward to 15 minutes in the garden tomorrow.  Doesn't matter what I do, there's stuff to be done and every step is a step forward. 

There's something else my mother used to say:  A change of work is the best vacation.  She was right about that, too. 

I'm ready to return to my desk for awhile longer now.