Hi Bob. When I look back at what the ESP looked like in the early days and all of the grunt work that had to be administered to get some semblance of garden from it, it makes me appreciate it even more today. I think I have much more of an intimate connection with the terra firma of the ESP because of all the hacking and slow building of the soil I have had to do over the years to enable plants to grow and thrive. I still know where the poorer areas of soil exist in the patch because I have manually dug into almost all corners of it at some point! I plant plants in different areas armed with this invaluable knowledge. I think you are totally correct in the fact that I have definitely become more of a control freak over the years, striving for more order. This controlism has most certainly helped create a lot less overall work, I welcome that. The more free-form "before" shots of the ESP in this post, ironically, needed a lot more maintenance and weed pulling, something that I knew had to change. I am planning a larger area devoted to vegetables, (that I know little about) in the patch. More on this later.
Interesting on the Bull Nettle front, I will most certainly try some of these remedies the next time I get hit by one. The urination remedy may be a little too difficult, image-wise for me to visually document, and even more difficult to execute whilst trying to get an appropriate blog image of the process? I fear I may lose the handful of readers I have built up! ...sounds a little familiar?
The bright yellow blooms are from some type of Aloe Vera in the "Panama Canal":-) I ran water pipes and electricity pipes through this canal some years ago, before I filled it back in, and planted it all up. I still need to install a couple of GFCI boxes at some point, so that I can illuminate the patch at night, my ultimate goal! Well, that and a small hop-in and cool-down pool... Ah I continue to dream.
As always, good to hear from you Bob, glad you enjoyed the post. Philip.
When I look back at what the ESP looked like in the early days and all of the grunt work that had to be administered to get some semblance of garden from it, it makes me appreciate it even more today. I think I have much more of an intimate connection with the terra firma of the ESP because of all the hacking and slow building of the soil I have had to do over the years to enable plants to grow and thrive. I still know where the poorer areas of soil exist in the patch because I have manually dug into almost all corners of it at some point! I plant plants in different areas armed with this invaluable knowledge. I think you are totally correct in the fact that I have definitely become more of a control freak over the years, striving for more order. This controlism has most certainly helped create a lot less overall work, I welcome that. The more free-form "before" shots of the ESP in this post, ironically, needed a lot more maintenance and weed pulling, something that I knew had to change. I am planning a larger area devoted to vegetables, (that I know little about) in the patch. More on this later.
Interesting on the Bull Nettle front, I will most certainly try some of these remedies the next time I get hit by one. The urination remedy may be a little too difficult, image-wise for me to visually document, and even more difficult to execute whilst trying to get an appropriate blog image of the process? I fear I may lose the handful of readers I have built up! ...sounds a little familiar?
The bright yellow blooms are from some type of Aloe Vera in the "Panama Canal":-)
I ran water pipes and electricity pipes through this canal some years ago, before I filled it back in, and planted it all up.
I still need to install a couple of GFCI boxes at some point, so that I can illuminate the patch at night, my ultimate goal! Well, that and a small hop-in and cool-down pool... Ah I continue to dream.
As always, good to hear from you Bob, glad you enjoyed the post.
Philip.
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