Gaius Baltar says that in Battlestar Galactica, in the episode where the cylons keep attacking every 33 minutes. Each time, humanity hopes that the cyclons won’t come, but they do. I was reminded of it this morning when I went into the garden to let the chickens out and realised that last night’s rain didn’t come to anything and the garden is still parched. Rain is forecast for today, too (although it depends on which forecast you look at – personally I think they’re all rubbish), and it’s hard not to be hopeful that it will indeed come.
When I can get out into the garden, I am working towards the new plan when I’m not watering. Last week I was potting on plants that were suffering in small containers – my new dwarf buddleijas, two mints, honesty seedlings and some mystery alliums that were crammed together into one pot.
I have made a lot of changes to the plants at the front of the house, which is a south-facing sun trap. The windowboxes are under an overhang and therefore in a rain shadow, and it can get pretty windy – it’s a harsh place for plants. I have grown edibles out there in the past, but I am increasingly worried about contamination as there’s a lot of traffic and trash blows in on the wind, so I’m guessing it’s a bit of a pollution trap as well. This spring I had broad beans in the windowboxes – I can shell those and they’ll be fine, but they tended to wilt when the weather was hot.
So I have replanted the windowboxes with three different sempervivums that were kicking around in the back garden and hadn’t really found a home. Much of the time they are low growing, and it will be a while before they bulk up and look impressive from a distance. But when they flower they send up spikes that look like space aliens, which is always fun, and they have pretty flowers. And they will love the hot, dry conditions and should be happy there for ages, so replanting the windowboxes won’t be a chore for a while.
Earlier this year I moved my dwarf nectarine from the Grow Dome (where it had suffered from drought and heat and red spider mite and developed a bad case of scale) out to the front of the house in a container. I cleaned off the scale, and positioned little Nectarella so that it could catch some water when it rains (in winter I can move it back so it doesn’t, which should protect it from leaf curl). It is much happier there, basking in the sunshine, even though it knows this is its last chance. If it doesn’t thrive there then it’s for the compost heap.
I also had half a dozen big pots of comfrey out there – the idea was that they would catch the drips when I watered the windowboxes and thrive in the sunshine. They didn’t, it was too dry and they didn’t like it, although comfrey is almost impossible to kill. I have enough comfrey plants in the garden, so I am in the process of dividing up these spares into smaller chunks of root and potting them up to take to the seed & plant swaps I’m going to later in the year. Comfrey should be popular with permaculture and transition people alike – it is a dynamic accumulator that brings nutrients up from the subsoil, and its leaves can be used as a compost activator, to make a liquid feed for tomatoes and other fruiting plants, as a mulch and as animal feed (the chickens quite like it). It’s also edible (although most people wouldn’t want it), medicinal and a good plant for bees.