The Gardener's Back...
plus all things wild, bucolic, arcadian, elysian...possibly feral!
Sorry I missed last week’s post…it was a helluva day! At one point, in a blind moment of inspiration, I sat for five minutes at my desk and wrote something quickly, thinking to return to it later (cos as I went about the urgent tasks at hand, that topic about which I wrote a few lines in haste was occupying my mind). But when I still didn’t have dinner on the table by 9pm…well…that intention evaporated…I had to declare my good intent to write to you futile! And so here I am, a whole week on, thinking perhaps I should pick up where I left off? Thoughts though, are never quite the same as they are ‘in the moment’; but…let’s see if I can pop myself back in that headspace when…
Prompted by a question from a longtime correspondent, after popping this pic (above) of my laden wheelbarrow up on instagram, I thought to seize the opportunity for a little chat on the subject of the ‘Gardener’s Back’…for it’s one of real concern - not just for gardeners, but every human: at some stage I reckon each of us has suffered at least a twinge…something not quite right or just a little out of whack, and before you know it other parts of the body don’t function properly either and the level of pain can be excruciating.
“Mickey, do you ever suffer from a bad back from all your gardening?” asked my (quite regular!) correspondent. At the time it was such a prescient question, given literally the day before, when planting out a series of rows of lettuce, I’d found myself backing out of my position (where hitherto I had been kneeling) on a single narrow board, one-foot-behind-the-other; ‘walking the plank’ backwards; one foot at a time, trying to keep balance like an acrobat on a tight rope - which is not so easy! In fact thank goodness my ‘plank’ was flat on the ground!
As practicing this acrobatic feat, I was in fact dwelling on the concept of balance; particularly as we age…hence Ginny’s question the following day about my back, being so relevant.
In answering Ginny’s question, I relayed the story of how many years ago, I invited the longtime ‘back guru’ Sarah Key, to come to Glenmore for a full day workshop which we called ‘The Gardener’s Back’. It was well attended, we hit a nerve! In fact I can’t quite think why we haven’t done it again…
But at the time, I recall asking Sarah if all the physical work I was doing in the garden, would likely be detrimental to my body in the long run? I’m guessing that many peeps to this day just assume we have loads of help and that I only carry out light (and pretty!) duties, but I can assure you that since day one…I have done and continue to do my fair share of heavy lifting (perhaps more than I should!)…and in fact I can’t imagine life without doing so! But even back at that workshop which I’m guessing is about 15 years ago (just looked it up, 2012…I was close!) the amount of physical work I’d done by then was enough to prompt my question to Sarah. Heavy lifting is one thing, but I also often liken gardening to playing a game of twister - why oh why is every tool or bucket or seedling one needs just out of reach at the critical moment? And so one s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s just that little bit further, maybe twisting too, and sometimes even overbalancing! (I’m guessing I’m not the only one ever to have squashed the plant behind by literally sitting on it!). And then there’s the sawing; let alone barrowing, shovelling, dragging hoses…the list, as every gardener knows, goes on. But would I rather do all this than go to the gym? You bet! Afterall…I do get to do all the pretty as well!
Sarah’s answer brought me an enormous sense of relief. After all, the years do tick by. At the time, I was pushing 50 (you can do the maths!). All my life, I’d say since my early teens, I’ve done a series of morning stretch exercises, though back then I’d never heard of Pilates. Of course the time line of my own life saw aerobics as a huge fitness craze; one in which I participated during my late teens and early 20’s; though I replaced that with more stretch-focussed exercise from my mid-20’s. I’ve never been a runner, but I used to be a keen swimmer and regular tennis player. I did take up Pilates classes at a local gym in my early/mid 40’s I guess…in the end persuading the instructor to come here once a week instead; when a group of local girls would attend on a Monday morning - how funny to think back to then, when the Dairy was covered in mats and all of us going through our routine. One day though, the instructor didn’t turn up…and so that period came to an end. But ever since I’ve taken the best of those exercises, combined with various ones given by sports-physios for one ache, pain or other (knee, shoulder, neck, hand) and I am faithful to practicing them every single morning. If I have a super early start to the day, I always get up half an hour earlier…even if that means 4.30 in the pitch dark…as I cannot begin the day without going through my routine!
Anyway…back to Sarah and the ‘Gardener’s Back’, when she suggested that contrary to my concerns, carrying out such a wide variety of tasks means we’re inclined to use all our supporting muscles, which in turn strengthens our back. I’m always mindful of the ‘core’, especially when expending huge effort…for example when pushing a full wheelbarrow (and especially if doing so uphill!).
It doesn’t mean I don’t get stiff, and from time to time I do do something silly and find myself in strife. But if it’s my back to which I’ve caused some issue, I drag out Sarah’s ‘back block’ and run through her series of exercises. If I was being very good, I would use Sarah’s ‘block’ morning and night, but I’m not so diligent…it takes time. But boy has it got me out of what might have been annoying visits to a physio over the years…a couple of days implementing Sarah’s instructions generally sets me right again.
By all means go in search of Sarah! I think she’s writing on Substack now too…but here’s a link to her website. When I mentioned Sarah to my insta correspondent she came back immediately telling me how delighted she was I was a Sarah Key advocate…she has long been too. Perhaps it’s time for another ‘Gardener’s Back Workshop’?
So that’s where my head was at this time last week, whilst my hands were otherwise engaged! Had I completed these paragraphs as intended, today’s post would no doubt, have begun very differently! So where to now?
So many thoughts in the last fortnight, but before I continue on, a post that appeared at the top of my insta feed this morning set me off with such a giggle I can’t resist sharing it…cos it just resonated…
I don’t know anything about Paul Avellino and am guessing he’s in the States (I just referred back…he has an insta following of 520,000!) but the algorithm clearly decided through his cheeky post today, that he ought to be on my radar!
The accompanying text to his image with a raised eyebrow goes…
Me meeting someone new:
Them: “I hear you’re into gardening”
Me: “I don’t think you’re fully prepared for this conversation”
Oh how I laughed out loud!!!!
I’ve linked the highlight of his name above to his post, so if you have a minute, do visit his insta profile and read the accompanying text (he may never appear on my feed again but this one post was worth seeing!). I’ve never considered myself to be particularly radical…but there are truths in his words that chime…I have long been on the same page of his expression and oh how those very words above (the latter line never actually spoken aloud!) have been the reality for me over and over and over again…the years of accompanying Larry to some swish business event or other (finger nails scrupulously plunged before leaving here into a half lemon; glad-rags on, attempts at getting hair to look as if I’d just stepped from a salon questionable!); but be those peeps I’d never met before prepared or not…be they likely recipients of the message of how growing veg grows you or not…I’m happy to convey that those conversations they were unlikely to have been prepared for, have often lasted, unexpectedly, for hours!
Now back to things sensible…(you know if I could persuade each and every person I stumble across to grow I would! I also accept not everyone can…or will…all I can do is try…).
The figs…oh my the figs! I’m still giving them away but finally got a chance to make jam from two kilos of them yesterday.
I’m going to look like a fig! A fat fig, I told Bonnie the other day!
I’m not sure there is a more plentiful, abundant time of year! In the last weeks, at one point the grass grew to the height of our knees (when both Larry’s mowers had a problem and went off to be fixed!). The Photinia hedge at the very front shot a plethora of new red-tip growth that got so tall it bowed down in the rain; the bright leaf tips of the Murraya hedge too, grew inches seemingly overnight and the hedge of Oleander shot up stems a foot or more tall!
Combined with searing heat, occasional thunderstorms and the insistent thrum of cicadas…it’s made for a utopia one can smell, touch, feel…and taste, for the produce has been coming in too, in bountiful fashion. On one expectant, heat-wave morning, on closing the shutters and post-early watering, I raced around with my secateurs and knife to bring in lettuce before it suffocated, rocket before it was leather, beans before they baked on the vine and zucchinis before they all turned to marrows…then plunged myself into the pool before retreating to the cool inside where ceiling fans ticked pleasantly overhead!
The pumpkin vines are romping away now! I think when I last wrote, I’d just been to collect a ute load of lucerne to cover the citrus bed that makes up the chook run (see more below) but there was enough left over to spread around the giant pumpkin leaves and I got to those just in the nick of time…before they really took off! I love that moment when all of a sudden…the pumpkin vines are away! With their enormous leaves that float on a breeze, I was thrilled to bits when two days ago, the lead shoot crossed the base of the step to Mr McGregor’s Gate at the top of the path! I’ve been tweaking and coaxing it and crossing my fingers for weeks…and at last…it’s made it! Everyone has been warned they will not live to see another day if they should tread on it!
Earlier this week, a couple of new birds arrived! We’ve been without chooks for well over a year…(in fact I think it may even be two!). The last pair were troublesome and we needed to do some repairs too, to the chook house, before getting new ones. How evocative, I’d thought to myself upon introducing the bales of lucerne a fortnight ago, when spreading them cast the sweet aroma of an agricultural show. Combined with the additional pleasant odour that feathered friends bring…a new atmosphere has settled in the kitchen garden…there can be no doubt about the attributes of the new girls’ presence…they’ve already added a life force that’s been missing here for awhile. I just need to remember to factor ‘putting them away’ and ‘letting them out’ into my daily routine…it’s been awhile!
I’ll be honest, I’m not good with birds - I have a phobia, so you won’t find me picking them up. I’m not as bad as I once was (years ago we used to allow a flock of 5 to roam the garden but the damage they did was ridiculous). Still…I’m happiest if they stick to their allotted space. They’ve been cooped up (on advice) since they arrived, but just earlier today, we opened the gate, so they are free to roam now all around the citrus trees. Ever since we introduced ‘pairs’ (I’m guessing these must be maybe the sixth or so ‘pair’!) to the kitchen garden in this dedicated area, I’ve named them ‘Cabbage’ & ‘Rose’ (yes, after Cabbages & Roses, that eponymous British company I’ve long so adored, admired and written about in previous posts) but I’m not so sure that this time maybe they shouldn’t be Mabel & Enid after my grandmothers! Thalia says she always has one called Ethel. We both laughed! Anyway…whatever their names may be, the new girls I hope…will be happy in their new home and begin to lay in just a couple of weeks.
By way of a Bunya update, the first of the cones has split itself apart…in very neat fashion I must say, compared to some explosive parting of the ways we’ve witnessed in earlier seasons! It means we’ll soon begin eating them…but I’ll wait for Clemmie to be back here before we do as really it’s her thing…she did such a lot of research into them awhile back and I’ll share the outcome when we get there. Since I last wrote though, her idea the tree might double its number of cones with each season has had a spanner thrown in the works - we now have 57 (whereas her theory would have required 56!). We’ve counted and re-counted…but have had to put that one to rest as 57 there are, and we’re not sure there isn’t still one at the top of the tree!
I have discovered this week though (as our local botanical illustrator posed the question, so I thought I should do some backtracking to glean an answer for her) that we planted the young Bunya sapling, Araucaria bidwillii here in 2009, when I found it at a plant stall during the bicentenary celebrations of Mulgoa - an early colonial settlement not too far from here as the crow flies. So our tree is 17 years old. I know as it matures, the cones themselves will be much larger…more than double the size…but I’m more than content with the size they are now - I never even thought I’d see it produce even one in my lifetime!
Speaking of strenuous jobs (above!)…Thalia and I have tackled some beauties in the last week! I’m sure I’ve written before at length about the Strelitzia nicolai, that has grown to such a fulsome specimen right outside the bedroom wing…lending character to that position both inside and out…creating a Sydney-esque atmosphere to the garden, providing shade to the eastern facade of the house and creating a secret place to read on the verandah on a too-hot summer’s day; but to say its grown to all I ever imagined and more in the last year or so, is certainly true! It’s just as I envisioned all those years ago, when we were building the bedroom ‘pavillion’. A ‘floating island’ as I would refer to them as a child…resembling some far-off romantic place in my imagination (just in a sea of grass rather than water) in the like of the Botanic Gardens or Centennial Park.
But with that growth of course, comes dead bits! Spent flowers, wind-thrashed leaves, and most of them way too high to reach. In desperation I asked Larry to please bring up the A-frames (can’t think why on earth I didn’t just do so myself but they are heavy!). And this time, he relented; helped me get them and their plank into position, and then…Thalia and I just got on with the job! A couple of hours later, after making the biggest mess; we had it all loaded into the back of the ute. Job done. Girl power! Maybe this weekend I might actually get to sit on my verandah chair and read a few pages in my favourite place…looking out from behind those large leaves to the peaceful vista beyond…
When I should have been writing to you last week, instead I was up at the front gate, saw in hand. “Meet you up there” I said to Thalia. The thing is, we don’t use the main gates every day…we use the secondary ones, and so I’m inclined to only look properly at the front gates when I open them for visitors or collect the mail, and then promptly forget. At this time of year, given only friends have been visiting, and therefore been using the same gates as us, it dawned on me that the growth had been so rampant since our last event, that no-one would be able to get their car through the gates without it getting scratched by an errant, over-extended Agave tip!
As is often the way, taking out just a few leaves became one of those ‘bigger than Ben-Hur’ activities. I caught Larry on the hop “you couldn’t just bring the ute up here could you?” And then he looked at the ground all around!!!! Thalia and I tackled both clumps, to either side of the gate. It’s an addictive thing…once you begin. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but finding the right angle to pull just the right runner, yields the opportunity to pull out all the babies that accrue around the base of each specimen, and as each one comes away there are shrieks of delight and satisfaction to be heard! No doubt anyone driving by would have thought it a funny sight! Anyway, there was another good job done!
It may sound like a lot of work, yet everywhere I look a bucolic vista beckons…some breathtaking late summer vision is illuminated in ethereal light…perfumes gather and spill; textures tumble and play, and hills of borrowed landscape frame the whole.
Time to attend to the productive garden notes etc. below! I hope the last fortnight has treated you well and I’ll look forward to catching up again next week.
With warmest wishes
Mickey x
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes, beans, aubergines, zucchini, warrigal greens, carrots, coloured chard, mizuna, chicory (planting these last two this season was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!), cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, garlic and onions (the last two stored from the spring harvest). Figs, rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano and new season nasturtium leaves
Going / gone: fresh fennel seeds, fennel fronds, fennel pollen
Seed saving: carrot, parsnip, bean (I could be saving fennel seed…there is miles of it, but I don’t because I allow it to spill, and then I forage its newly erupted seedlings for our plates)
Sowing: I thought to try for a last bean seed sowing, and they’ve germinated. Not much else has yet though from that wild sowing but given the topsy turvy weather interspersed with heatwave days, it’s not surprising…so I’m holding off for now
Planting: I did sow rows of lettuce, one of coloured chard and one of mizuna. The time for planting is coming…very soon…
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: dahlias, ginger, roses, frangipani
Perfumes and aromas: frangipani, fig leaf, lemon blossom (Meyer), lavender (a new flush). Pick a citrus leaf and fold to break, and you have all the attributes of petitgrain. A heightened sense of perfume simply hangs in the languid air all around…
Pruning and other: In addition to the agave and strelitzia work above, I did deadhead the hydrangeas - both mop-head and oakleaf. The photinia, murraya and oleander hedges have all been clipped (thank you Matt!) as well as the Cherokee rose. The pomegranate hedge has been given a clip and weed and the huge balls of Bay tree to each side of the garden courtyard door too. There’s a constant ‘tip’ pruning to all manner of shrubs at this time of year when growth is so rampant, but how we love it so!
