A good thing

It was a good news, bad news sort of day yesterday. 

The good news was that the previous night’s bread dough had properly risen. The amazing news was that I managed a 2 in yesterday’s Wordle.

The bad news was that, before I could get the dough in the oven – or post my Wordle score on the community Wordle page – the power went off. The even worse news, when I investigated, was that it wasn’t just a localised power failure. A wind storm the previous night had knocked out power all over Vancouver Island, many of the gulf islands and parts of the lower mainland. When you hear that you know the power is likely to be off for at least a day.

The other good news was that yesterday was one of the first really nice days of the spring so far. So, after driving into the village to refill the generator gas can and buy a bag of multigrain rolls, I came back and headed down to the garden for a very long overdue session.

By the time said session was over this…

… looked like this.

An almost completely empty bed, save for this… 

… a single, solitary kale plant.

Compost feedings for the rose bushes (I was a bit worried about Angie’s rose, but it finally seems to be growing) and the berry beds.

An encouraging number of flowers on the strawberries, a reasonable number of flowers on one (of six) of the blueberry plants. One of the new raspberry plants I put in last year is dead, as, I suspect, are the black currants. (I only put the black currants in because they are never to be found in the shop or markets and there is a particular recipe I wanted to use them for. They’ve never produced enough fruit to actually make said recipe, so no great loss.) 

Not a lot of worms in the raised bed. I think I spotted one. But there were loads in the cherry tomato bed, which is encouraging.

I already have four plants ready to go if it ever properly warms up.

Some serious thought will need to go into what else to plant. I’ll be away for three weeks in August (the postponed 2020 UK trip). Whilst I do have someone who will come in and feed Stella, I can’t really ask that person to water the garden every day as well. Perhaps a good soak once a week? Perhaps not. So, peas and lettuce and perhaps more kale (as it seems to be able to survive anything). Or perhaps I should let the bed lie fallow this summer? One way to avoid disappointment.

Oh, and by the way, much to the surprise of all, the power actually did come back on just before 7:30. Took a chance on the bread dough having an extra seven hours in the bowl and put it in the oven. Turned out just fine. And I got to post my Wordle score.

So, in the end, the power failure was a good thing. Without it I would not have dedicated an afternoon to the garden. And now that I’ve finally started I do feel inspired to carry on.