The countdown timer officially started today - 7 days till we fly; Thailand to Cyprus, then the Netherlands for a few weeks to catch up with family and to take my daughter to College, then back to Thailand via Stockholm. Away about 5 weeks. Needless to say, our house has been awash with suitcases, laundry and lists for many weeks already, but we ALSO needed to get the garden ready!
Pre-covid, when we traveled internationally or inter-province for more than a few days, we had someone come to water and take general care of the animals. But last time, it didn't work so well and half the garden died.
This time? It's rainy season so watering shouldn't be an issue, and we found a friend to take our remaining cat as a house guest. 🐱
Which really just left us with a hard-day's work to tidy and clean everything so the house looks lived in and cared for, even with no one home. My staff will swing by to collect the mail and check on tings, but I don't want to rely on them to keep things alive.
Sooo, being the savvy entrepreneur and business-owning Boss Lady that I am, I abused my power 😆, closed the office for a day and instructed two of my workers to HELP ME OUT IN THE GARDEN. 😁 The joys of running a small business which employs extended family! Check out the jungle creepers taking over the electric cables... 😮 not quite sure how to manage that, so I didn't. Open to suggestions...
Anyway, we made a day of it.
In Australia, I planned, mulched and developed my garden to be low maintenance and drought resistant. But here? The Thai landlady is not much of a gardener AT ALL and our lease specifically precludes us from changing the garden. Originally we went 50-50 on a garden guy to maintain it the way she wants, and that worked for about 8 months. But he quit and she couldn't find anyone else at a cheap price, and so I offered to do it. Not a perfect arrangement, but I am secretly adding a few plants here and there, very surreptitiously making my mark.
The brushcutter did overtime on the mish-mash of grasses and herbaceous wild stuff which tries to be a lawn.
I think her garden designing puff all ran out by the time the landlady got round to the back yard. 🤣
All the pot plants had to be moved out from under the roof line of our front and side porches, and put under the protective cover of the banana trees.
Pretty darn happy to see some new banana trees sprouting... we have 5 new baby ones coming on... they will fruit later in the year, most likely.
All the pots had to be topped up with soil, given that the torrential monsoon rains wash it out of the pots so quickly when the deluges hit. I was delighted to see my coffee grounds project doing well. I'm rehabilitating horrid dry-dusty concrete waste bits of soil around the garden by applying fresh coffee grounds a few times a week. And the dry, soul-less dirt IS starting to become rich, fragrant and able to hold moisture!! Yay.... more coffee....!!
And so we worked hard, got it done and made sure everything's ship-shape and redy for us to embark on our adventure.
Just need to lock the bicycle and the tools in the back spare bathroom the day we fly...
What did I learn??
Apart from the pleasure of being able to enlist the troops for hard garden chores, I REALLY learned (again) that gardens need to be so incredibly well planned!! The garden around us right now isn't, but I guess you learn what you DO want by seeing how and why what you DON'T WANT makes for hard work and disappointment.
My mission for the next few years - apart from paying for my daughter's College and running our business? To BUY SOME LAND and create my own garden.
Meanwhile, I have some packing to do....
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