In the wars, and parsnips

No, not the Split Enz song.*

The lack of blogging is due to not just being too busy with two jobs, but also because the last couple of weeks have seen me in the wars. I, a) put out my lower back again, b) have my left elbow clicking out of place and therefore put all the muscles into spasm and causing constant pain and c) then got my left fingers  burnt. All of which has meant I’ve had to limit computer time to just work instead of blogging. Thankfully, the lower back is ok now and the burns are healing. My arm is still giving me hell, so I’ll make this a short blog.

The point of this blog was not necessarily to complain, although I did manage to sneak that in. Did you notice? I wanted to share some good news. Gardening news that is. Kevin and I pootled down to the Lottie on Sunday to do some watering. Well, Kevin did the watering, and I directed – cannot lift anything coz of my arm you see. And I got a nice surprise. Parsnips.

You see, I was pretty much giving up on having much of a parsnip crop this year. I have sown quite a few rows at home and on the Lottie, but apart from the 10 that I specifically germinated and planted individually as a trial, nothing was germinating. About a 6 weeks ago I gave it one last shot, sowing some Turga, Tender & True and Kral Russian (from the Heritage Seed Library). I didn’t really expect them to germinate, particularly with such warm weather. You usually sow parsnips between about February and May, so mid June in the heat seemed like hope over what’s on the seed packet.

But to my great delight, there the little buggers were – growing! Real little parsnip leaves and everything. I forgot to take my camera, so you’ll  have to take my word for it. But boiling weather and no rain and I got parsnips to germinate and grow. Well I’ll be…

So not plant pics, but here’s me looking cheery at Bee Day last Saturday at Barracks Lane Community Garden.

*As a teenager, and in fact still as an adult, I loved/love Split Enz. On their Corroboree album is a song ‘In the wars’ and immediately I hear Tim Finn singing it in my head singing every time I hear the words ‘in the wars’… So couldn’t resist putting it in the title.

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