I'm Not Being Bossy

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

As I believe I mentioned, I have been propagating seeds and some of them are already poking their head above the dirt. 

The seeds are all herbs* and I like the idea of having a corner of the garden filled with interesting smells and nice things to chew on for cats.

In fact, I had already bought some herbs from the garden centre at the weekend, because I am impatient. We've had little pots of lemon grass, chamomile and sage, sitting and looking at us all week. 

AND we have a big catmint plant, and a big parsley plant. Both in separate pots, both having outgrown their pots. 

So today I thought I'd plop all this lot out in the garden. I mean, none of these plants are very big. I'd just get the old trowel out, dig a few small holes and Bob's your uncle, right?

I told Caro this; because she has a clematis and two bougainvillea on order. So I didn't want to plant my plants where she was about to plant HER plants. 

"I'll draw you a map," she offered.

Now I don't know if you have noted this from the pictures, but our garden really isn't very big. Certainly not map-worthy.

"Can't you just go out there with me for two minutes and point?" I asked. 

"You'll need to get a spade, and extra potting mix and top soil and garden gloves and..." she went on, ignoring me.

I went to get the requisite things from the garage. When I got back, the map had been drawn. You can see it in the extras. 

HOWEVER. 

You may also notice some ADDITIONAL tasks in there. Which I had not envisaged. This is because Caro had decided the herbs should be relocated in a grassy area. 

Now the reason this is important is that our lawn is patchy in places. Balding. Badly in need of a comb-over. Caro had sown grass seed, but there are still large patches of the lawn that are brown and lifeless and this bothers her greatly.

So, before I was to trowel my little holes for the herbs, I was to FIRST, shovel up the turf for where the new herb garden was to be. Put it to one side and THEN relocate it to where the lawn was bald. 

Fine then.

Digging up our garden is a chore. The soil is a mixture of clay and gravel and large stones. And I think lumps of cement as well. So I dug up the turf and moved it and I'd just done the first one when...

"How're you doing?"

It was Caro supervising. She knows I hate being supervised.

"I'm just seeing. I'm not being bossy," she said. 

I growled at her and she went away.

I then dug my first hole, and plopped the out-of-control catmint into it. 

"How are you doing?" shouted Caro from inside the house. 

I told her what I had just done, so she came to look.

"Did you have to put it QUITE so near to the fence?" she asked. 

I gave her a look and told her it would be FINE. Then I put the basil into its hole.

"Did you massage the roots?" asked Caro. 

I looked at her as if she had gone INSANE.

"You need to massage the roots. Not like that!" she said, as I gently allowed the roots free from the confines of the earth they had been squished into. 

"You're being too rough," she said, and illustrated.

Hmph. She was WAY more rough than I was, if you ask me. But anyway.

I put the parsley into the hole.

"That hole isn't deep enough!" said Caro. "And it needs to be lined with potting mix!"

"It'll be fine, I said. "Once I've pushed the dirt around it, it'll be level with the garden." 

"I bet it dies," said Caro sadly. "I raised that parsley from when we bought it at the supermarket."

She made it sound like a death in the family. So I pulled the parsley back out and Caro dug a deeper hole and lined it with potting mix and waterered it and massaged the roots some more and put the parsley back. 

"I'm not being bossy," she reiterated.

She did let me plant the rest of the herbs. Presumably she did not feel such an emotional connection to them. And then we had all that turf left.

Caro started digging holes where the garden was bald and putting in the little turf-plugs. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle," she said happily.

But THEN she had all the dirt from the holes she'd just dug. I suggested she spread that on the garden, because it was full of grass seed. So she did that and I took a rake and raked it in to make it look all neat.

At least I THOUGHT I did. I came back in and washed my hands and then I turned around and there was Caro spreading dirt around because apparently I don't even know how to do that. 

"I didn't explain properly," she apologised when I went out there to ask how I could have failed dirt-spreading. "It's my fault," she went on.

Although I couldn't help but hear an unspoken, "...for marrying a useless husband," at the end of that sentence.

Finally she stood up. Covered in mud. "I'm going to have a shower now," she told me. Excited birds quickly covered the garden, because they love it when you've been digging about. Caro had her shower and had just sat back down when...

A courier arrived. With a clemetis and two bougainvilleas for Caro. 

She looked at me. I looked at her. 

We decided it could wait for another day.

S.

* Of the legal variety.