Gardening moves

Yesterday afternoon I made excellent use of the available sunshine to try and fix the rain barrel. More montage glue was abused on it, hoping to actually store water in it for a change, in stead of having water flow into it and out next to the tap point.

I also moved some plants around in the garden now that I can see exactly how tall and how wide some of these plants get.
I moved the courgette down to a more sunny spot next to the hydrangea, taking it out of the shade of Former Mystery Plant which is actually called Phytolacca esculenta^*. Since it's more commonly known in English as "Food pokeberry" it gets bonus points. Its berries are used in dyeing and the new shoots and ripe berries are supposedly edible. Should anybody be interested in dye experiments, give me a call.

(You just gotta love Wikipedia! I use it to find the plants I know the Dutch or Latin name of, then click another language to have instant translation to English. You also gotta love my aunt Chris for knowing this is a Karmozijnbes.)

Now that there was a spot free between the buddleja and the phytolacca, I decided to move the hyssop in there. It's growing very large and truthfully was getting in the way of looking at other parts of the garden. It was in a prime spot getting lots of sun, so I figured if I moved the hyssop to the blue potatobush and courgette's old spot, I could put the echinacea in the hyssop's old spot.
Dig up hyssop? Check. Move hyssop? Check. Dig up echinacea? Check. Move echinacea? Check.
Now I had a bit of an empty spot on the other side of the garden. I also wanted to move the catnip over towards the other garden wall, so it wouldn't fall over the path anymore. I dug up the digitalis purpurea that was there, dug it in near the hyssop, and then moved the catnip too.

Hm, now there's an empty spot where the catnip used to be.
I will plant mint.

Any gardening god will probably burst out in either giggles or tears at this point, and anyone asking may say "you had it coming" when I will complain that mint is taking over my garden. We are now sporting three types in the shady side of the garden, and so far it's not flourishing enough to make a pot of mint tea each week, so all is well at this point. I may regret tempting the gods on all occasions though, as mint is reknowned to take over the garden. I just hold the opinion that anything is better than galinsoga.

I also ripped up what feels like a cubic ton of mock strawberry. The height difference in the garden is much better now that the taller plants are moved back and the sun-lovers are getting what they really need. I wait with bated breath to see how soon the mock strawberry and galinsoga will return.

As for the catnip: cats are still not very interested in the plant itself, but I had thrown some branches on the path, and they dried in the sun, and Dusty was beside herself in extasy over it while I was doing the above moves, so I guess they just like their medicine to be extra-strong. Should anyone be interested in dried catnip for tea or cat purposes, just give me a call.
I am also expecting a lovely crop of mint this year, so... I'm just sayin'. Get your orders in now.

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*) The former inhabitants did not even have the decency to get the European version of the Phytolacca, but they took a Chinese variety that thrives here instead. Mumble mumble native species grumble.

New weapon: staff / spear

We started the staff/spear routine last week, but I had missed that lesson. I did buy a spear shaft though, and those are 240 cm in length until you cut them to size and add a rubber tip. Too bad Zwaard & Volk doesn't have any tips yet, so I decided to leave my shaft uncut until they do.

I had the longest staff in training yesterday (and OMG, what does that say about my penis length!?) and I did have to get used to it. I loved the warming up, where we just swirled the thing around, starting in 'paddle-grip' but slowly moving about more, to warm up all the muscles. "Hey!" I thought; "This isn't so hard!"
This was not the point where I whacked myself in the face with my staff, thank goodness, but I did drop it at some point.

Basic sparring is called "huisje bouwen" and I had a hard time figuring out how to block each stroke, but soon enough I did and started whacking knuckles in the process. My staff is now baptised in someone else's blood. Should have bought gloves instead, the poor boy (Gambo should know better; he has two practice swords but no gloves!)

All in all, a good training although we did get distracted at the end. Staves are fun things to practice with, and almost any technique that applies when someone is close enough to grab you is not allowed in larp. Oh well. It's not like I want to throttle Germans with a 7-foot pole (but it would be cool).