Two Garden Friends and Thoughts on the Net.

Anyone who gardens knows of the joy of the harvest, the smell of the flowers, watching the little creatures scurrying about, the constant battle with time and energy to keep some order amongst it all. I have two gardening companions I would be loathe to part with.

Number One. Let me introduce Mr Mat. This is a camping mat that has been cut in two so my wife and I can have one each.

The mat allows three things;

1/ I can relax and lie down almost with the plants. Having had back surgery, weeding in particular is a joy like this.

2/ It protects me from the biting ants and things that can otherwise make ones gardening experience quite painful. You still have to keep and eye out for the leeches unfortunately.

3/ If you want to be “in” your garden, the mat is a must have. It is amazing the world when you are this close to it!

Number Two. This is a concreting trowel. An old bugger who lived next door introduced this to me. ”You can dig, slip it under weeds, slide it under the surface, and cut things. Mate, you won’t want to do without it” he said. I was skeptical having my own ways of doing things but thought to give it a try at least. It is great. It is not as heavy as a trowel, is much better at getting into and under weeds and being hardened steel, has not bent as have a number of trowels over the years.

Gardening in some climes is a piece of cake. In New Zealand for example, the soil is great, the rainfall good, there are few animals to attack the garden and the fly population seems to be confined to the when you are sunbathing.! Inland from Coffs Harbour we are besieged with hungry wallabies, irreverent bandicoots, stroppy bower birds, flies that have no respect for nasal cavities, it can be a battle. I could not survive without a netted garden although the wallabies do still get in on occasions and when spring arrives and every fly wants to lay eggs in my nose, I find a net over the face, bought from a camping shop for about $6 invaluable. For those one to two months it keeps me sane.