Guard Dogs Guarding The Garden

I’ve always wanted a garden but have always had some excuse not to start one… I don’t have the time… I live in an apartment and have no space… I haven’t got a clue where to even start… and whatever else I could think of not to do it.  Since coming to PNG I said I wanted to start a garden and I finally did.  I went in the backyard (a coconut grove which is the coconut plantation we live on) and picked what looked like as good a spot as any.

My future garden... well half of it anyway.

Step 1 – Research gardens

Where do you want your garden to be?  Behind my house.  How big do you want your garden to be?  Ummm, this big.  What do you want to plant?  Veggies.

Well that was easy.

Step 2 – Burn the plot of land

This step seems really easy, right?  There’s a bunch of dried leaves and bush.  I can just burn it.  Hold on, what if I start a forest fire?  What if the forest fire spreads?  What if it takes over the entire island?  Oh my god, what if there’s a drought when I do this?  I can see newspaper headlines “White Lady Burns Down All of New Ireland During First Ever Drought”.  Hmmm maybe I should think twice before I light this match.  In this moment I reverted back to my 10 year-old self and got the "parental units" to monitor my fire starting.  Bruce, Monica, and I went out to the “garden” each with a box of matches to start a small fire to burn the plot of land.  Not a single one of us could get more than a slight smolder going.  I guess I wont be starting any forest fires, no worries there. Can’t even get a single flame.

Pre-burning photo.

Mid-burning photo.

Post-burning photo... hmmm me thinks me needs to rethink this.

The first of many "guard dog guarding the garden" photos.

Step 2 (revised) – Wait for land to dry out a bit so you can burn it

Step 3 – Burn the plot of land

After waiting a week we finally had a day of no rain (we’re now moving from the “dry” season were it rains almost everyday to the rainy season where it rains basically everyday but a bit more than it does during the “dry” season).  I successfully lit a fire and this time there were no newspaper headlines scrolling through my head.

Not much, but at least there are visible flames.

Step 4 – Clear the land

You’d think this would be relatively simple now that all the land is burned.  Not so my friends.  I originally scattered dried leaves all over the plot with the intention of burning them but it rained and only the top layer dried to be burned.  Patience is not one of my strongest qualities. I could wait for the leaves to dry out then burn again.  Or I could move all those leaves that I’d just put down.  More work and less patience, but instant gratification.  I chose the latter of the two options and thus the shoveling of leaves commenced.

Once the leaves were removed it was time to “weed” and by that I mean pull up all the bush.  One Saturday I went out in the afternoon and started hacking away with a bush knife.  After two solid hours of work I was beat and there wasn’t much to show for all the hard work I’d done.  Enter stage right PNG woman.  “Hello there, are you working on a garden?”… “Yes I am.” … “How long have you been working?”… “Well, I’ve been doing a little bit here and there for the last 3 weeks.”… “A PNG person would have had this cleared in a day.  I will help you.”… “(I’m going to ignore your insult and gladly accept any help you’re willing to give) Well, gee, thanks!”  Rose and I spent the next 2 hours hacking away clearing about 75% of the plot.  The following day I finished clearing the remaining 25% and what a relief.

Rose doing her thang.

Me doing mine.

Guard dogs guarding the garden

I applied sunscreen on all parts of my body not covered by clothes.
This worked out great until I spent 4 hours in the sun bent over
causing my shirt to pull up exposing my very sensitive, pale skin to
the sun resulting in a blistered burn.  Lesson learned - apply sunscreen
ALL over body before getting dressed.  Just because you think the sun
can't see it doesn't mean it wont.  Sneaky, sneaky sun.

This patch has now healed into a nice leathery scar.  Brings a 
whole new meaning to the term "leather back".

Gardening is rough work.

Or maybe I'm just whiney.

Step 5 – Plant seedling in Dixie Cups

Even though the land is cleared there is still a bit more work to do before I can plant anything such as lay down logs to create a fence separating my garden from the bush, transfer soil from a plot across the street to my garden, and mix the new soil with the old soil that was previously there.  Then after all that I can finally start to plant.  Back to the whole I’m not patient thing.  I want this garden going as soon as possible so while I’m still working on that I decided to get some seeds going in Dixie cups and once they’re big enough then I'll transplant them.  Fortunately, tomatoes and pumpkin sprouted within a couple days.  Unfortunately, the capsicum and cucumbers never sprouted.

All my babies in Dixie cups.  Unfortunately, Davos thought
these were really fun chew toys so I had to cover them with
an old mattress to prevent him from getting to them.

The first tomato sprouts

Kiss Kiss (aka Nick Danger Private Eye) napping on the mattress
covering the seedling cups.

Davos joining Kiss Kiss and smashing all my seedlings... fail.

"Hey mom, just guarding the garden."

The seedlings/sprouts had to find a new home
where neither the cat nor the puppy could get to them.

Flower bed or cat bed?

Kiss Kiss not so happy about my conclusion that it is a flower bed
and is peeing on my garlic in this photo.  Look at that scowl.
Rest assured, the scowl was returned along with a shove to get
him out of my garlic/ginger bed.

Joshua the strong man retrieving logs from the beach to put as a
boarder around my garden.

Guard dogs guarding the garden.  They take their job very seriously.

The first of 3 loads across the street to get soil.

Step 6 – Transplant seedlings and plant new seedlings

Back to being impatient, I could have started seedlings in Dixie cups again, but I decided to try a different approach and put the seeds directly in the ground.  Now that that’s all done it’s time to sit back and watch the garden come to life and by that I do mean board a plane headed to Australia 2 days later where I’ll be staying for at least 2 months, possibly longer.  Sadly, I will not get to see this garden come to life… or not come to life.  But hey, I started a garden!

Annnnd I'm done!  Yay!

Such a handsome guard dog!