Flip-flops

I was half way into watering my garden when my left foot decided to swing from one side to the other while going down a stair. Ouch! The right foot then thought it would be a great idea to compensate for the harm done to his teammate and he decided to carry all the weight "on his shoulders". Result? Fracture of the right external malleolus. In short, a "little" six weeks of not putting weight on the foot and wearing a splint. Perfect timing for a gardener...

When I wrote that I was half way into watering my garden when the fall happened, it was true. But I had to fertilize all the plants (about 100 pots), and also had to install the supports for the bigger plants. I've also planned to check on my isolation nets the next day. All of those nice plans disappered in a fraction of a second (almost).

This "lovely" adventure put me face to face to a flaw I have and was still not aware of having : the difficulty of delegating. There was so much work to do in the garden in the following weeks, and I had to let other people than me do these tasks. Water the plants when needed and fertilize them regularly, remove the weeds, check the plants for diseases, treat the *@!# Japanese beetles, weekly verify the progress of the plants, take photos and, above all, take care of the branches that I had isolated to keep the seeds. This last delicate step, I will take care of it in the coming days, a little pleasure that I keep for myself (and a fairly long thing to do; put a thread on each fruit that has been isolated, hundreds of fruits therefore hundreds of threads to cut and install, in addition to taking notes in order to closely monitor the number of fruits per plant that have been isolated).

Moral of the story? When you garden, leave your flip-flops in the closet and wear good shoes!