Yesterday we harvested the first fruits of our composting and planting project from the stackable garden, enjoying peppery, crisp red and green lettuce and basil leaves. Sadly the other vegetation is proving a bit slower to to sprout and has suffered from the heavy storms of the last two weeks and hidden enemies nibbling away at them. Dominick discovered (thank you internet!) that those responsible for holding the foliage hostage to their appetites were miniscule red spider mites, who hide out on the underside of the leaves, quietly decimating them unseen. So we are making some home-made insectides of garlic, vinegar and cayene to target them and most of it should be salvageable.
I decided today was a good time to tackle the borders of weeds and the leaves and general debris that came with the storms. Plus gardening seemed an excellent distraction from working out with my kettle bells (although I still beat my current record and reached 800). I managed to fill four garbage sacks with weeds and leaves, but left just enough to keep the habitat eco-friendly or should I say: gecko-friendly. We need the lizard population to help with the flies, but they like leaves and general coverage for their attacks as well as shelter, so some must remain to keep them happy.
Having scrubbed most of the dirt from my face, knees and hands I trekked down to the bins down the road with a couple of other bags of recycling - bottles, jars and cans. And I got "pulled over" (if a pedestrian can technically be detained as such) by the police. I had no idea what he was saying except he kept saying the word NO, actually yelling it and the word 'siete' which is seven. From this I conjectured that 8 bags were too many and I could only deposit 7 and so I 'lo siento-ed', with more deference than I felt, and continued to put bags in and separate out the bottles and plastics and metals. At this point the 50-something moustachioed cop hooted the horn loudly and got out of the van and started really yelling at me. Something that hasn't really happened to me since 1991 when I was at school. He was so animated I couldn't understand a word and was feeling rather worried. Had I accidentally committed the unforgivable crime of putting a plastic item in the glass bin or vice versa?
Finally, and rather angrily, he drew me to a tiny sign on the road side of the last bin and I understood that he was trying to say rubbish can't be deposited during the day - only at night. I felt very stupid, but also somewhat annoyed - I'm on foot, I don't see signs on the roadside because I am approaching from the pavement, not the road. Maybe you could put the sign on all the bins on both sides. Luckily my not very advanced Spanish prevented me from arguing and getting myself into anymore trouble. And so I had to bring all the weeds back. I guess we could just burn them since we can't use them for compost, but there is probably a rule about fires during the day, which is probably wise given it's a pretty hot day and already in the 70's....
On the positive side I do like the fact that there is so little crime that the local police have little else to do but see kids across the road and pounce on unsuspecting emigres attempting to dispose of rubbish outside the correct hours for doing so.
No comments:
Post a Comment