The Gardener Diaries.

I do not know what my problem is! I am SUCH a mess for so many reasons. I mean I'm in good spirits because you know, it's all so stupid it's funny, but any minute now I'm going to have a breakdown. At least it'll be the hysterical laughing kind. I mean I'm kinda looking forward to it, you know? I bet my mum isn't.

The damn gardener and I are having a war. He doesn't know that I'm having a war with him at this point. I don't want to tell him because he'd either
a. Get annoyed and stop mowing our lawn,
b. get upset and stop mowing our lawn or
c. not hear me over the sound of the lawn mower.

It's like this, the gardener and I have never been on good terms, because he always appears in the garden when I'm not wearing my headscarf, because I don't wear it in the house, obviously. So he pops up all the time and I'm like "ARG! *falls out of chair."
But now it's personal.
See, I have a composter. And by that, I mean I have a hollow plastic cylinder with a lid and no bottom. You're supposed to 'plant' it in the ground, so the worms can get in , and it'll be steady an shit. HOWEVER the gardener, last year, when I got it, set it up before I could, and by set it up, i mean he just PUT it on some rocks (like you're supposed to do that!?!?!?) and was like "yes, it's done. "

I am so sure.

So then this year, he not only emptied it without first telling me but he AGAIN set it up, and put a load of grass in it. The problems are many fold.

1. You are supposed to PLANT IT. As I said! If you don't plant it, it wobbles. You know what I have now, a wobbling composter.
1b. In addition, the lack of planting, and the uneven ground means that there are some gaps between the bottom of the composter and the ground. So when I put in scraps, I get eggshells rolling out of the bottom.
1c. In addition to both of these points, the composter lacks stability if you don't 'plant' it. Therefore it's difficult to mix the contents of it without having the composter tipping over and spilling vegetable peelings all over the garden. Since mixing the compost is pretty much the second step in the important two step plan of composting, expecting compost without mixing is like expecting a snow day if you live on Mercury. It's not gonna happen.

2. You are supposed to 'work the earth' beneath the composter, so that the worms can get up from the soil into the compost and turn cucumber peel into soil. HOW ARE THE WORMS TO DO THIS IF THE GROUND IS ROCK HARD? Does he expect the worms to wear hard hats? The worms will not do this, I guarantee it.

On top of this, I mean hello, it's my composter. I get that he's a gardener (although I doubt he has a phD in horticulture) but it doesn't mean he should just DO things. I had a leaflet and everything! It totally told me what needed doing! He didn't even read the leaflet! (He didn't even ask if I had one.)

And I accepted this all last year, but he's done it AGAIN. And he's started filling it with grass so I can't even take it away, work the earth below and plant it properly. so he thinks! I will not be stopped by something so insignificant. Instead, I'm going to EMPTY the composter and start from scractch. He came today, so he wont be back for a few days.

Teach him to mess with my compost.