The War with Comfrey & Caring for The Foxes

Today I:

Bought new rosemary plants. Three. This is 'prostrate rosemary', in other words, it will drape across and out of it's container. While at the nursery I had a talk with one of the gardeners. The diagnosis was that I should have kept them outside not inside because at the nursery they were always outside. AND the soil I put them into needs sand to make it drain better, so...

I came home with the plants, plopped them on the bathroom window ledge which gets direct sunlight for about 10 hours a day. Then I headed out to the local nursery to buy sand. They will be delivering because I just couldn't see myself carrying a 25 kg bag of sand home on the bus. Since they are delivering I got two bags.

Now, before I went to off to the local place I decided to do some transplanting. I decided to do this on my front stoop with the front door opened and the door to my apartment opened. This made logistical sense because there is no water source in the garden and access to the garden is downstairs through a locked gate/door. Easier, I thought to myself, to transplant, water, and then carry the pots into the garden. First I did the last few okra sproutlettes. They look pretty pathetic, but anyway -- done. Then the strawberries, they are looking sort of okay and the mint which is looking great. Then I looked around and thought, might as well do some of the beans, their roots are bursting out of the peat pots and they are getting tall. Fine. Got more pots, soil, water, and settled back down on the top step.

It had been a gorgeous day. Sun, light breeze, warm, but not too. Now, as I began on the beans there was a nice cross breeze blowing through my apartment and across the front stoop. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move -- the door. Damn! before I could lean back and stop it, it slammed shut. The resonant 'thunk' that only a big, solid Victorian house door can make. Oh, but I have my keys in my pocket, I've been keeping them there every time I went in and out.

Except. This. Time.

I was locked out. Out of the building. Out of my apartment. And worst of all --- out of the garden. So, I did what I always do when I lock myself out. I went to the business next door and asked if someone could help me climb into my second story bedroom window. The last time they had to do this was at night in December in the freezing cold. When I was talking to the man who opened their door, I had an epiphany, "Hey," I said, "maybe I could give y'all a set of my keys?" He liked the idea. So, he got one of the guys to bring over the ladder, he propped it on the garden gate/door I climbed over and jumped down. This took a while because I'm terrified of heights and really didn't like the idea of having to hang then jump down to the concreted walkway. And am terrified of heights. *changing light bulbs makes me dizzy* Did I mention I'm terrified of heights? Well, I managed it. Not bad for 45. Yay, me.

From the other side I opened the garden door and in we brought the ladder. Into the garden and up against the wall next to my bedroom window. First, moved the tray of seedlings on the window ledge. Then climb into the window, replace the tray, get keys out of already opened apartment door. Out front door, with keys and into garden to help the guy with the ladder. Back home and did a quick search for my spare keys, labeled them, potted everything up, put it all in the garden. Dropped off keys to the office next door and off to the local garden center/nursery place.

Back from making the arrangements to *buy* sand and have it delivered (I can't describe how much it vexes me to have to buy sand or soil, much less have to get it delivered), I went to the grocery store because by then I was starting to feel sick having only had a croissant and a few spoons full of yogurt and coffee for breakfast. Ate. Went into garden to check on the things I'd set out yesterday, all seems to be doing ok. I was going to come in, but thought I'd pull up some of the comfrey. SOME.

It's addictive, weeding is. I was talking to my friend T. earlier and told her that I now understand that gardeners' obsession with ridding their garden of unwanted growths, i.e. weeds. I started on the comfrey, it pulls up easily, so I kept going. And going. And going. And going. And going. I got it all. It will come back but that's not the point. For now, it is gone. Keeping it tamed will be easy from here on.

Then there was that really thorny, viney thing growing from the base of the brick wall. It was mixed in with some of the comfrey. I got the comfrey untangled and pulled up. By now, the pile of comfrey was about 2 feet high. I stomped on it to crush it down and headed to the garden house for those fantastic limb cutters with adjustable long handles.

On the way back to the viney, thorny thing I stopped to lop off a few thorny branches that were drooping into my path and regularly grabbing my hair as I went back and forth. A few more steps and I stopped again, this time to get the last of the comfrey along the path but tucked under some other flowering big thing. It's in for a heavy pruning but not now. Now, just the comfrey (and that viney, thorny thing). Comfrey extracted, I moved on to finally arrive again at the front of the garden and the thorny, viney thing. But first, I noticed a few other spikey things growing out of the concrete. Snip, snip and tossed into the appropriate pile of debris. Then to the wall and to find the end of the viney, thorny thing. There were two sources. Snip, snip. It was severed. Carefully picked up and off to the pile a few steps away. But it pulled back. There was a third viney, thorny part growing from another place in the concrete. Snip, snip. NOW, it was all into the correct pile.

So now, in my garden I have three piles of debris to be bagged and removed:
1) a giant pot measuring about 3 ft. diameter and 3 ft. high filled with the grass clippings;

2) a considerable pile of green weed-age, mostly comfrey and the viney, thorny things

3) a pile of twigs and branches, no leaves, from the gigantic buddleia that had become a tree growing out of the brick wall It and some bricks were finally knocked loose by a big wind storm a few months back.

I felt I had accomplished some sort of garden maintenance, but there is still much more to do before it's in order again. And there are those vegetables to get into the really large pots. Great, huh? I was done gardening for the day. The sun was setting. I went in and took a shower.

While in the shower, I looked out the window. I was admiring all my handy work of the past two days. Then I noticed the dog. But it wasn't a dog!! It was a fox! It must have been waiting for me to leave for good. The lights coming on in the building were probably it's sign the coast was clear. Now, it looked up at me looking down at it. We stared at each other. I hadn't seen him/her for a while. I thought it must be a little confused and maybe even a bit vexed that all the grass was gone, all the weeds and other tall cover gone, too. And the little brown spot in the lawn where it probably liked to lay or nap slightly hidden, was now fully exposed, too. It turned and walked a few steps across the lawn and stopped to bite and scratch near the base of it's tail. Not a good sign. The tail didn't look good. It really does have mange. I hadn't been sure before, but now I was certain. I was going to have to go into the garden once more to leave it some medicine to treat the mange.

Before he left, JW has given me some fox mange medicine and instructions. He'd gotten it from a friend in Sussex who works with a wildlife org. So, after my shower, I read the instructions, pretty easy and peanut butter and honey would do, no need to buy Marmite (yuck). So I made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, cut it into 6 pieces per the instructions applied the meds and took the pieces to the garden. I left pieces in various places along the path I saw the fox take across the lawn. It went in a semi-circle, stopping a couple times to stretch, sit and scratch. Repeat twice then trotted off into the back of the garden out of my view. So for good measure I left the last two pieces of sandwich near the compost. I'll keep doing this for a couple weeks and hope that I also see the fox (or foxes) more regularly.

Now, the thing about the foxes is that there are foxes all over London. Most people consider them pests. But not my neighbor JW and me. We appreciate the critters, they are part of the little eco-system of the garden(s) and, like the neighborhood cats, are good predators. There have been a few generations of them out there. And he's used some of the branches from tree pruning to build a sheltered den for them in the back corner of his half of the garden. So, he's left me the medicine to help the one or ones who visit our garden.

I hope it works.



UPDATE (a few minutes later): Good news! the fox (a fox) is out in the garden and seems to have found the medicine sandwiches. No lights, just saw some movement and heard rustling bushes, heard one little yelp.