After a brush with Covid, it's back to blogging for me!

I'm sitting here, eating a fresh Orange from our garden, catching up on the goings-on in our little community here at Hive Garden and reflecting on the past week.

I was working in the front garden in the rain last week, trying to maximise the water flow to our rain tanks and got soaked when I broke a joint on one of the pipes. My reward for that was 20 litres or so of ice cold water straight onto my head. Brrrr....😰

Being a stubborn old gardener, instead of drying off and getting warm I kept pushing on. I really wanted to see the water flow out of each pipe during rain and the only way to do that is, ummm...in the rain 🤔

As you guessed, I caught a cold. A nasty one that, after 3 days, shifted from just the usual symptoms to extreme nausea, fatigue and a blinding headache - tell tale signs of the dreaded Covid.

For the first day or two of the cold, I kept some of my usual routine, though did it all through a surgical mask and at a little more distance than usual. As the symptoms shifted, I began to suspect that the big C had hitch hiked its way into my body via the cold and an already struggling immune system. I isolated but I didn't want to get a test. I started to understand the thinking of those folks who refuse the whole public safety thing because it inconveniences their lifestyles. Seven days of isolation is a real inconvenience! If a test proved positive, half of Gawler would have to close down because I get around a lot visiting people who are sick, gardening, chats and music lessons and other good stuff.

Yesterday though, I bit the bullet and had my nose reamed out (or so it felt having the nasal swab done) by a very pretty nurse. Today the test result came back negative and when I read the message, it felt like a great weight was lifted from me. No seven day isolation for me! I tried self isolating during the first outbreak but after two days was bouncing off of the walls talking to myself before I broke down and went out for a sneaky, speakeasy type coffee 🤪.

Now, I'm back, checking messages and reading some great posts from our community, having a clear head for the first time in a week. Then it's out for coffee (masked, of course 😷) and to catch up on some much needed seed planting.

_{Thai Eggplants survived the worst of the Winter.}



I'm just starting to plant the Spring and Summer green vegetables and will take a gamble on starting the Solanums - Tomatoes, Eggplant, Chillies and Capsicum. A little while ago, @riverflows asked when the best time to start Tomatoes is and the answer to that is 'now (ish)'. On the topic of Tomatoes and Eggplants, our Thai Eggplants all survived the cold this year and a Tomato is challenging all conventional and commercial wisdom and still popping out Cherry Tomatoes in the cold and even in the shade!

I guess that's a lesson - listen to your garden, not to the labels.

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