Soggy Saturday

Mustn't grumble. There's bound to be another drought sometime down the track. But not today. Not a chance. It's a soggy Saturday in Sydney and all the little gardeners have their noses flattened against the windows, their breaths clouding the panes while they look out at the steady rain. It was meant to be "cloudy with showers" but they've got it wrong this time. It's rain, sometimes heavy, and everything is shiny and cold.

And so here's the soggy scene at Amateur Land one day shy of the shortest day of the year. By many gardeners' standards our midwinter is still a fairly green and lush affair, but look carefully and you can see the big slabs of brown dirt where seeds haven't sprouted and vegies haven't roared ahead to fill the open spaces carefully fertilised just for them a few weeks ago. The only spot of promise is Poppy Land, the green effusion to the left of the clothes line. They'll be in colourful bloom soon to put a smile back into the garden.

Of course sogginess isn't next to ugliness or anything like that. Here's a lovely bunch of Nagami cumquats just begging to be turned into marmalade.

But sogginess is definitely next to muddiness, and my garlic experiment is hanging in there but begging, just begging, for a few sunny days to dry out the soil there. Speaking of garlic experiments, tomorrow is planting day for Stage Three of the Grand Plan – the garlic cloves which have spent a whole eight weeks chilling out in the crisper section of the fridge. Having been tricked into thinking they're in Holland, they're now ready for planting on our 'shortest' day of the year, June 21. (This is purely based on the old saying of "plant on the shortest day of the year, harvest on the longest day of the year"). The other two rows are doing well (one was planted in April, without pre-chilling, the other in May, after four weeks' chilling).

The birdbath is constantly rippled with raindrops. If it gets any heavier there'll be waves.

Fortunately I don't have to venture out into the rain to read the gauge – that's a morning task anyway. But from a distance my estimate is that an inch of rain (25mm) has fallen since 9am this morning. By Sydney rainy day standards that's nothing exceptional at all, but it's funny when your expectations are for 'showers' and your gardening plans are thoroughly disrupted by 'rain', it just feels that much wetter somehow. You can potter around on a showery day, ducking under cover for a few minutes if needed. But rainy days are another matter altogether. Either you're out there and sodden, or inside, warm and dry.

But tomorrow, no matter what the weather, I am planting that last batch of garlic, even if it's blowing a gale, storms are lashing down sideways and I'm sinking deep into the mud. Actually that sounds like fun, come to think of it!