Salad Plot

Today was planting day, and therefore the most labour-intensive part of my garden square is now over and done with. Ably supervised by Christopher, assisted by Catherine, and hindered by Hermione, all the seedlings were settled in their place and tools tidied up within an hour.

The seedlings look a bit droopy.... transplanting never does them any favours. I'm half-thinking to save seed and raise my own next time around, but we'll see how they go. There is rain forecast for this evening, so I am hoping they will stand up to the shock.

This planting grid shows which plants are where, and what their special needs/uses are. It will be particularly handy once (if?) things get a bit lush and tangled in the magic square... in due course. So far so good.

Nearly time to plant!

Whilst I haven't personally done much more to my "one magic square" since I last wrote, the boys built me a very nifty frame. The left side is my actual planting square, while the right hand side is where I'm composting kitchen scraps. The small rock pile just behind the frame is where the Time Capsule has been located.

Today I used some string and nails to divide my planting square into 16 smaller squares. There will be a different salad vegetable in each section, giving us lots of variety for picking over spring and summer. I hope to plug in the seeds and seedlings in the next couple of days.

August is the big month! Creating a professional portfolio, writing my curriculum vitae/resume, writing cover letters, applying for jobs and hoping for interviews. It's exciting to be so close to finishing my studies, and it's also a good time to sit back and rethink the whole "why am I doing nursing?" question. I've spent some time mind-mapping about that, to be sure of my direction before making any major decisions. Now I'm keen to get some offers and start planning for work next year.

I've also given some thought to what skills I still want to polish up before launching into work as a registered nurse. I've got a mere 320 hours of time left as 'student nurse' on the wards... and I want to make the most of it.

Two minute gardening

I dumped a bag of horse manure on my little square garden bed today. It's the only thing I've done since it was "dug" (see here). I won't start the planting till spring, so this should give the horse poop time to do its thing. I plan to shovel on a bit of mulch sooner or later and that's it for now! Back to the textbooks.

Back to Uni

Yes, it's time to start the final semester at last! I am doing one external subject via James Cook University (rehab and palliative care) and the other is my internship. So my on campus time is limited to five workshops (four hours each). For clinical, I am doing four weeks in operating theatre and four weeks in oncology (both full time and working any shift). Job applications for graduate nurse positions open today. It's going to be a big semester and to start it off on the right note, I will have to tackle my desk. I took this photo 5 minutes ago... with the intention of clearing that mess and dealing with all the hidden disasters by the end of today. Yipee!

Update at 9:30am. My desk and my intray now look like this:

Update at 2:30pm. My cat and intray now look like this:

Hermione is sulking because she got kicked out of the intray just before photo was taken.