December 22, 2006

La Gringa's garden was macheted

I don't think that 'macheted' is a word in English, but it is in Spanish − machetazo.


In case anyone doesn't know, a machete is a long, about 2 feet (60 cm.), knife used for all gardening/farming chores, protection and other nefarious activities. Almost everyone has one, many wear them hanging from their belt.

It is often considered THE ONLY NECESSARY gardening tool. It is used for clearing land, trimming trees, cutting grass and sugar cane, pruning, chopping wood, harvesting bananas and other fruit, and you-name-it.


I try to avoid all use of machetes in my garden because, as you can imagine, the end product is not exactly the neatly trimmed garden that I prefer.

Before:


I took this before picture a couple of weeks ago. I knew we needed to do some serious pruning and thinning. It has been raining like crazy for the last two months and after all, this is the tropics. Things grow fast.

I wanted to get a worker or El Jefe to help me. You know − me pointing out which stems to neatly cut off to the ground or dig up, while I dead headed the flowers and did the fine pruning.


After:


Instead, while I was in my weakened state, El Jefe took the machete to the whole area, leaving stumps one to two feet high. Sigh. Oh, well, I guess it does look better. Something needed to be done. In another two months it will be all grown out again anyway.

Wow, look! There are some windows behind all that greenery.
Newer posts Older posts
Home

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...