Other Halfs

[ugly gourd]

My OH does all the ground work ploughing muckspreading and rotorvating and I do the planning and sowing but he helps me set my 50kg potatoes

[eskymo]

I do all the gardening in this relationship, but I do get my OH to help me out if I need a big hole digging or something heavy moving. He's very good at getting things aligned and level and I asked his help last year to lay the edging for my paths and then just left him to it. I bought him a pond for his birthday a few years ago and it's his job to pick all the leaves out of it, but I tend to all the plants in there. The following year I bought him a Bee Box, but it's been left to rot, so I brought it in the other day and cleaned it up and going to set it up this year and hopefully we'll get some bees in it. As for growing vegetables and fruit - that's my domain - he doesn't do any planting, but it very happy to do the harvesting for me and the cooking. In the summer we spend a lot of time in the garden, but he's mostly working/reading/relaxing whilst I'm tending to the plot - it works perfectly!

[Snadger]

OH doesn't know where my allotments are and I've had them two years!

[JennieAtkinson]

Mr A has no interest in gardening or the garden, or even learning or understanding anything about it (he thinks it is a magic art), so I work alone, but I actually quite enjoy having time to myself. His interest is sailing, but I notice I have had to learn to sail! But he did ask me if I would like a small box in the boat to grow salad in when we do the world tour.

[mazel-bee]

My OH tends to laugh at me a lot! Although he loves the taste of what I grow and gets excited seeing stuff grow. I think I'm a little too excited over a veg plant though!
I have managed to bribe him with strongbow to help me when I get my allotment.

[NOG]

I thought it all works the same I earn it and she spends it.

As for the allotment I go there to get away from them when there is no work. If they come up they eat all the peas and strewberrys tred all over my plant and winge.

[Two_Sheds]

So, it's perfectly normal (indeed desirable) to have an OH that doesn't like gardening?

[Mrs Dobby]

Mr D and I both share the plot and the workload, tho he only works 3 days a week (but does 13 hour shifts), so he does spend more time down there (and he does housework too)!

Originally it was Mr D who wanted to get a plot, but he had no experience whatsoever, whereas I'd helped my Dad and Nan in their gardens as a child, so I went with him to help out, and then got hooked! We work well together, both enjoy the peace, the fresh air, sense of acchievement and exercise, and have never had an argument, either on the plot or otherwise (we've been together for 7 years and still havent argued about anything)!

If Mr D wanted to go to the plot alone for some solitude, then I'd be happy to give him his space, as would he for me, but I dont think either of us ever feels we need to be alone or away from each other.

[sewer rat]

Mrs D,
7 years, no arguments ? You must be doing something wrong !!!!!!!!!!! Or is that just the rest of us ?

[Palustris]

We have the perfect arrangement. She does all the work and I take the credit! (And no I am ont serious!)

[Mrs Dobby]

Lol Rat, we're just lucky I recon! I think both of us had given up on ever meeting someone to share our lives with, and marriage was one of those things that I'd really given up on ever happening, but when we met it was like finding the missing half of myself! We are sooo well suited we can finish each others sentences, and I love him more than anything in the world, we're just mad about each other, enjoy every day and communicate really well, fun is something we have every day, even when we are busy we are messing around! Go shopping and I'll be pinching his bottom, and have been known to lift his feet up (to tip him in) when he reached into a freezer for something at the back in Tesco's once! I think we dont care what others think, we just enjoy ourselves and have a laugh!

Guess we are just big kids really, sad but very much fun!

[kirsty b]

My OH never really used to be into gardening, and he still isn't. He's quite content to let me go down tere and get on with it. The only thing that tempts him down is the chance to have a good rummage through the sheds that were left there.
He helps me shift heavy stuff and is excellent at getting bonfires going and keeping them going. All he has to say about choice of crop is that he wants me to grow raspberries, and lots of 'em!
We have been together just over 7 years and have never had a real row, although a few ups and downs! We have learnt that separate interests tha occasionally merge are a good thing for us, cos we're the sort of people who would go mad if we were in each other's pockets all the time!
Littlun loves it and has demanded her own bed to grow her things in.
Rat, where did you get those bib n brace?, Lauren has seen the pic and wants some too! Could I find them in a garden centre. or would I need to find a catalogue?
Kirsty

[madderbat]

Miss Rat -Iona - now that is a different story.- that's her in my avatar

Just want to say Hi to Miss SR, very fetching she looks too, a credit to you!

Mrs D, we enjoy our ding dongs, and they are never really serious. We too found each other a few years ago, and yes, it is like having 't'other 'arf' around, just that sometimes his half gets out of synch and he needs pea-sticking!!

we both know how lucky we are though. I've just never tried to shove him in Tescos freezer !!

[mrskp]

My OH's thing is on-line poker. he's not bad at it actually and I get nice pressies for christmas (extra vents, louvres, veggie books etc).

he did knock up the raised beds for me, and propped up the g/h as i was building it but the signs and groans, and sweary words that are uttered whenever i ask him to do pretty much anything diy really gets on my nerves, so I try and be as independent as possible. he has let me carry and shovel at least 3 tonnes of muck, clay, poo, compost, gravel etc sans wheelbarrow but as it gives me peace, i really don't mind.

i'm still waiting for my lottie and i've promised him a laptop when i get it, just to get him up there ! i'm actually quite scared of getting one, as i know it will be a lot more hard work than getting the backgarden plot sorted !

he did show an interest there as i was playing with seed packets, to know what was going in the g/h and what was coming inside. i think he feels pushed out by all the seeds trays that are currently in the bedroom.

[wellie]

I could tell a porky and say Trousers and I are compatible in the garden, but it would be a bare-faced lie. We fight like cat and dog, and it's SUCH fun.... that we end up either killing each other or collapsing in a heap laughing till we wet ourselves.

Trousers 'kick-starts' my year by disinfecting and cleaning both greenhouses, for which I'm hugely grateful.
He unloads my truck of newly bought bags of compost, without saying "Not another one".
He greets each and every new packet of seeds with the same enthusiasm as the last.
He turns a blind eye to the very latest vegetable-oriented cookbook that magically appears on my kitchen shelf (!)
He luggs heavy bags of cow or horse poo from one end of the garden to the other, with only the slightest moan of "oh ****.." when he gets it on himself.
He harvests stuff when it's ready, whether I'm ready to do anything with it or not...
and most of all, he's completely brilliant at deadheading the herbaceous borders on a Sunday afternoon in the height of summer, with a large glass of Pimms !

For those of you Grapes out there that simply love your garden or lottie when you're working together, and have a camcorder, Trousers and I have minutes of fun (!) most Sundays in the Summer, recording our ventures whilst tending it all and then 'reliving it' on the telly in front of the fire during the winter.
Honestly, it really fires you up for the new season ahead, and it's just a really special and unique viewing.....

Excellent thread Two Shed.