Gardners World

[John Arton]

Many seafarers enjoy gardening when home on leave as it is very relaxing.
On all my ships I tried to inject a bit of greeery into my cabin/alleyways/lounge etc. to brighten up the place, given that most shipbuilders and owners chose terribly bland colour schemes and decoration. I was not always sucessful as I would have hoped though, usually because I forgot to water the damm things.
When I first went to sea I was told that no plant could grow indoors on a ship because of the flourescent lighting...obviously a lie.
Later on I came across two people who were avid gardeners but who had widely different outcomes.
The first was when as 2nd Mate we took a brand new Panamx bulker out of B and W yard in Copenhagen. The Chief Officer collected all the polystyrene packaging from round all the delivered eqquipment and used these as planters. He brought soil etc and seeds ashore so that by the time we actually left the yard his office was covered in these planters all seeded up, which he spent hours on daily nuturing their growth. Maiden voyage was to Brazil and by the time we reached Tubarao he had a fine crop of vegetables and flowers. He came adrift after we left Brazil for Japan. In Brazil he had ordered a load of fine Brazilian timber, telling the Captain it was needed to make gratings for the mooring ropes to sit upon. Imagine the Captains suprise and anger when he found that the majority of this very expensive timber had been used by the Ch. Off to construct a plastic covered green house on the monkey island in which he could grow even more flowers!!!, bu**er the ropes!!!!.
As an aside, despite the wheelhouse having a lovely tiled floor (linoleum) he had also ordered a lenghth of old conveyor belt material which he thought we would get for scrap value but actually cost a fortune. The damm stuff was so heavy it took all of the crew to get it up to the bridge and lay it. On sailing the Ch. Off made it his job to clean and tend this stuff and one day he oiled it using some glycerine that he had also purchased at great cost in Brazil. It looked superb but the first time we started rolling it proved to be the best ice rink in the tropics!!!! It was impossible to stand on without sliding gracefully? from one side of the wheelhouse to the other, a good 50 ft.
The other occasion was when I was cadet on one of C.P.'s forest product ships with a rather strange Captain.
One day the mate told me I had to report to the Captains cabin as he had some work to be done there. I imagined it would be a cleaning job but when I got there I found his cabin in a total mess. He had decided to move some filing cabinets from behind his desk and put them underneath his desk in an empty space. He had torn his desk off from the bulkhead and then tried to fit the filing cabinet into the space available. The only thing was he had forgotten to do some basic measurements as the filing cabinet was around 2 inches taller than the space available under the desk!!!!
As he knew that I was a pretty nifty carpenter having at that time spent all my leaves working with my best mate at home, who was a master cabinet maker, he wanted me to put the desk back together.
Fortunatley being a forest product shipwe had plenty of timber etc. together with the tools for me to make a decent job of the repair. Only thing was due to his daily routine I was only able to get in a couple of hours work a day as bang on 10:00 i had to break for coffee with him, at 12:00 I had to have noon drinkies with him, after lunch there was no work until 15:00 whilst he had his afternoon snooze and then afternoon tea and tab-nabs with work resuming at 15:30 and finishing strictly at 17:00 on his orders for pre dinner drinkies. I thought this was great, the mate thought it was terrible as I spent almost a fortnight to finish the job and was not allowed to carry out any other work on board. I was definately trying to get on the Captains good side as I had met his 17 yr. old stunner of a daughter when she did a visit to her dads ship earlier. She had legs up to her arm pit which she showed off in very short floaty skirts and tight tops...had all of us salvinating!!!! and best of all they lived only a few miles from where I was staying when on leave so no wonder I could not give a damm about what the mate was saying, I was following the Captains orders!
I eventually got his cabin put back together when he told me he had another job for me. Great. He wanted a raised bed garden building on the outside alleyway behind his cabin. So I set to and knocked up this large outdoor garden for him. When we arrived in Vancouver Island in Harmac I spent days going ashore and digging up soil in order to fill this garden. It was only after I had filled it up did the wharfies tell me that there were wild bears in the woods just where I had being digging up the soil!!!
After I had completed the job the Captain insisted I accompany him on a shopping trip to the nearest garden center where he would be buying plants for his new garden, so off we set, again to the mates annoyance as this was another day when I did no work for him. After the Captain had spent a good few hours wandering around the garden centre buying plants he said it was time for drinkies so off to the nearest pub we went. We eventually got back on board, loaded with plants etc. around 19:00, just in time to enjoy thats night's party.
The next day the captain put all his plants in place and over the next couple of weeks we watched as they all started growing and flowering...very nice they were.
After departure from our final load port and homeward bound, a day or so out the crew were engaged in washing down the whole accommodation as it was in a pretty dirty state after having spent 3 weeks chugging round B.C. loading and discharging. The only thing was the Captain was not popular at all with the crew as he used to restrict not only their overtime but also their tap (Spanish crew). So what did they do to get back at him but wash away his beautiful garden whilst washing down using fire hoses!!!!!!!
God what a kerfuckell. The Captain went mad, not with the crew, but with the Mate as he said the crew were only doing what the mate had told them what to do and he, the mate, should have told them not to wash down in the area around his garden.
So ended my gardening exploits for that trip.
rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[Tony Morcom]

did grow some tomatoes in my cabin as cadet but paid off before they ripened fully which was disappointing. Hope the next guy enjoyed them.

[Stuart Henderson]

Just trying to think what it was we used to grow way back when 50s/40s. It was possibly advocado/mango or somesuch with big centre stone which was placed over glass or jamjar by means of two matchsticks or toothpicks. This grew to quite a height entwined round any suitable pipe otherwise string. Nice green leaves which went on and on. Anyone remember this gardening activity ?
Stuart

[Chris Allman]

Yes Stuart I remember doing that, it was with avocado pear stones, used to get quite long. I also grew mustard and cress in little trays.

Chris.

[Jim Brady]

Stuart. it was the avocado pear stone that we used to grow like as you say.
regards.
Jim.B

[happy daze john in oz]

On the Lavender ladies each table in the dining saloons had an African Violet in a silver pot holder. New ones at the begining of each voyage.