Month: December 2017

Hello! How was your Sunday?
We knocked over that side garden job today!
This was the day before yesterday:

This was yesterday:

And (drum roll) this was today:

I pretty much work without gloves so my hands are cactus tonight! But its a lot better – no longer a snake haven or a potential fire risk. We still need to cut back some vines and clear out the gutters on that side… but that can be done another day.
We treated ourselves to a few glasses of strawberry milkshakes! Great way to finish the afternoon.

Rounded up the day with the watering and picked a few things for the dinner table.
Hope your weekend was fabulous!

Cheers!

Hi there!
I come and go with momentum – I figure I was more tired after the travelling than I thought. Plus I have a cold which started on the way home (not as bad as Jeff had it but a nuisance just the same)

Anyway, in the last 24 hours I have not only done gardening stuff but also chatted to the fellow that was the architect of Biosphere 2, exchanged emails with a fellow that works at NASA and spoke for a while with an exhibiting artist in Florida.
All one of those normal/weird things that happen in my life!
Once I have finished this side project of mine that I fell into by accident, I will tell you all about it!

Two broody chooks in purgatory! I can’t tell you how unimpressed they are to be locked into the Trailer Of Shame haha
They have escaped, so now we’ve got it covered and netted. I keep telling them to be happy we are not adopting the local older persons method of making broody chooks forget about their broodiness… which entails putting them in a bag and hanging them on the clothesline!!!! (Apparently that makes them forget about it pretty quick)

Oh and hello nightmare. Front/side garden. Where does one start?
And really… no idea what to do with this area. It gets battered by wind, so is not a good place to grow much (except clearly the weeds). Putting down stone/woodchip would be a waste of time because of the rubbish the next door gum trees continually shed on it.
We just need to clear it up again to reduce snake habitat, fire hazards etc.

Thats my lame effort start!

At least this bit looks improved:

This is Jeffs before and after:

Took Pip on a walk to see what flowers were worth taking a snap of.

Dont ask me… I don’t know. Cool and weird though isn’t it? Was given to us by an elderly lady aaaaages ago and it has lived in a bucket of water since. We really need to decide where to give it its forever home

While I wasn’t looking my liliums all started to bloom!

Hope everybodys weekends are going along beautifully!

Cheers!

It was a really warm lovely summers day.
We got a bit more done around the place – the nice thing about seeing such neglected areas is that when you clean them up you REALLY notice the difference!

Jeff and I finally got on to this bottom patch of the extension of the herb patch.

Not being ready with herbs… and being more than ready with tomatoes…. it got mostly tomatoes

These heirloom beefsteak tomato seedlings I had grown from seed, but left in the hothouse during our trip. They were quite ready to get out of their pots.

I like to soak my seedlings in water to disentangle the roots

Thought I might as well get those laterals in the ground too.

Job done. Another large improvement! I also put a heap of sunflower seeds into the top section. (and snuck a cucumber in at the end. They don’t normally do well outside here, but going to give it a go)

The back paddock got slashed while we were away… but the machines cant get so close to the fence, leaving a few feet of tall grass backing our boundary.
Seeds, snakes, fire hazard and generally not looking so pretty… we got out there with some large hacking tools (knives) and went to work

Much better – but still not finished the whole back boundary. Maybe another day.

To finish up with I went to rediscover the beetroot plot.

Its under there somewhere

There was even some beetroot growing/surviving under all that mess! I need to get back in here to replant seeds and mostly start again with it. As well as get rid of all the other phenomenal weeds in here… but by this stage it was late and I still had the watering to do.

And more strawberries to pick!

Its pretty late and I need to get through a shower before bed… I am slightly grubby! 😀

Hope your day was great!
Cheers!

Hi! We had a lovely productive day in the garden. Made some real progress (although I might be feeling a bit creaky tonight!)

I started by tying back the tomatoes while Jeff got to work on the crazy weeds in the pathways.

Next was the long overdue tidying up of the garlic! Happily the recent rain made pulling up most of the weeds not too difficult.

I scraped a bit around some of the bulbs. A lot are forming up nicely.

I had a fair bit of clearing to do in the corn patch to see what corn had survived, since hardly any had come up before we left.
Not too bad really. I decided to move some of the ones from up the top into gaps further down in the garden. Previous experience has shown me that popping in seeds into gaps hasn’t really worked.

That left me with a whole clear area to replant three more rows of corn seeds

Still daylight – so the zucchinis got a tidy up too –

From yesterday to today:

There are a number of little self seeded parsley plants and a couple of tomatoes – all to be moved in good time.

Still daylight – so onto the pumpkin patch… this was yesterday:

This was today:

I think Murgatroid missed me – he stayed by the fence and let me pat his nose without trying to headbutt me! Plus I fed him fresh grass! (and sang him Baa Baa Black Sheep)

It was 8.30pm by then so time to pack the gear away, put the chooks to bed, get inside and scrub off the dirt.

I do like before and afters though…

Quite the improvement!

Hope your day was great too!

Cheers!

 

Well… I achieved my stated goal from yesterday and did not get out of bed until ‘pm’ arrived.
Nothing like your own bed hey?
Eventually I worked my way around to getting outside to really check out the garden.
Wow.

Everything is so bushy and bursting with growth!

Somehow I need to make sense of this!! There is food under there somewhere! I will have to make a plan on what to prioritise… otherwise I will be running in mad circles getting nothing done.

One row of raspberries is going mad, the other row is very half hearted!

There is a heap of fruit on the way and I even got a few to eat!
One thing… I am extremely glad I managed to get that seaweed down before we left.

We seem to have two broody chooks!

I kept dragging them off the nest today to take their minds off it, but they will need locking up in isolation somewhere so they get bored and forget about it all. Dunno what Screecher is thinking! She is too old to be broody!!

This lush plot of weeds was my beetroot patch! Haha… think I might have to start again!

Pumpkins surviving as most of my apple cucumbers are. And growing quite well. Seaweed has helped this patch stay mostly weed free.

Super delighted with my potatoes!

Plenty of snow peas. I didn’t pick them properly though, just a few to nibble on as I went through the garden

Also plenty of cherry plums too!

The main garden looks no better from this angle! Yikes. The broccoli unfortunately raced to seed. Will pull them out and start again.

Happy to see my zucchini doing well, flowers and everything!

Rhubarb is enormous!

I had to get close to see but there is corn in there… once weeded I will be able to see how many plants germinated and survived.

This crazy patch! Supposed to be lettuce. With tomatoes, broccoli and weeds!

One of the more pressing jobs is to weed and mulch the remaining half of the garlic patch. Pleased with the look of most of them anyway.

Of course I couldn’t resist a little weeding as I went around. These tomatoes have gone well… but they need staking and the small self seeded tomatoes in here that are popping up need to be dug up and moved elsewhere… or put into pots for sale.

Carrots – also a little weeding done.

And hello hothouse!

The tomatoes are reaching the roof and have plenty of fruit. They just need tying up and back and getting under control again.

The tiny basil plants that I put in just before we left are doing well too.

Cucumbers are making an appearance.

BUT… here is the most exciting thing found today:

After killing all previous passionfruit vines, I put this one in the hothouse. I went searching for flowers today but found actual fruit! I love passionfruit so I am over the moon that I have a good number of fruit already showing up!

Other treasures included a bowl of strawberries and some pretty flowers!

Well… thats all from me. I am fading fast, but will be up earlier tomorrow in the hope the weather is brighter so I can get the gardening duds back on and dive into it!

Hope everyone had a splendid Sunday!

Cheers