Category: Garden

A day without crazy rain! Bliss! Even got Pip out and about for a while!

Bit different from the last time I photographed this view hey?
Jeff took a risk and got out there on the mower and cut the long overdue lawn

I went out and raked and filled all my compost bins up

The chooks had a lovely day – but I don’t think this quite qualifies as three eggs do you?

I went out into the main veggie patch and did some haphazard weeding

Its very gluggy and slow going, but I enjoyed it

I think I want to try to move this rhubarb… I like this little plot as a carrot patch. I think I can find it another spot where it can spread out happily and not be in the way.

The obligatory worm photo…

The first of the cherry blossoms are out! One side of the tree has these small little blossoms. Later on the big fluffy ones will explode out!

Back in the hothouse lots of pots are looking quite hopeful. I am especially pleased with the cucumbers

The zucchini and pumpkins are also doing fine

Lettuce bouncing back beautifully

Spindly little tomato plants

The tomato seedlings I bought are thriving. They are developing some nice little laterals that I have my eye on!

If I get some nice days, soon I will be able to put up a stall at the front and see if I can sell off some extra seedlings

The snow peas are charging ahead… the beans are only just starting to make a move

Duckling-bat update… Sadly one little chap didn’t make it this morning. Not sure why. The others are full of beans – very fast and still climbing walls! Gudrun tested them on some foods. Clover, grass, duckling food, lucerne… nope. Worms and slater bugs – a big hit!
Guess what I will be doing tomorrow? Scouring the yard to capture bugs for my little bats! Gudrun will collect them Wednesday! lol – the weird things you end up doing.

It was heartening to get out in the sun! Hope your day was great

Cheers

So happy today to finally get my potatoes in the ground!
It wasn’t the best spring day – I had resigned myself to housework tasks as it rained off and on all morning. But then it seemed to clear somewhat and even be reasonably warm… took a risk and went outside!

Normally I would like to dig this in and leave it a week… but I am too impatient now to just get stuff done.

I redug the plot and sprinkled the blood and bone in

Then made a bit of a grid pattern with an old broken gardening tool

I tend to leave my potatoes uncovered until I have planted them all – basically so I know where they are and I don’t trample them

I used up all the seed potatoes and moved on to the leftover potatoes in the shed that are trying to grow

Plot number one held 54 plants.
Moving on to plot number two…

I had to rake back all the seaweed then weed a little bit – but not much as the seaweed did a grand job of suppressing most of the weeds.
Then had to dig it over, then dig in the blood and bone before planting

I managed to squeeze in another 40 potatoes here.

I was digging up magnificent worms!

The sad little peanut gallery waited in vain for worm treats. (I only threw them worms that I accidentally broke – I prefer them in the garden working for me and the chooks get enough good food anyway!)

We really need to mow! Beginning to lose chickens! I suppose we will get around to it when we get a few days of sun in a row so it dries out a bit!

In a fit of enthusiasm I dug up a third plot and dug through some more blood and bone. I think my beetroot will eventually go here.

Happy to do a decent days work… although I am feeling it now in my limbs!!
Hope you all had a great day too!
Cheers!

I think I have to confess to going slightly stir crazy. Starting to feel very whingy & whiny about the constant miserable weather!
The potatoes should have gone in, but I don’t think it will hurt waiting a few days more – you know… for an actual warm spring day!
Finding motivation to leave the house is becoming a lot harder.

Pretty much forced myself into cleaning up this mess… put most of it through the mulcher for the compost along with some whizzed-up kitchen scraps and a few lucky worms

Yesterday I found about four good sized slugs living under some of the pots in the hothouse… and one decapitated cucumber 🙁

I must admit I was excited to see the first of the tomato seedlings popping up

There were two yesterday, but today I saw a lot more – so ‘Yay’

Yesterday one pumpkin almost there

Today – two!

Zucchini also put in an appearance today:

The silverbeet seedlings are going along really well:

And I have a number of fennel too – I have never actually tried to grow it. It just appears. Its the first time I have seen what the seedling looks like!

Lettuce seedlings a LOT less dead looking:

I put a couple in the dirt in the hothouse – just because I could. The space is for the cucumbers but I reckon I might be able to get a feed off the lettuce before the cucumbers get big enough to be planted and take over.

The lettuce outside under their little lids seem to be doing quite well on the whole…

If we had of had some nice days I would have taken their covers off during the day… but its been hopeless so I have left them alone.

I think the tomatoes are bigger?

And all of a sudden all these pots of cucumbers started looking successful!

Snowpeas (sprouted) & beans (not sprouted yet) sprinkled with blossom leaves! These are destined for my market stall…

Happy with my outside snow peas – both patches are looking good.

Somehow out of the gone-to-seed celery I have a nice new plant ready for use! Sometimes the garden does things by magic!

I have been contemplating on this raised bed. Its the one I layered with newspaper before dumping all the seaweed onto it. Seems like its done a fabulous job of keeping the weeds at bay!
Now I just have to decide what I want growing in here.

Well… fingers crossed for a decent day tomorrow. Who knows? We might get lucky!
Hope your day was great!

Cheers

It was a slightly warmer day today and I didn’t get rained on at all!! Got totally confident and pulled on the gardening pants to get out and tackle the woebegone strawberry patch

A bit of weeding, but mostly pulling off dead leaves and digging up runners that were trying to grow in the lawn or between the rocks.
I relocated what I could fit in… the rest will go into pots and maybe get sold.

Then to dig in a bit of mushroom compost around the plants and job just about done.

I’ll have to get some netting over it ASAP as I am positive our adventurous chook will find it in short order and dig everything up quite happily. (she needs a wing clipped!) I will also need to get over to one of the local pine forests and collect a few bags of needles for mulching. (Strawberries enjoy a soil that is slightly more acidic if you are wondering why pine needles)

Anyway – getting late. Time to jump the fence and liberate a few more daffodils

Still plenty in the paddock

Finally home and inside and showered. I was quite disappointed to learn it was Sunday! I had been working all day on the assumption it was Saturday. Ruined all my plans of hitting the markets tomorrow. Hmmmm

Well… apparently that’s my weekend done and dusted!! How was yours??

Cheers!

Hi – my cold has developed. Losing my voice now. Jeff must find it nice and peaceful!
Despite the continued rain and cold, I did get outside for a short time to do something useful in the main garden.

I won’t be able to plant the corn for a while – just not warm enough. So I thought I might plant some wheat and use it as green manure. Hopefully there will be time for it to reach a nice little height to dig in again before I have to plant the corn.

I figured it would be easier to cover the seeds over if I just did some rows instead of scattering them about willy-nilly.

It started raining again before I had finished covering them over… so at least they got a bit of a watering!

Meanwhile in the hothouse – cucumber babies!!

The silverbeet is doing really well… lots of sprouts up in all three pots

And hopefully tomorrow a cousin is popping by to take a few excess seedlings off my hands!
Hope your weekend is going along great!

Cheers

 

Hello Friday! Ended the week with the first tulip appearing! How nice!

Not a lot fabulously exciting happening at Norwich House today -except had a friend in this morning to talk photography (and eat cake of course with a cuppa) which was really lovely! Apart from that it was all shopping, bank, post office, watering seeds & dishes!!

Hope everyone has a super weekend planned!

Cheers!

Oh, and this black lily thingy…

And in a few days…?

 

 

Hello! How is everyones week travelling along so far?
Ours is still soggy! (With bursts of sun & rainbows!)
I finished up three shawls today! Wove in those evil tail ends!

A few more sprouts have broken through the surface of the soil in the hothouse!! I get excited over these little wins! I hate this part of the season when I think nothing is going to grow for me! Waiting waiting!
The above sprout is a silverbeet seedling. (rainbow chard)

Some of the transplanted lettuce seedlings are looking less dead. Others… well… they are looking mostly dead! Not sure about the outside ones!! Will go look tomorrow

This was encouraging! The portulaca seeds have germinated! I had no idea what to expect with those. My sister Rosemary introduced me to this great little plant and showed me how to collect its seeds. I might add they are SUPER tiny seeds!

But hopefully they will survive and turn out like the ones above!

Nearly time to make a decision about where to transplant the rocket to!

And then a speedy trip around the garden to enjoy some colour before the rain started up and I went back inside to my cosy fire!

Enjoy your day!
Cheers

Hello! Quite a nice day (ie I didn’t get rained on) so time to grab some tools and supplies and do something useful in the garden.

I chose this patch to be our broccoli patch. Because of the cabbage moth over the warmer months, I like to cover it with my veggie netting.
Step one in the Dodgy-Bros Building Co. Whack in some garden stakes…

We had some leftover polypipe from another job, so I cut 4 equal lengths out of it

This stuff is cheap and easy to manage
Get some wide headed screws –

And screw the polypipe into your garden stake

I put two in each stake so the pipe doesn’t have a chance to swing

Happily the netting I have fit well – in hindsight I should have checked that first, but all’s well that ends well!

I will need to get better clips for it (I will find something here for now but I know exactly what to get in Japan for this!!)

Anyway – time to get out the broccoli! This is the pot that Ruby grew. She has planted out hers and I won the rest!! I will return her digging fork and pot soon!

Milk containers for covers

Carefully separating the plants

A bit of chopping…

I am totally lazy about hardening off my hothouse seedlings. I normally just cover them up at night and on cold days with these types of containers. They also act as a pest barrier while the plant is still at its young and tender stage.

I planted 8 broccoli seedlings in here. I am still debating about squeezing in two more!

A few bricks were needed to help with securing the netting against the wind. Should all be in tact tomorrow!

Anyway, very pleased to get another garden job done! It was pretty quick and easy and the materials are inexpensive.
Grow little broccoli – grow!!

Cheers!