Category: Garden

Hello! Nothing new to report from Tasmania weather-wise! The last two days have continued in exactly the same way with the icy cold temperatures & raining in patches all day. Today the wind picked up too!

We have been watching the monster, Irma, carve a path of destruction through the Caribbean – devastating. All those of you in the path, please stay safe. I am sure you are doing everything practical to keep out of harms way – but go the extra mile with caution and make it through safe and sound.

We did a lot in our library yesterday, but today I did more in the kitchen.
I made some rissoles (hamburger patties) which turned out pretty great, also made some raspberry ice cream and now have some bread baking.

The bursts of sun throughout the day ensure the hothouse is a comfortable temperature. My lettuce is ready for transplanting but I heard we have another week of this uncomfortable cold. So I will wait a while longer.

The marigolds that popped up are looking sturdy!

And I was so pleased to see some more sprouts breaking through the soil… even if you do need a magnifying glass to spot them! Above is Thyme.

One reluctant sunflower that has been in this position for a couple of days! (Not keen to come out from under the blankets and I so very much understand!)

The rocket is looking good. Not having grown it before I am not sure at what stage it can be planted out. As with the lettuce though – still too cold out there for it.

I also pulled up a few oregano plants to see if I can get them going. I’d like to do a good number more and put them on my stall. They came out of the ground complete with roots so I think they have a good chance to go well.

I was most excited to see leaves on the raspberry canes! I have yet to prune out the second row and rewire the area, but so happy to see them starting!

I went into the main vegetable patch – no beans showing yet. But lots of the snow peas have popped up through the soil!

The duck yard snow peas are going along pretty well despite the weather

I did lay down a little snail bait here as I noticed that they were being chewed a bit. And really – I try to keep things pretty much organic, but my one concession is snail bait occasionally. I have zero desire to go outside in the dark right now to hand pick off pests – and there are too many seedlings to practically cover each one.

Of course the minute I am fussing about in the garden there are at least a couple of stickybeaks coming over to see what I am up to!

The fruit trees are showing signs of new growth!

I nearly have a tulip!

It was nice to get out in between the rain squalls to find signs of new growth – spring is here somewhere!

Clearly I wasn’t successful digging up all the onion weed! Oh well… the white looks pretty with the yellow

Lots of liliums are starting to grow

And a few forget-me-nots are appearing!

Of course our beautiful plum blossoms are still dominating the yard with the white flowers… and the petals on the ground look like snow! (or is that real snow???)

We are a day away from the weekend again!
I hope everyone has had a great & safe week…

Cheers!

Hello! Second day of spring and its continuing its gloomy mood – right now its raining quite heavily.
Was a good day to get into the hothouse and plant some more seeds (After a quick trip to the nursery to get my tomatoes!)

I enjoy looking at possibilities in the nurseries, but I settled on two heirloom Black Russian tomatoes and a punnet of capsicum (Large Red I think)

I am very excited to have my first tomatoes in – hopefully I will be able to grow more of these from their laterals. Of course I have some seeds planted and I am sure a ton of self seeding plants will pop up all over the place!

I was unsure how my collected seed capsicum would go – last year they were quite small. Thought some new stock wouldn’t be a bad thing. Three in the hothouse and the other three I have put into slightly larger pots so they can grow happily until the weather turns the corner and they can go outside.
Damn… just remembered I wanted to go cover them with containers in case a hungry slug took a fancy to them! BRB…

Well that was annoying! haha. I got a little soggy but its not too cold out there and happily nothing was eating my new seedlings.

I’d picked up some cheap potting mix – just something that was on sale at the supermarket- and did a half and half mixture with the mushroom compost.

I think these were the butternut pumpkin. I think 19 should be enough…

I planted a number of punnets of snow peas and runner beans. I may get a chance to sell them.

Anyway, I planted more zucchini, basil, marigolds & heirloom beefsteak tomatoes

Also planted fennel, silverbeet (rainbow chard) cucumber (both burpless & apple), portulaca & rock melon. Thats about all I can remember!

Its great seeing the hothouse filled with pots again!

The hothouse also has a few rogue strawberries, fennel & parsley

Once done, the rain eased so I took the opportunity to scramble over the back fence into the paddocks.

I had my eye on all the daffodils!

On a gloomy day they really brighten everything up!

I am going to ring the fellow that manages the paddocks and see if he minds me picking heaps of these to sell out the front! He has had no objections in the past, but its good form to ask again!

Pretty sure he wouldn’t mind me grabbing a bunch for the house anyway!

Hope your weekend is fabulous (and less soggy than mine!)
Cheers!

Hello! How is everyone? Friday is done and the weekend is here! (and its raining LOL)
I went over to Ruby’s this afternoon with Jeff and weeded/dug her potato patch. I failed to take my camera!!!
Then I was lucky enough tonight to be taken out by Fiona to a presentation by an amazing group of women. It was part fashion show, part story telling. All were refugees from a variety of countries around the world, now settled in Hobart. Sometimes you don’t know how lucky you are until you meet someone face to face that has lived and survived through the unthinkable. We got to meet and chat after the show with all the ladies and organisers and they were beautiful people – so happy we came to see & listen to them. (And you know I am not a clothes person, but wow!! Gorgeous outfits!!)

So – since that means I have no photos or a plan for tonights blog, I thought I would browse through my photos from September three years ago to see what we were doing then!

Strawberries and celery!!!

Looking at this well established little tomato plant in my hothouse I am now super keen to dash out to the nursery first thing tomorrow to get my tomato plants for the hothouse!

Recall the Pelargonium’s that I gave a severe trimming to two days back? Well… this is them three years ago as cuttings!

Three years ago we made and filled our first raised garden beds!

Our crazy apple tree prunings bean arch – that I just took down! I suppose three years use out of it wasn’t bad!

Pip as resident snoopervisor – things not changed there

Selfies with Fiona and Ruby on Ruby’s birthday!

Fancy outings with family – scones & tea!

We woodchipped the front garden path (my it looks so scruffy now in comparison!! eep)

I was knitting a lot of bears – some for Jeff at the hospital & some for the shoeboxes which I was also doing at the time.

That was also when I learned to crochet

The beginnings of the Nanna-Knee-Rug that Pip & I now snuggle under!

This is what the garden looked like:

And this is what the hothouse was doing towards the end of September:

Its interesting to me to compare seasons to see how advanced (or not) they are. Last season was pretty bad, so I have high hopes this year!
And now that I have looked at how great the garden was looking in September three years back I am feeling a little behind the 8-ball!!

I hope everyone has a super weekend planned!
Cheers!

Yesterday I did not get my sunny day… in fact it was quite soggy! So I did house work for most of the day and didn’t blog about it!

 

Today was much improved.
First up I finally caved – the pitter-patter of little feet got all to much so I called an exterminator.
Its a hard house to bait – lack of places to get into ceilings/walls etc, but its all done.
Cue the die off and the big stink. Sigh. At least at this time of year we don’t get many visitors!

To stave off the depression of being forced into spending money on a very uninteresting thing (even though necessary) I got into the hothouse to spread some mushroom compost love about!

The wheel barrow doesn’t fit in the hothouse door, so using a bucket is way quicker than shovelling it in there scoop by scoop

I moved the rebar and will grow my cucumbers on the left (Perhaps only two this season… three was a bit excessive last time!) and I should comfortably fit three tomato plants on the right side.
I went into town but sadly found no seedlings. I need to go to the bigger nursery (tomorrow??)

I am pleased with how my passionfruit is going! I would be so rapt to get some fruit! I got some of those bricks that are still sitting in the carport to make a little border. There was a bit of a slope that the water & dirt was running off on, so now its all built up with a nice dollop of compost.

I could have potted up some more seeds, but I ended up doing some pruning and random weeding

The salvia needed taming

All the sticks are in the BBQ area and once dry I will mulch them down.

The Pelargonium’s were getting leggy so they got a haircut too

Now my iris have a good chance to flourish!

The front path is all weedy too… but I only got partway through that before it was getting too cold.
The great thing about this yard when you have the attention span of a goldfish, is that you can just wander about and do parts of heaps of jobs – just whatever takes your fancy! Jeff is better at keeping me on task if we do work together (something about liking to finish one job before starting another lol!)

Anyway, it was really great to be outside doing lots of somethings!
Hope your day was great too!
Cheers!

Two loads of mushroom compost today – which is why I was a bit whiffy!
I took the first load over to Ruby’s

Her hothouse was pretty ready for some action… has been looking forlorn

I dug in four barrow loads so now its ready for tomatoes, cucumber etc… although she jump-started me on the lettuce!

I added a bit around the garden then put the rest in feed bags in the shed ready to add into plots once they are weeded and waiting for planting.

Margie and Ruby had been in the garden all morning planting out mini cabbage and some other things – and had just bought some tomato seedlings so perfect timing – they can go straight into the hothouse now!

I picked up a load for myself on the way home, so looking forward to putting it in the hothouse and around our gardens.
I will also use some mixed into cheap potting mix to grow more seeds – worked a treat last season!

Will I get three days in a row of sunshine?? We shall see tomorrow!

Cheers!

Not a day for being out in the elements again. (Except I realised that I had forgotten to cover up my runner beans with soil yesterday after I took the photos!! So I had to do that.)  I did get into the hothouse and used up the last of my potting mix to put a few seeds in

Its just cheap potting mix so I mixed in a bit of blood and bone – still too wet to go get a trailer load of mushroom compost.

Necessary tools…

I planted a fair few of the onion/leeks. Still want to go forth with the plan of planting them in plots at Rubys
I also planted basil, beefsteak tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, chives, thyme, sunflowers, eggplant & chilli.

At least it was a little more done towards the new season despite the dreary day!

Loving seeing the daily progress of my cos lettuce. They look so lush!

Hope everyones weekend is going along well!

Cheers!

Hello!
First of all I would like to say to those of you in the path of a hurricane this weekend – stay safe and I hope the wild weather passes you by with no damage! I know my friends have been battening down the hatches!

Yesterday was a stunningly beautiful day – and I spent it travelling with Fiona up to Launceston! haha -typical! (But it was fun)
However – in some exciting news I bought some jeans… you know… my once every two years shopping spree. I just figured I couldn’t go to Japan wearing jeans with holes in the seat! (I would have bought two pairs but annoyingly the whole shop had only ONE pair of size 16’s in the straight leg style. (I am not a fan of ‘skinny’ leg) so if I want a backup pair I have to go shopping again! blah!)

Anyway, on to funner things.
Beans. Despite Jeff not being available to help (he has taken an extra nightshift) I thought I would put up my new bean trellis thingy.

Moving the pile of weeds… apparently its just a hop, skip & a jump from wheelbarrow to being with me in the garden! Bad Chook!

This one was either too fat or too daft to work out how to follow suit! But she did enjoy scratching for errant worms in the barrow!

The post hole digger is not my friend. I don’t use it that often and I forget how my back reacts to using it. (Meaning right now I am a little tender and moving rather carefully!)

Not wanting to go to any costs, I knew there were a few posts in the car port and some chicken wire kicking about the place. Just a simple structure so the beans have something to run up.

Before putting the wire on, I dug up the plot to try to remove a good portion of the twitch.

Its a little wonky – Pulled it over a bit as I was attaching the wire. Hard to manage with only one set of hands

I have left a good bit of a gap between the ground and the chicken wire so I can weed under it more easily and also so the wire doesn’t rust sitting in the wet ground

Beans ready to go!

A row down each side. Now its up to them!

I had Pip outside for a while today too… we both got rained on at times!

I think the ‘lean’ means he is ready to go back inside!

With a glance back to make sure the scary chicken is not following

The rocket and lettuce are going along happily. I think I am pretty much over waiting for the ‘right time’ to plant a ton more seeds.

A brief burst of afternoon sun!

I am loving seeing the cherry plum trees with so many lovely blossoms. I will be needing to stock up on plum jam in the near future!

Pleased to see my first lot of little snow peas taking shape

And the rhubarb is starting to uncrinkle some new leaves!

Hope everyone has a great weekend planned!
Cheers!

That’s me wallowing in my garden not in self pity!
I decided to stop sooking about the weather and just get out regardless and do something useful!
I really wanted to get my main snow pea patch in the ground

Reckon I needed to do a fair bit of weeding first! I decided to put them (the snow peas) back where they were last year. The rebar and shade cloth were all set up to protect them and provide a climbing spot. Will rotate them next season

I have collected more than enough snow peas for our needs!
I like using old stakes to make the furrow

I also have more spring onions than you can poke a stick at…

So I dug some up, separated them and replanted

Lots of lovely fat worms in the garden too!

Moving right along I started weeding the area which I think I will put my corn in –

It wasn’t too hard – a bit fiddly with the heavy gluggy soil but most weeds were coming up fairly easily

I eventually quit because I was getting cold. My hot shower was divine!

Hope your midweek is awesome!
Cheers