Category: Garden

So I am looking at the sunny skies outside from the comfort of my chair & coffee and decide Right! Got to get the gardening pants on and get into it.
Not kidding. Less than a minute later it was hailing!!! ???
Fine. If thats the way you want to play it!! 😀
I figured I could do most of the work I wanted to undercover, so I got started on making a new set of net supports for the strawberries.

I did these mostly on the back veranda and guestimated the polypipe length. Overall I should have done what I did at Ruby’s later in the day. Banged in the stakes, pre-drilled when they were in, attach one side then see how much I needed before cutting. Oh well. At least Ruby’s look great!

Mine are slightly wonky!! Sigh.
I did have a brainwave though… these ends make pulling the netting on and off a massive pain in the rear:

As we know, netting catches on everything!! I tried putting the polypipe on the inside but it didn’t curve nicely.
So I taped them!! The net slid right over like a dream! (Only taken me how many years to come up with this????)

So!! Safe from marauding chooks and later the fruit should be safe from the birds!

Funny thing while I was at Ruby’s. A while back, Margie and I agreed that we should dig up all Ruby’s strawberries and top up the raised bed which has sunk a lot over the past couple of seasons, then replant everything nicely.
The other day Ruby was quite against this idea, so I didn’t push it. But I was talking to Margie and said I was going to have another go at convincing her. At the very least – she wouldn’t have to bend so far to get in there!
So over a cuppa I take a breath ready to outlay my arguments, plans and reasoning’s… when Ruby says “Yes, I’ve been thinking about this all night and I think I have to do this too!!” I chuckled so much.
Now – my next trick is to get back there ASAP to help before we find her dragging over bags of compost by herself!!! 😀

Cheers!

Hello!
Yesterday I bought a few things for the garden – as well as some new butternut pumpkin seeds as mine seem to be not working 🙁
I had plans to get stuff done by a certain time so I could shower then meet Margie for a movie this afternoon! (We went and saw the House with a Clock in its Wall) Bit of fun!!

Step one was to bring up some compost for the two gardens I cleared up.
Then in went the strawberries

Thats a vast improvement from before. Makes me quite happy!
I then went and put some flowering plants into that back garden space.

Overall feeling rather good about this. Keen to get in and do the other side now!

Hothouse Potatoes:

Back in June I dug up some leftover potatoes when putting in the garlic and since they looked keen to grow, I popped them in a spot in the hothouse and basically let them fend for themselves!
Today I accidentally dug up a potato… then couldn’t help myself looking for more!!
We had steamed new potatoes on the dinner plate tonight!!! What a treat for this time of year!

Yesterday I also picked up two little Black Russian Tomato seedlings to put into the hothouse. After a bit of an internal debate, I ripped up the sad looking capsicum and replaced them with the tomatoes.
I have to get others started from seed, but I love having a jump start with some seedlings – I will take some laterals from them when they are big enough!
Hope your midweek is great!
Cheers!

Hello!
Nice sunny day so back to the garden!
Thought I might amuse myself in the strawberry patch!

I only got the first patch done and had a go at the garden patch behind the veranda. The oxalis was slowing me down!

They were exploding everywhere!!! Blah!

Because this back area is really one of the first places people see when they come to visit, I have decided to prise open my purse and buy some established flowering plants to pop in this garden instead of waiting an eon for the seeds to do something.
Maybe tomorrow…

I took the time to also clean up each strawberry plant of its dead runners, leaves etc. What I can’t fit back into the garden will hopefully end up in my pot collection for the front sale thingy!

I now have four of these trays full… (I gave one away)
Reckon there will be plenty to put back into the garden and have a few to sell.

I was finishing up when this annoyed me.

Not really done but I felt better about yanking out some of the bigger clumps of weeds!

Meanwhile in the hothouse, the celery is really showing up.
I think the butternut pumpkin seeds are duds… 🙁
I dug some up to stare at them and nothing is happening.
Need to speed down to the shops and get some new seed. I totally loved the butternut pumpkins and want oodles more.

Not my most glamorous shot, but was excited to see a tiny capsicum sprout!

Chickens and the Ugly Fence Fort Knox – I thought I was winning.
Then I saw this:

Not winning. 🙁

Meanwhile, Jeff was attacking more of the wood pile and splitting more logs. He accidentally made these rather cool shingles!
I have ideas for those.
Jeff may be regretting showing me 😀

He stacked a good lot by the front of the house – as he was splitting wood on that side of the yard. Easier than dragging it over the back to the main pile.

Anyway… those were the main events here today!
Fingers crossed for some more sunshine tomorrow!

Cheers!

 

Just so you know… I am dying of indecision and procrastination!!
OK… not quite dying. That’s just me being dramatic about trying to choose images to make a calendar for next year… and it has to be done and ordered by tomorrow (well the first lot anyway) because the company I use has the right discount happening now.
So many images to look through and decide upon! Agony!
Anyway, the one above I have chosen to be the front of the calendar because its got fairly good colour and impact!!
Might be a long night! 😀

I thought it was time to tend to my asparagus! I chopped it all back to nothing. Here’s hoping lots more spears will pop up over the spring!

I gave them a good covering of mushroom compost

And re-mulched with some seaweed.

I am going to have to start cooking some dishes with celery! Or I could also experiment with dehydrating – isn’t celery salt a ‘thing’ ??

So… back to the raspberries.
Jeff was sleeping today, so I was on my Pat Malone to get on with more of the job.

I think I might regret throwing so many old little potatoes in my main compost… hmmmmm

I feel a bit bad yanking them all up when they are trying so hard… but I don’t think they are a good companion plant to raspberries!!!

That took ages!!! I had to pull each lot apart to get rid of the weeds/grass which was a painful job! Hopefully the canes we dug up the other week will bounce back ok. I should have put them in the water barrels. Still… they are pretty tough. I also dug a few more up because they were in the middle of the path or other places that weren’t convenient.

I’ve tied each bunch together and also finished pruning and cutting out old canes from the other strip.
Still so much work to be done here.
Hoping my sneaky chooks won’t get out and into here… I’ll have to keep a good eye on them. I redid fences today. I think I might have finally thwarted the red chook from getting into the veggie patch. A ring necked girl is sneaking through the other side into the house yard. Haven’t spotted how she is doing that yet!! At least she follows me back like a lamb when she’s caught!

Even though the fire in the pit hasn’t been going for a couple of days, there was still enough heat in there to get it going again to burn a bit more stuff! I didn’t really put all that much effort into it though as by then I was a bit weary.

I also picked up another bin full of coffee grounds so that went into the compost, and dug in. Makes it smell so much better!!

Hope your day was fabulous!
Cheers!

 

 

Hello hello!!!
(That second one was from yesterday when I went “Meh, Can’t blog… must sleep” 😀 )
Yesterday we spent most of the day burning the scrappy stuff. The wind was blowing across the paddocks and it rained on and off. Jeff set a rather large pile of scraps on fire while I tended to my usual area (until I had to wait until Jeff’s fire calmed down… cough cough)
We got through a lot of stuff!
We also chook proofed  the fences a lot better. Then watched one annoying chook go “B-DAARRRK!!!” at the top of her voice as she sailed over the barrier then ran off to the bushes going ‘bok bok bok bok’ knowing full well she was in the wrong.
Then it was ‘poke bushes with a stick’ time to get her back again, which resulted in some very indignant noises like ‘bukbukbuk budaarkit’
We were laughing so much.

Oh… overall… we have failed.
Tomorrow Phase Three in Chook-Proofing is going forward. (Including the whole scissors & wings thing!)

Hothouse update!
Snow peas looking great!

Cos lettuce also looking good

Celery has popped up but too tiny for me to get a decent photo… It was a bit dark and I was wobbling all over the place trying to focus!

The Rocket – lovely!

The flower, Alyssum has popped up.

I found these evil colonies under the oregano seedling pots! Possibly why they were not thriving?? Afternoon snack for the chickens who regarded them with great suspicion. (Which is a mark of how spoiled our chooks are!!) (Where is the cake and bacon huh?)

Even the snow peas I planted outside have made an appearance! I will sprinkle a little snail bait here soon… I suspect they will be too tempting for the slugs etc. Maybe try a little of that saved crushed eggshell too

I did a quick stroll about the garden late this afternoon to get a few spring flower snaps just for the fun of it!
Enjoy & have a lovely day!

Cheers!

And my Tulips…

G’day! Well… I hadn’t finished whinging about how sore I was from yesterdays efforts, when we put in quite the day in the garden today!
Cousin Jeff came over with his two bigger chainsaws and his skills and really helped us make enormous progress!

I did the spray painting – the aim there is to get a reasonable sized log for the fire – moved logs over to Jeff (Husband Jeff) and cleared up, chopped and burned lots of scraps.
Husband Jeff did a massive amount of wood splitting! Clearly he was getting in touch with his Canadian Lumberjack self.

By the end of the day we had unearthed the crushed raised bed

A couple of months back:

Check out the beautiful grain in this timber! Smells really good too!

Poor Gate! Still feel bad for Husband Jeff as he did such a wonderful job of installing it!

Cousin Jeff managed to get a lot further than we expected him to be able to, given the size of the lower part of the trunk. He has done a brilliant job!

Husband Jeff is aiming to split all these huge pieces before I get ‘ideas’ and start using words like ‘Garden Feature’ ‘Planters’ and ‘Rustic Seats’

I spent a lot of the day hand chopping branches and keeping the fire going. We burned a lot more today. Phew – didn’t I smell smokey by the days end!

Pretty proud of Husband Jeff – when he first moved to Australia he was definitely a City Boy

His beautiful smooth nurse hands have been somewhat ruined tho!

A lot of work right there!! (Remains to be seen if the Millars can walk tomorrow!! Haha)

A couple of months ago:

Such a tangled mess! Now at least we are seeing real progress and now that Cousin Jeff has made short work of the bigger pieces, we can make a lot more headway ourselves.

One issue we have to really attend to is the chooks!! The very second I had walked out of the veggie patch, they were right into that uncovered broken bed scratching it up!!
We had to make a new fence to a restricted area for them as its too easy for them to hop over the logs and out… either into my garden or up to the other side of the yard where we risk them getting onto the highway.
And our new girls are USELESS at going where you want them to go. The others follow or herd quite well. These ones are lunatics!

They are not pleased and are doing the Velociraptor thing and checking the boundary for weaknesses.
I did some very very dodgy work

Wings will need clipping and I will fix this travesty tomorrow.
Smarty pants brown chook got straight back into the veggie patch somehow!
I was just driving off to the supermarket and there she was, bold as brass, digging up one of the raised beds!!
Sigh.

I have started also raking up parts of the vegetable patch to pick up as much tree debris as possible before weeding and digging.

I might get a garden this season…

Well… its time for me to trot off (or perhaps hobble) to bed!
Hope everyone has had a wonderful day and has had to lift far less wood than me!
Cheers

 

 

Hello!
We had a couple of pressing tasks to work on today (besides all the dishes that had mounted up within 24 hours of my mother leaving! Seriously! How does that happen??)
Anyway, step one was to load up the car and trailer with the very full bins and recycling etc and do a tip run.
I don’t think its been quite three months since we went but extra visitors means a bit more in the rubbish department… especially over winter when there is less coming in from the garden.

Then we went and bought two crates of firewood.
We have gone through so much this season!! We started burning way early this year when summer came to an abrupt stop, and all the miserable rain meant we have been keeping it going during the day more too!

Hopefully that does us for this season… but I am not positive. If we get good days, then we will be outside working and no need for a cosy fire. Just the night fire.
Legs and arms feeling it tonight! Glad its done though. I feel better when I know its there.

New neighbours have acquired a poddy-calf.
He runs over for a scratch from his new best buddy, Jeff. He is a cute little fellow.
Haven’t spoken much to the new neighbours. Just really once a while back when they were about to settle. They are quite elderly (in their 80’s I would assume)
Quite something to take on nearly 2 acres at their time of life.
We do see family over there doing this and that to help out.

Spring flowers are popping up here and there.
Now that we have the pressing tasks of rubbish and firewood sorted I can concentrate on those raspberries and strawberries.
Bit by bit!!

Cheers