Category: Garden

Today Jeff completed the little house to cover the bore and bore pump.
Apart from a few nails and screws, its all from reclaimed materials. Some pallets, some freebies from the hardware shop and some were Ruby’s old fence! Tin at top came from Tip Shop ages ago.

It was pretty heavy – so I was all ready to go Egyptian on the moving side of things

Disappointingly it moved well with a couple of ropes under it and both of us carrying it down into the yard.

It was only a little awkward to get it over the structure and get the pipe threaded up and out the gap in the roof

So fabulous to be hiding the unaesthetic pipes and switchbox (Which up until now was covered by a bucket weighed down with a brick!!)

I spent the rest of the day puttering about the garden doing a lot of ‘this & that’

Firstly I got onto that pile of silage

I did a bit of weeding and hoeing just to try to keep on top of it a bit

I feel better that at least something is mulched!

On advice of a reader, Elizabeth, I decided to also try grass clippings as a mulch. Since Jeff also mowed the lawns today, I thought I would rake up some and use it.

 

There wasn’t a lot to collect – mostly scattered too thinly now the rain has eased a bit, things aren’t as lush. Still… every bit helps!

Then it was time to dig up some of those self seeded tomatoes in the hothouse that were thriving!

I put several seedlings in a bucket then went all about the yard and randomly planted them!

All in all… a most productive day! (Not to mention another half a kilo of strawberries!! 🙂 )

Cheers!

Well – I was a little bit excited to sell my first bit of garden produce today. I was late strolling down to the markets, but my lovely friend Maureen said she would take some of my lettuce to try to sell.

Basically by the time I walked up past the stalls, chatted to a few people and wandered back, 5 out of 6 were gone! She sold the last one as she was packing up!!

So there! $12 more dollars towards my Texas Fund (Which is now well over $400 so I am pretty happy about that!)

It was a lovely day out at the markets.

Back home I scored a bit of free mulch. Some leftover silage from the paddock behind us.

The chap who manages these paddocks is getting them cut for hay in the next few days, but needed this last bit of silage gone. We obliged. It will make a start while we wait for seaweed. The weeds in this should be minimal as they have been wrapped up and the heat generally cooks the seeds. Anyway… can’t be worse than my current weedy patches! 🙂

So – I had a little project this afternoon to do. It needed some specialised equipment, pictured below.

I’ll leave you with that bit of weirdness and let you know tomorrow night what it was all about 🙂

Look what I discovered in the hothouse! Baby cucumbers!

It was a good Sunday, and what better way to end the afternoon, than by making a strawberry milkshake with fresh picked strawberries!!

Cheers!

Hello!
This morning I enjoyed some super fresh strawberry jam on my toast. I made up a batch last night (at about 10pm as one does) from some fresh strawberries and a small stash I had leftover in the freezer from last season

Today I set about filling the last spaces in the garden. Not that there are many left…

I still had a pot or two of the heirloom capsicums… I really hope they produce something as I have dedicated a bit of garden space to them!

Now – where to put a few of those self seeded broccoli plants?  Sigh. The duck yard was the only option where I could fit them in where it was also possible to net them too. Weeding – next task weeding!

The ground was so hard… I ended up giving it a good soaking first. Of course, I ended up pretty muddy by the end of the day!

In the next couple of days I will rig up some stakes and polypipe and get them netted before the cabbage moths find them

The rest of the mushroom compost in the bag I scattered around the tomatoes

But I am happy with these tomatoes – they suddenly seem quite sturdy!

Hope your day was great!

Cheers!

I just had a bit of a chuckle at a comment I found in my spam folder.

“Great post! I am facing a couple of these problems.”
The thing that caught my fancy was that it was in reply to the post ‘Chook Poo’ Really… the mind boggles! 😀

Anyway – time and space. I seem to be running out of both! Anyone want a working holiday in Tassie?? haha. Side benefits? Raspberries. Soon.

I had to say goodbye to this patch of parsley. Its all going to seed, and there is enough in other parts of the garden to more than satisfy my needs. And I needed space.

I now have over 30 tomato plants scattered about – not including all the self seeded ones in the hothouse that I want to try to relocate out somewhere.
I am not sure if this is excessive yet or not. I will be cursing myself when I am knee deep in tomatoes and trying to process them all!!
Well – if they do well I hope I can sell a lot of the excess anyway.

So… onto my next space issue. Where to put 4 more zucchinis without having to hurt myself with weeding (that pretty much means I was not in the mood to tackle the duck yard today)

One of Margie’s sons, Simon, dropped our trailer back today full of Ruby’s old fence! Both the boys have been working hard around Ruby & Margies place cleaning up.

So this is another job added to my list – cut and split ready for next winter! I made a small start by emptying the trailer

I spent quite some time doing the rounds watering this evening. Some hand watering and other spots, letting the sprinkler do its thing. Its so lovely to have the bore water so I don’t feel bad about giving out every drop from our limited tank water supply (although they are still full due the the high rainfall)

It was a beautiful hot day! I enjoyed every second.
One more day and then its SUMMER!!!

Hope your day was also great

Cheers

Hello – Weekend here and among various other things today, I got myself into the hothouse and did a bit of organising

Slim pickings when it came to treasure today

Planted some more basil – they seemed so happy in the hothouse I figured they could stay. My outside basil is slooooow

I put the soaker hose around the hothouse so I can run it for a good soaking instead of hand watering all the time.

Less than a week ago I popped a few tomato laterals in a jar of water

This was today:

Roots everywhere. Might send them home with Mum to see if she can get them going somewhere in her garden. These are from the Russian Black tomato. (Yum)

I also took a couple of the advanced self seeded tomatoes out of the hothouse before they got too big and popped them in the outside vegetable patch. Made up a dodgy wind break and will just have to hope for the best.

Next task? Weeding the beetroot. Maybe a tomorrow job!

Hope your weekend is super!

Cheers

So, the other day I managed to take Rachel to the beach at high tide – and there was pretty much no beach.

 

And then today where we arrived at low tide

Earlier this morning, we said goodbye to Rachel, as she headed south to Hobart for a few days, before going back to the mainland.
My parents took our car and went to visit a few people, while Jeff and I donned the gardening clothes and made good use of the beautiful weather

First things first… I found a wayward chicken in the vegetable patch!!

So, we had an impromptu wing clipping for Screecher. She stayed on the right side of the fence the rest of the day, so hoping she is now too unbalanced to be able to fly over the fence

I got back into the duck-yard garden. Lots of weeds to attend to.
Everyday I have been looking for the appearance of the beans. Everyday – nothing.
Then today:

Anyway, it was a productive and enjoyable day.
Hope yours was great too

Cheers!

PS occasional extras on my Facebook Page 

Hello!

Today we trundled up the highway to Devonport to look at a few more properties with Rachel.

We got back late in the afternoon, but I thought I would spend a bit of time attending to at least one patch in the garden and de-weed. Rachel pulled on some old clothes of mine and joined in the fun… until we realised it was 7pm and thought it was past time to get inside and organise dinner!

The zucchini and pumpkin plants are starting to make a move – they all have more than three leaves now!

The ‘runt of the litter’ in the punnet of apple cucumber seedlings has done very well. I babied it in the hothouse – now its far healthier looking than its poor siblings!

I am pretty sure this one is going to die – I may save the other 4 original ones (there were 6 plus the one above)

On a brighter note – I finally spied some snow pea flowers!!

Remember I plonked a couple of tomato laterals in a jar of water a few weeks back??

Well, they finally started showing some roots!

Hope you had a lovely day

Cheers

Hiya – Midweek is upon us. Well… actually its just passed me by!

I finally stirred myself to get the strawberries netted. It was getting a bit depressing coming out to see this –

So I found all the stakes and polypipe I used last season and started to put it back together

Hopefully that will now thwart the pesky birds that are taking a bite out of each strawberry that’s showing a wee bit of colour!!

Happy to put another tick on my list. (Ok if I actually WROTE a list, then I would feel good about ticking that task off)

Hope your week is going along splendidly!

Cheers!