Category: Garden

Midweek already! I thought today was a beautiful day! Jeff, however, grumbled and thought that despite the sun, it was cold and windy and therefore not enjoyable!
Still… we got outside to get some stuff done.

I had to empty the trailer of my seaweed collection. We wanted to take our bins to the tip as they were pretty full – plus all our recyclables and other rubbish that needed to go.
I can’t even remember how long it is since we last went. Probably at least 4 months.

I even managed to distribute a bit of the seaweed into my weeded garden beds!

All beds got a bit of a ‘do over’ with the weeding before I smothered them

Hopefully that last lonely lettuce will produce a few more leaves

Even the lemon ‘tree’ got some. (one day it might grow. Its been the same size for five years!!)

I got side tracked into digging up a bunch of docks… oh how I hate them! They are so hard to get out – they have a long tap root and it holds on like nothing else!! I often break them in the effort of digging them out which is REALLY irritating… I do dig down quite deep too!

There are more in the garden I must get back to. If they are young I can get them out more easily.
And NEVER let them seed! Nightmare. (although seeds blow in from next doors paddock so its not something that will end soon!)

Since we are getting alarmingly low on wood, Jeff got out the chainsaw, axes and block splitter and got a lot of our rubbishy wood down to usable size. Its a good thing really… we really needed to make a start on cleaning up all this. Eventually we will do a bigger burn (sadly I wasn’t allowed to today… bit windy!!)

Some of the really big stumps are too big to handle or cut, so I might think about using them as seats here and there in the garden. Not sure yet.

Often I had a little fan club following me today. Its ok… I am not fooled into thinking they love me and want my company. Pretty sure they are after scraps!

Day lilies are poking through!

Random potatoes. Just self seeded plants that I left alone to do their thing

Still some nice chillies in the hothouse

These looked too nice to chop up and put into dinner, so I planted them

Then I figured I should get onto my extended herb patch again and work towards finishing what I started!

By that point I was getting chilled and called it a day – you know, to lock the chooks up, come inside, put the fire on, shower, do dinner, knit something, wash dishes & post process some wedding photos! (oh – and blog) 🙂
I like my cosy evenings very much!

Cheers!

 

Look at that! Totally an outside day.
And it was Saturday. I didn’t know that until halfway through the day!! Somehow lost track.

The garden along the back veranda was looking pretty bad. The tomato plant at the corner really had seen better days. The tomatoes were spoiling before ripening, so – time to go!

I did find a bonus plant! I have no idea how this celery ended up in this spot… but its doing well enough to be able to almost pick and use some of its stems! How great is that??

Everything is just looking winter-shabby

The grass needs attending too, but its too wet for that at the moment

I think the back veranda itself may need a bit of a rub and a scrub too…

Such a sneaky plant to get along this far right at the back door under my nose and I didn’t even notice!

The herb garden extension was also a bit of a disaster area.

Please note – the patch that I made with the newspaper lining, compost and hay layers is STILL weed free!!

I was happy with my progress… but it got a bit late in the day and it was cooling off fast. Time to bail out and bring up more firewood.

I am noting little bulbs starting to pop up here and there. Its a long way to spring, but its still lovely to see (Above are tulips)

All the early garlic is up and looking really good!

I am very displeased with one of my chickens!!! I had three of these little lettuce left and she came in and gutsed them all!!! There is a wing-clipping coming up!

Pretty purple carrot seeds

Now… if celery randomly appears in the main vegetable patch I will have a pretty good idea why!!

Sweet winter rose is now blooming!

Hope your weekends are awesome!!

Cheers

 

Check out that sky!! Is that a perfect winters day or what?
AND it lasted!
I woke up to it absolutely bucketing down and figured I would be inside all day, so I went back to bed!
When I got up again, I had no excuse to be inside.

Time to clear out another garden bed! The chooks got the silverbeet and were pretty happy about that

I didn’t really feel motivated enough to empty the soil out and line the bottom of the bed – plus I figured the soil would be harboring weeds anyway… so I just lined the top with a thick layer of newspaper and dumped a few bags of seaweed on top of that.

Here’s hoping the weeds will be stopped or slowed and there will be a lot less work when spring comes. I also figure I might just poke a hole in the newspaper to plant seedlings rather than pulling it all up. Will be interesting to see if that helps or hinders!

Another thing I have been itching to do is to prune back the Lion’s Ear

I was really hoping I could turn these into some kind of hedge but have had to wait a couple of seasons while they really filled out before cutting them back.
Lions Ear, or Leonotis leonurus, is a pretty hardy plant. We have one out the front and it self seeds easily. The smaller seedlings are really easy to transplant – and hard to kill! You can also prune it back to the nub and it will spring back in a single season!

Anyway – I think so far so good! Plus I didn’t have to buy anything, just used what I had to make a hedge. Time will tell if it works out.

Took a few wheelbarrows of weeds and clippings away today!

Then I thought I should make a start on the raspberry canes which are looking a bit scraggly.

I only got to one side today. There is a lot more to be done – transplanting, tying back up and weeding.

Its a start!

All in all, not a bad Sundays work!
Hope your day was great too!

Cheers!

 

I kid you not… clear sunny morning… absolutely gorgeous. I put on my gardening clothes and within 60 seconds I was being rained on!!!
So I went out anyway and soldiered on!!

I picked the jam melons from the dead vine and salvaged the seeds

If next season behaves itself I am hoping to grow a number of these – they sell well with the older generation on the market stalls

Mash, scraps and yogurt for the chooks – a couple of eggs in the nest today! Yay

Some of the garlic is shooting up nicely! Very pleased to see that!

Time to pick the remaining runner beans

There are a lot… (More seeds than I will need – hopefully give away/sell extras where I can)

The bean arch has broken down – sadly my beans never managed to grow up and over which was disappointing!

Really it was time to pull it all up so I can start again (time to browse pinterest for ideas I think!) and get rid of whatever weeds I could while the weather didn’t go completely feral!

I didn’t use any digging tools today.. just concentrated on what I could pull out by hand and in particular anything that was flowering or had seed heads

I got quite the pile of weeds!

I still need to get into the above garden with the fork and dig through it for twitch

A fair improvement but still a long way to go!

Jeff picked up a lot of newspaper from his work mate so I plan to line the paths with it and dump that seaweed onto it

Still getting nice handfuls of produce here and there!
Eventually I got too cold to stay out so had to quit, stock up on firewood and come inside and keep the fire company (and do photos and knit a bit!)

Hope everyone had a fabulous day!

Cheers

Hello!
Sorry I didn’t quite make it to the blog yesterday. I went to Launceston with my cousin, Fiona who had an appointment up there and wanted a driving companion. Since I didn’t think I had done enough kilometres in a car yet this month, I jumped at the chance! haha – It was a lovely day and good to catch up with her.

Today I was keen to stay in front of the fire and crochet the day away, however, that garlic is not going to grow so well stuck in a box in my pantry… so on with the scruffy gardening clothes

I gave the patch a good dusting of blood and bone

Normally I would dig that in and wait a few days before adding some lime and going through the same process…

However, I am running a bit behind and I was feeling impatient, so just sprinkled the lime on as well before digging the lot in

I dug all this in… now to wait for a bit of rain and in a few days I’ll actually plant the garlic.

Then in a fit of enthusiasm I thought I might tackle one of the raised garden beds –

Ugh – I hate twitch

Finally I think I got the vast majority of twitch pulled out and everything dug over

I’ll cover this with a thick layer of seaweed in the next few days and hopefully that will slow the weeds down so come spring I have less to do. (I think I want to put my lettuce in this bed)

And lucky us – some new potatoes!

Hope your day is fabulous too!

Cheers!