Category: Garden

So… Emma and I went out to buy some established basil today so I could start getting cuttings from it sooner than what my tiny baby basil will manage.
Hmmm… see what we came home with? Leggy tomato plants! haha
The basil at the nursery was not much bigger than mine! But they were selling these tomatoes for $2 each, so figured, why not?
Since it rained a lot today, blew a gale and also hailed… I didn’t put them in the garden.

Emma and I braved the on and off again weather and did some weeding. This raised patch had lots of fiddly little weeds

My happy-hippie niece tied up her dreads and got into it!

We cleared it out nicely, left some of the self seeded tomatoes but I am sure the twitch will return soon

Then we moved on to the duck yard garden where we could be a bit more brutal!

Just pulling out the worst of it. Still no seaweed on the beach to use 🙁

We didn’t scratch the surface today but still filled the barrow a couple of times or so!

I also wanted to give my garlic some breathing space and weed in between the plants too… the sparse seaweed really did do a good job of keeping the weeds down. Grabbed the last of the hay to use where I could.

Anyway, again – little by little. I could do with a few decent days in a row to get my teeth into it again.
Brrrr – tonight is chilly! Time to snuggle up in bed. The electric blanket is on and beckoning!
Hope everyones day was great!
Cheers!

Hello!! How’s the weather around your place? Another fine day of mizzle here! Jeff and I went out for a walk, Emma made a fire and stayed inside! 😀

The flowers I planted a while back look like they might be about to do something interesting!

Checking out my little zucchinis to see how they are going. At least I can tell they are getting bigger!!

Little Moo came charging up to the fence for a scratch and a hello!

Little Moo is a bit of a sticky-beak too! Likes to know whats going on!

Sweet peas are really lovely at the back door! I didn’t even take the old ones out and replant. These just appeared from fallen seed and did their own thing!

I tidied up one of the tomato plants and popped the laterals that I snicked off into some water. Now to wait…

Down in the Duck Yard garden, this is the best of the three rhubarbs I moved.

The cardboard is starting to do its job. Still need seaweed or straw! And heaps of it! Not much seaweed on the beach at the moment.

So pleased with the garlic… it still seems to be going along fine.

I have two cabbages going to seed. I will cut that back to one when I clean up in here.

Flowers on the raspberries!

Beetroot and carrot well up in the raised bed. Also a LOT of self seeded broccoli and tomatoes – next on my list for weeding and relocating stuff.

Carrots starting to show their feathery bits!!

The snow peas at the end also are looking pretty good!

The corn is ok… seems slow so far. Still need to plant another patch!!

Its nice to bring a bit of spring inside too… these do smell so amazing!
Hope your day is wonderful!
Cheers!

Hi!! Gosh – what a wintery feeling day today! A heavy fog along with what Margie and Ruby would call – Mizzle! (Miserable drizzle)
Yesterday was a great day at the Deloraine Craft Fair! So many fabulously clever people showing their stuff! The whole town is the site and they provide buses to get from A to B to C etc
I had fun Christmas shopping (gotta start sometime I suppose) and even bought something for me!!
So, today we all had a slow start after such a long day, then went visiting cousins. I had organised to meet Leonie up at her parents place for a cuppa.
I just have to share Tas and Beths hothouse with you.
I really want one!

They built it quite a few seasons ago… actually I think it was just after I brought them up some fresh tomatoes mid to late winter!! Kinda impressed them so a hothouse was planned and made!

See why I want one?

Lettuce!!! So much lettuce!

Two rows of sturdy tomatoes!

They’ve totally got the jump on me when it comes to zucchini!

And I love the sunken walkway at the other end!

When it was built, trenches were dug along the sides and the plastic was run along the bottom, held down by lengths of 2×4, then filled in with dirt!
The steel droppers were put in and the polypipe over the top… then the plastic pulled over (double sided adhesive on the polypipe) and sunk into the ground  on the other side.

Kitty not too sure about the noise my camera makes!!

Anyway, it was a really nice afternoon visiting!
Hope you had a great day too!
Cheers!

(I took my basket to my cousins filled with rhubarb and herbs, came home filled with lettuce!)

Hello everyone! I do believe I got a little sunburn today!!!
Emma and I went out and picked up about 14kg of beautiful mince. I had run out and with great timing, the cousin I get our beef off did an entire beast into mince!
We did home made hamburgers tonight and wow!! So. Good.

By the time we got back Jeff was carting loads of the firewood down the back and dumping them next to the back area – so I got stacking!

Great – thats done. However Cousin Jeff dropped off another load the other day… but sometimes you have to not do in your back all at once!!
I have to rearrange the drier wood into an accessible place before piling a heap of semi dry wood on top.

It was time for some of the lettuce to get out into a bigger garden. I took off the net and planted out the first lot since it was all topped up with compost and ready to go!

Of course they are all bedded down in their containers for the night now

I still have LOTS left over in the original pot and some that got separated as I was planting the above. Will attempt to get those into their own pots.

Perhaps I will also find another spot in the garden for the other ones as well!

Jeff fell over the fence into the chook yard area this morning so that pushed the job of fixing the fence up to ‘Urgent’
I let the girls out into the bigger part of the yard and they were thrilled! Of course they ran straight to all the areas that they weren’t supposed to be in, but eventually they settled on the new weed pile and the area that Jeff was chopping wood up and dug about until their little hearts were contented.
Caught our old white chook having the most blissful dust bath ever!

In the meantime I fixed up the temporary fence so its easy to use and also fixed up the other end where there was a gap between the old fence and new.

Jeff also made me a bean tepee!! So excited! Now I have to carve out an area to put it and plant some beans ASAP!

Discovered plums on the young tree. I think it was called an “Euro Plum”

Thats about all news from our place today! Time to take my slightly aching limbs to bed I reckon!
Hope everyone has had a fabulous day!
Cheers!

 

Hello! Monday again!

The ‘herb’ garden and extension has been looking pretty woebegone. Today was a gorgeous day, nothing else planned so got out there and made a really good start in cleaning it up. My zucchinis needed a place to be put out and I thought the lower section would be perfect this season.

Emma got in and gave me a hand too!

Pip snoopervised.

I haven’t had a chance to pick up a new trailer load of mushroom compost so just dug in a good helping of my own compost into each area where I was planting the seedlings.

Because I haven’t hardened them off, they will stay under bottles at night and on cold days.

Moving on up the garden…

Jeff got in on the act too!

We had what Emma called “The Happy Chicken Bucket”

A lot of these went down to the chooks today… that pleased them very much!

There really are a lot of really great patches of herbs in here… hoping to add a few more if they grow ok (the ones I have in the hothouse growing from seed)

Lots of oregano, thyme, lemon balm & rosemary.

Still a bit more to finish up but its really made a big difference overall.

Now to decide what to plant in here!
Just glad its not an eyesore anymore!! (mostly)
Hope your day was great as well!
Cheers!

 

Hi there!
I got a very dodgy set of photos of my niece Emma, so I will have to try again tomorrow haha. In the meantime – at least a lovely shot of my sister Rosemary down at Fossil Bluff where we spent a gorgeous couple of hours picking up rocks!! (Of course)

Passionfruit flowers everywhere! And most excitingly, the discovery of a baby fruit!!

It was a quiet day, just one for catching up with family, showing my sister around the garden and explaining all in 3D what the plans are.
We might have even worked out a place for my garden shed!!

Pot of Pumpkin

Rows of feathery carrot sprouts now showing.

Lots of lovely plums growing well

New fronds on the man-ferns

Snowball bush! (lol – gilder rose – not sure if I have that spelling right!)

Anyway, I am just enjoying the pretty and keeping things watered!
Rosemary did pack her gardening pants, so we might get in and do something garden-like over the next couple of days before she has to scoot back to warmer climates!
Hope your day was lovely!
Cheers

The apple trees are now covered in blossoms!

Hi! I think he main reason I am not in bed right now, is because it will entail standing up!! 😀
I started the day early with a blood test, then delivered some eggs to Shirley.
Came back for brekkie then got into the garden and finally got my other poor little strawberries out of their trays and into the patch

I still have so many trays of runners and plants! Sadly no-one has bought anything off the stall except eggs!! I suspect I am going to have to make the effort to have a REAL market stall.

While I ran back and forth putting stuff on the stall and watering my strawberries, Jeff started on pulling up the remainder of the old fence.

This was quite time consuming. Since it was done up like ‘ugly Fort Knox’ with makeshift wire up everywhere in the hope (vain) to stop chickens getting over or under it, it took ages to unwire, move barriers then get the original chicken wire out, gates off and (most challenging) getting the steel droppers out! Jeff dug down a long way for a few of them that just didn’t want to come free!

Much better – nice and open and getting more of a feel for what the whole thing might eventually look like!
Jeff dug up all the bricks. (We moved a lot of bricks today!!)

I continued working on my bean patch

Around 3pm we finally sat down for lunch!
I have totally decided that I am keeping this chunk of wood to put in my veggie patch. Its got two seats and a table!!
So nice sitting in the sun with a cuppa and a few toasted sangers!

As I have mentioned, we are moving the compost.
It wasn’t so easy to get apart as I supposed. I sat IN the compost a lot today. I was warm, but I probably didn’t smell so sweet…

Pulling it apart meant I could easily get down to the good layers, scoop it up and add it to my bean patch garden

I dug out a trench and lined it with cardboard and newspaper.
Then added the compost.

Hopefully I will get a chance to plant some beans and stretch some chicken wire between the posts soon.

Meanwhile, all the sides of the compost were detached. Sadly we were not able to just move it. We’ll discard the old pallets and use new pallets to put the tin back onto and start again. (Adds another job to list)

Seeds are popping up! Corn!!
Snow peas (Second patch)

In among the carrots and beetroot there are LOTS of self seeded broccoli and tomatoes!
Carrots:

Tomato

Beetroot:

I am so happy to see some iris out! They are a rather gorgeous flower.

Of course, no spring show is complete without some more cherry blossom photos! The tree really is at about its best right now! So beautiful to look upon every day!

So… its getting late by the time we are about done, and Jeff suggests takeaway for dinner, but wants a walk first. So I call the shop… they close the grill at 7.30pm, so I order the food for then and then we had to hustle!!
The 6km ‘walk’ was done at a mostly RUN!! This was to make it back in time to collect our dinner. We did it under an hour, but really… I am built stocky. I am good for hiking, not running. Plus I had to run more than anyone because my legs are shorter than Jeff and Kirrily’s so my jog is basically their walk!!!
I can’t explain about all the bits that are telling me what an idiot I am right now. Honestly… I was a bit tired and sore BEFORE the ‘walk’
Oh well… thats a bit more of the winter chocolate worn away!!

Hope your day was fantastic and a little slower paced!
Cheers