New Growth

Well, study is done for the year, so now I can concentrate on the things I really enjoy - gardening, walking and music!

The instant I finished my last essay, off I went out into the garden to see what had been happening over the last few weeks while the books had taken over my life. Things have grown, snails and birds have been destroying, the weeds have been slowly advancing, the citrus trees are slowly recovering from the winter harshness, some flowers have burst into bloom, while others have made way for the beginnings of hopefully tasty fruits!

This is the first year that fruit has set on my pear tree! I am pretty excited as its not your average pear. It is a red variety that I can't wait to taste (can't remember what, but something like Sensation Red - I will endeavor to find the missing links). I will be working hard to keep the pear slugs off it and my other trees this year.

A couple who visit the local bowling club each year around this time with their sturdy seedlings have been and I have come home with my usual purchases - capsicum, tomato, silverbeet, and lettuce. I pretty much grow these things from seed myself, but I need to be better organised to get things planted much earlier than I have in past years, plus the sparrows don't seem to do much damage to their hardy seedlings as they do to mine!

The seeds and seedlings I planted earlier all seem to be doing well - with the exception of the capsicum (haven't had much luck in the past, but I will keep experimenting) and I have lost some of the cucumber and zuccini (which is fine as I only really need a couple of plants of each). The self-seeding stem lettuce are really benefiting from the shade trellis' I have provided for them! The two corn varieties are up and doing their thing.

Strawberries!! There is going to be a strawberry bonanza in my yard this year. I have never seen so many flowers on them. My son is going to absolutely love it. I am personally not a fan of the strawberry, but nothing compares to home grown strawberries for flavour - just ask the resident snails.

I am still not sure what the blueberries and raspberries are going to offer this year. The blueberry flowers are plentiful, but the plants are still relatively young. At least there is no dog this year to remove branches and whole plants from their lodgings... As for the raspberries, flower development has just begun. Hopefully the dust storms and severe winds will stay away and I will get fruit set. They are in a different position than they have been in past years, due to their "wandering" tendencies, and they were still settling in to their new bath last year - will have to wait on the outcome of this little experiment.

The natives in the garden all seem pretty happy and I am extremely excited to announce that I am going to get flowers on the waratahs for the first time! I have waited about 5 years for this. The Prostanthera have been out for a few weeks, and the Pelaleucas and Olearea have just started flowering. With the flowering of the fruit trees now finished the colour from these is welcome!

It has also been pretty amazing at the moment out in the bush for orchids. I have been up the hill a few times each week to collect images of the amazing orchids that grow up there. I have seen more this year already than past years combined (I am actually making a concerted effort to go and record what is there week to week!).

It's Raining!

Woohoo, its raining! This is a good thing. My 3 little "water tanks" (really 200L x-olive drums) are all empty. I asked for rain and down it came. It will also be a good thing for my recent plantings.

Also, in my shed, where I put the tomato seeds to hopefully grow, I have found tomato seedlings! I am loving this, as last year I couldn't manage to get any to germinate. Now I just have to look after them until they are ready to move into the garden (despite the nice weather, I am still scared of late frosts). My pear tree has its first flowers blooming, the Nashi is in full flower, and the apple has one fully open beautiful bloom. I love this time of the year in my garden. The only depressing thing is that the spectacular magnolia flowers are now turning brown and falling to the ground. My son told me today "broken" as he pointed to the fallen petals. That made me a little sad.

I have harvested some of the parsnips as I am too impatient to leave them any longer. They could be a little bigger, but they are sweet and tender. My first parsnips! I will definitely grow them again next year.

A day of planting

Remains of the winter veggies 

After spending an afternoon in a friends garden helping do some planting, I was keen to get out and put more into my little patch of dirt. Unfortunately I am aware that I may well get burnt again by a late frost (planted some things 4 times last year before the frosts decided to leave my garden alone).

Mmmm, before I can go any further with this I just need to make a small comment on the lunch I am currently eating. Besides being REALLY tasty, it is pretty fresh. In it is my Kale, Kohlrabi, and some baby onions (had to be removed to make space for some summer plantings). It is a great reminder as to one of the reasons I love to spend so much time in my garden.

Today's harvest that turned into lunch!

Back to today's activities so far. As I mentioned, I decided it is time to put in some of the summer veggies. I have planted 2 small sections of corn (a red variety that I grew a few years ago and collected the seed, and a sweet corn), 2 zuccini varieties (a black one and a round one), squash, 2 types of cucumber (German pickling and an apple variety), rockmelon (dreaming of big things!), and some Jap pumpkin. 

Then I cheated a little (more cheating still to come if my tomato seeds remain as such!). I have planted some capscicum seedlings, yellow zuccini seedlings, celery, and some rainbow swiss chard. Some of these I haven't had much luck with in the past, but I am determined to have a go and get it right. I have never grown celery, so I thought I would have a go.

With the addition of chickens this year my "compost" has been enriched, both in volume and quality. My wonderful neighbours provide me with all their kitchen scraps and occasionally their lawn clippings (as I have removed all my grassed areas to enable more production and to save time and money on mowing). The chickens have scratched all this around and made a few additions of their own. After the chooks have done their job I then wheelbarrow this beautiful mix into the compost construction that I built (again, not quite complete). Here is where the worms that live there finish off the product. There are a couple of areas in the garden where i put some of this amazing (and well cooled) compost about a month ago. Today I planted into it and wanted to eat the soil. It was amazing. Lets just hope it lives up to its looks!

Spring is in the air!

Its Spring so its time to start a new blog about my garden. I love gardening and there is always something interesting to see or do. Last year my son and I watched a tiny caterpillar turn into a big caterpillar and then hide in its web. Unfortunately my son was too young to understand that he shouldn't pick this "cocoon" off the tree it was on, so there will be no beautiful citrus butterfly this year :(

Back in the "beginning"

About my garden:

My garden grew from a pretty unloved state into something full of life. It is a small garden, but gives me great joy. I have replaced a barren "grass only" disaster (see picture to the left!) into a productive and enjoyable space. It is far from finished, with many projects still to come and others not yet complete. That said, I have: a chook house and pen housing 4 happy chooks that provide my son and I wish fresh happy eggs and hours of entertainment in watching them go about their daily business; a number of fruit trees (pear, nashi, quince, lemon, orange, apple); berry world (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries); the "C" shaped veggie garden; the small herb garden; and the rest filled in with mostly local provenance natives. Oh, but how could I forget about the recently planted Kiwi fruit and the two cold climate edible grapes (with the red variety producing bucket loads of tasty fruit last year!)

Possibly more sturdy than the house!!!!

Winter in my garden is usually a pretty desolate time. However, this year I made a serious attempt at planting a winter garden. I usually grow garlic, but that's about it. This year I grew kale, garlic, onions, leeks, broccoli, swedes, parsnips, cabbage, spinach, and attempted broad beans again (unfortunately without much success). There were also a few sad looking beetroot seedlings that a friend gave me that were going to be thrown out from a local nursery. I planted them thinking that they would die. However, they managed to survive our harsh winter and have just sprouted new green shoots and are really taking off.

I am looking forward to starting to harvest the parsnips. They are looking pretty amazing!

I have 4 happy chooks that I fence OUT of my veggie garden. They can be let into different parts of the veg garden if I want them in there, thanks to my fence design. They are currently roaming about the rest of my garden searching for whatever it is that chooks search for.

Little man learning to love his new feathered friends

I am looking out my back door and can see the beautiful purple magnolia flowers, the apple and quince trees starting to leaf up, the Nashi and pear getting their first flowers and birds happily chirping and flitting about. So busy out there!

Magnolia this spring