7th April 2007

I am still taking it fairly quietly in the garden, but am now starting to do a little more work.

Produce-wise I am in heaven. My haul of potatoes has been spectacular, particularly the King Edwards which have done very, very well. I am still eating strawberries from the garden. I have new onions on the way, as well carrots, rocket and cauliflower. My pumpkins have reached huge size and the vines are starting to die back, so soon they, too, will be picked. The walnuts are dropping from Great Wal - the cockies still helping themselves to the feast in the upper branches.

The raspberries, although no longer fruiting, have now grown to a massive size, so I am hoping for a good crop this coming spring.

And, unbelievably, after decided to play dead for all of summer, some of the tomatoes are making up for lost time and are now fruiting nicely. So much of the summer was humid they've suffered badly from rot and fungus, but now the humidity has gone they have decided to come out and play.

The roses, too, which suffered very badly from powder mildew and fungus, have surged ahead now that the humidity has vanished. I have today pulled up most of the smaller shrubs, leaving only the climbing roses. The hybrid-teas were just awful - not even the flowers were worth the trouble they have taken.

And we survived the tsunami warning last week. It isn't often Tasmania gets a tsunami warning, but we got one last week. I was hoping for a decent drench in the garden as the river surged through suburbia ... but nothing, alas and alack.

I am weeding and mulching. Currently I am clearing out a bed that isn't doing well - needs much digging over and enrichment with organic matter, of which I have plenty, thanks to an efficient compost system.

I'm also starting to think about what I can do next spring ... there might be a little bit of enthusiasm left, after all.

To the right is a wonderful photo I took of Mother Moon this morning. I have been practicing my moon shots, and this has been the best yet. Just past full moon, sinking in the west about 7 am. Isn't she the loveliest of ladies? She looks a little brown (it was daylight), but that was the settings I used (Canon 400D, 75-300mm lens, focal length 300mm, manual control, shutter 1/160, Av 5.6, ISO 100, tripod with timer switch for those interested.)

 

15th April 2007

Ah, my favourite part of gardening - ordering in more plants.

Today it was plant sale time at Runnymede, a historic Georgian mansion just one block down my road. So I went, and fought among the ladies milling about the offerings, and came back with several soft lilac salvias, some pink and some white bearded iris, and some Heuchera.

On the way back home I stopped at the local nursery and ordered in 9 large mop top robinias, one weeping elm, and three apples: Gala, Granny Smith and Red Delicious.

This would bring my tree planting to twenty-eight trees ... although 3 of the paper birches didn't make it through the winter, and I am thinking I may take one of the survivors out. We'll see. Do I really want huge paper birches?

I have also ordered in some big heritage shrub roses, plus some more climbing roses.

Otherwise have been, yes, you guessed it, weeding and mulching. Discovered a haul of raspberries yesterday while mulching, which made it a more pleasurable experience than other wise it might have been.

19th April 2007

I have just put up a page of some of the plant orders for this year.

Also, I have discovered I am very sensitive to hyacinth bulbs. Not pleasant!

 

28th April 2007

I cleaned out the largest of the vegetable beds today - once composted and manured I will leave it for the early spring crops - maybe more onions - I never have enough onions. I picked the tomato plants clean of green tomatoes and am making green tomato chutney as I type.

Last week I picked the warthog pumpkins and, with much of my store of potatoes, made vast quantities of pumpkin and potato and onion soup which I have frozen. Seemed like a good way to save the crop, and with a dab of sour cream in the soup it is delicious.

And weeding and mulching ... but how boring is that.

Photo to the left is of one of my fuchsias behind a screen of purple salvia.