3rd September 2007
Amazingly, the weeding appears to have had its back broken - which is likely as well, as I am sure you've had enough of hearing about it! Most of the beds have been mulched in well, although I could really do with more pea straw. We are now, unfortunately, in pea straw famine time of the year, and it will be difficult to find for a bit. I make do with the cats' litter, which has the added benefit of keeping at bay all stray cats.
Spring has struck. It has been our coldest winter in many, many years, and very dry, but the garden is looking fine (as fine as it can look in its bare winter bones). I have many roses and perennials still to plant out, most of which will be going into the side garden still slumbering under its layers of newspapers, cardboard and straw. Many of the new mop-top robinias that I put in over winter now have green buds bursting through, many of the hyacinths and daffodils are up, the early crocuses are now dying back. I've been pruning back shrubs, hoping I have got in early enough before the great spring burst.
About a third of the roses are planted out, I've planted out the new giant rhubarb, the horse chestnut tree, and the edible rhubarbs. I bought a couple of hot houses, and together with my heated propagation trays have some tomatoes and pumpkins hatched and growing (some of the pumpkins are Turkish Turbans, and I have now heard that while spectacular, they're a nightmare to cut into, so I'll have to see how we go with those). Some of the asparagus caught me napping and sprouted - so now I will need to watch out for other spears and perhaps harvest a few this year. There are cauliflower and carrot seedlings started off, and potatoes sitting in the hothouse developing shoots. I am just going to grow King Edwards and Pink Eyes this year - maybe just the King E's if the Pink Eyes don't hurry themselves along a bit. There are also seed potatoes left in the beds where last year's cages stood, so I should get a crop from them as well, and I might try a late crop to see how I do, planted in high summer.
I currently have cauliflower, onions and cabbage growing well. I am hanging out for the onions to mature, as I need their bed badly to start off some of the summer saladings!
Oh, and I have planted out a field of mustard. I have no idea how it will do. I've not ever grown mustard before and this patch is prone to frost ... so we'll just have to see how we go.
The climbing roses I put in last year are doing wonderfully now - I pruned them back a bit, and they are now sprouting all over the place with new, rich red foliage.
I really am sick of planting. I will need to try and be restrained once those catalogues come around again. It would be nice to spend a winter and spring not worrying about getting things into the ground and just not buy anything. I want to get this work of planting out finished as quickly as I might - I truly want to enjoy the garden this summer!
15th September 2007
I found 2 crates of champagne in a back room - I'd forgotten about them. Looks like the 'enjoy' part of the garden time is here.
Of course I haven't planted out as much as I had expected - but then I am sure you expected that! Some of the monkshood has gone in as underplanting in the new rose bed (looking very pretty with the hyacinths and daffodils all out in bloom - and I need to get some of the pumpkins in there as well). It has all been mulched down with cat litter ... but my shopping lady found me thirteen bales of lucerne hay the other day (she normally only gets the toilet paper and meat!) and so I can cover up the litter a little.
My tomato seedlings are doing well ... but ... as every year I forget to set them early enough, and so what happens is that they take ages to germinate on their propagating trays, and then I am down the nursery one day, and see precisely the same tomatoes for sale at $2 each and they're 3 or 4 months more advanced than mine ... and so I buy some of those, and then my own carefully nurtured seedlings are composted. MUST not do that this year ... although I already have 6 nursery-bought plants sitting in the greenhouse.
Oh well.
Must off to do some work so I have time enough this afternoon to sit down and enjoy some of that champagne.
18th September 2007
Weeded the front path - discovered hundreds of tiny russell lupins growing in the gravel of all places, but also many more in the front bog garden, which is nice.
Put together a new el cheapo greenhouse ... learned to do it properly. Took apart existing el cheapo greenhouse and put it back together properly. They are all full of tomatoes and seedlings. Within a week I can start to transplant them into the vegie beds.
I have lots of potatoes growing in the compost bins. I gave up and popped the remaining seed potatoes in there as well - might as well have a bumper compost crop.
Chatted with next door neighbour. Explained to next door neighbour what mop-top robinia trees are and, no, they will not grow into great giants to dominate her garden. She is a lovely old lady, and she says she has a vegetable garden. I believe her, really I do, but I have no idea where it is. So I went to whereis.com and looked her up in aerial photography and she has it tucked away in a dark corner of house and fence. She is the lady who inhabits my stable block. I don't have the heart to tell her I want my stables back ...
20th September 2007
When I moved down to Tasmania I had wanted to eventually become self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables. The fruit is still a long way off - the apple trees have but two baby leaves each and won't be producing fruit for some years yet, the rhubarb patch still has to establish, as do the berries (although I am hoping for a bumper crop of strawberries this year).
But I have decided that it is time I went self-sufficient with vegetables. Starting from December/January I want to try a year of eating only what I can grow. It means eating seasonally (looking forward to that) and it means lots of preserving (looking forward to that) and it means staying on top of the planting ... not sure I am looking forward to that!
Am suffering with a terrible headache with a sudden and dramatic drop in barometric pressure here over the past day. The barometer is now on its way back up again, so I hope it will relieve the pressure in my head somewhat, too.
26th September 2007
A dull day - what better time to update the diary?
Yesterday I realised, very suddenly, that all my major jobs have been done. Sure, there is lots of planting to go out yet, but it isn't a depressing amount. The weeding is under control. On the weekend I tackled a job I had been dreading and cleaned out some blocked garden drains (oh yuck, but great once done). Yesterday I cleared off the patio of its winter weed woollies and - finally! - set out the canvas garden umbrella which has been in storage for almost three years since I moved from Bendigo (I was sure it would have a tribe of huntsmans living in its fold - but no, merely one juvenile snail) and put out beneath it the table, steamer chair and garden rocking chair.
Now I need a nice sunny day to enjoy it.
Speaking of sunny days - my tiny cheap hothouses have been so good that on Monday I bit the bullet and ordered a real one - 12 foot by 6 foot - so am looking forward to that arrival.
And now, imagine, I am a soil expert! Helen from Musing on Self Sufficiency asked me my advice on soil prep which isn't very advice-ful I am afraid, but you might like to read Helen's blog as she is in the same process as me three years ago - selling up and re-establishing a garden elsewhere.
My vegetable garden is forging ahead - last night I enjoyed a meal of new potatoes from my feral potato patch.
28th September 2007
I found a soapnut seed in the wash today (I use soapnuts in the laundry instead of washing powder). I wonder if I can grow it. I wonder if having been through the wash five or six times might have, literally, dampened its ability to germinate. Who knows? I stuck it in a pot and stuck that in one of the cheap greenhouses. We'll see.
