Sunday 15th June 2008

May didn't quite happen in the garden, did it! Well, it did and I was doing lots of work, but I think I needed a mental break from writing about it.

I have, I think, dug out almost a full half, if not more, of the garden. Some of it I am leaving for soil improvement over the next year and likely putting into soft fruits (mostly strawberries), the rest of the cleaning out that I have done has been to extend the food growing capacity of the garden. I am convinced there are some tough times ahead (climate change, the disintegration of the Green Revolution - industrial agriculture based on petrochemicals - and easy food supply, peak oil, financial market disasters, invasion from Mars ... oh wait, that last was the product of one of my wilder nightmares, I think) and growing more of my own food to help with rising prices and supply problems just seems a good idea.

Besides, I enjoy it, the food tastes great, and there is such a profound satisfaction from supplying your own food that it becomes addictive. That's what I say when I'm not whining about my bad back from digging, anyway.

So ... yet more shrubs have gone, more fruit trees ordered, and more soft fruit bushes awaiting transplant (which I may get around to this afternoon). As usual the Tasmanian pea straw and sheep poo industries have been thriving from my orders. I currently have carrots, leeks, onions, kale, beetroot, silver beet, peas and cabbage in the garden (must pick peas this afternoon as well) and I have rampant potatoes in the greenhouse. This is the first winter I've had the greenhouse in and the potatoes are loving it! I am growing them in large pots and the vines are about 5 feet high. They're a far brighter green than when grown outside, and seem to be very soft so they require staking (when I have time, otherwise they just flop happily everywhere), but otherwise they are just doing splendidly.

Otherwise, in the food garden area, it is mostly all cleaned out, manured and mulched waiting for spring. The rhubarb, which I thought would die down over winter, is still forging ahead, intent on world domination, as are several of the perennial herbs which are also supposed to die back. Oh well.

The ornamental garden, now mostly confined to the front garden, is an overgrown mess, but I am not too fussed about it right now. I'll get in there by late winter and prune and weed and clean and mulch (providing I can get the straw in). Part of my clearing out involved taking out lots of my climbing roses about the veranda - they were truly ugly, they were truly thorny, and their time was up. The veranda will need make do with its spreading clematis, which is prettier all round and doesn't have thorns. I still have a few rose shrubs remaining that have survived only because they produce truly beautiful roses - one a deep red, so deep it is almost black.

I have decided to branch out into livestock. I was thinking either rabbits or chickens, and took a while to decide. The final deciding factor was that I thought I'd find it easier to kill chickens than rabbits, and rabbits don't lay eggs, which was a big negative. I can convert part of the cat run into an overnight hen house for the chooks and I have some cages that will do as tractor runs. I'll just need to get some laying boxes for them ... oh, and the chooks themselves, of course. Anyway, that is my spring project.

It hasn't been a cold winter as yet (thus explaining the rhubarb, I guess). I've had no frosts and the nights have been far milder than this time last year. But, oh, I need some rain!

The best thing about the garden this year is that it hasn't required so much weeding - I am sure that about this time last year I was smothered in weeds and looking forward to winter as a time to really bring them under control. There are still weeds, but far less of them, and I don't feel under any pressure about them... a good thing.

 

Sunday 22nd June 2008

This has been the Winter Solstice weekend, and thus this weekend has been garlic and shallot weekend. All the garlic and the shallots now planted out - mostly under the peach trees (now in!!) and the current bushes. Someone told me that garlic keeps peaches free from leaf curl ... who knows? It is an interesting combination of tastes, anyway.

I've had a few light frosts, and the blackbirds (those horrors on wings) have been into one of the onion seedling beds (my fault, I should have netted them) but otherwise all going well.