Getting inspired

I love visiting other peoples gardens and this week I've been lucky to visit two good friends gardens, one which I keep well up to date with and another for the first time. My friend gave me a quick tour after a garage sale on saturday morning and I was amazed how much her garden had grown in a week, she has fabulous looking organic raspberries grown in her own compost and horse poo. They are well netted as she has more of a bird problem than we do. We also speculated on the peach tree which she grew from seed, she was expecting a "blackboy" but it is looking alot like a "golden queen" with no sign of leaf curl which they seem notorious for. Garden talk got me inspired to come home and feed my plants with liquid manure and put down this carpet to suppress the weeds. I also got around to potting up some lemongrass, I got the seed from www.kingsseeds.co.nz . My other friend has some fabulous mature fruit trees and the biggest goseberry bush I have ever seen, I wish I had taken my camera. Seing these trees made me come home quite excited about how mine will look in a few more years. I'd been aiming to enter some veges into the local A and P show on Sunday but had to stay home and catch up with some chores and make leather booties for a Christmas Fair next weekend. Today I managed to get five more pairs cut out so hopefully I can drag myself away from the garden to finish them before Sunday. This afternoon I did sneak out and do some weeding, I planted the last watermelon plant and some more sugar snap peas. The first raspberries are ready this week and we're eating our own broccoli, lettuce, beetroot, potatoes,peas, spring onions and strawberries. I can't wait for the tomatoes and cucumbers to be ready. I need to have another go at planting carrots this week and might sow some more brassica seeds and leeks. I have squashed alot of stink bugs in the garden but the ladybirds are taking care of the aphids quite well.