Garden notes

August has been full on with the weather and all the birthdays. I did my seed sowing earlier in the month with the first quarter of the moon. Alot of those seedlings are up and looking pretty healthy. We had a good spring rain this weekend quite warm and wet. I put all the seed trays out in the rain as rain is better for them than being watered by the hose. I think they get nitrogen from the rain?

While the "red head" was at Montessori this afternoon I potted on corn cockle, Phacelia, cornflowers and statice from their seed trays to punnets. They all help attract the beneficial insects into the garden. I separated and planted out some parsley and lettuces, then potted up my beefsteak tomatoes. My back gets sore at this time of year from bending over the seedlings and bringing them in and out of the glasshouse so they harden off. If you put them straight from the window sill or glasshouse to the garden the wind and cold is too much of a shock.I put some sweet peas into the garden too, scented plants remind me alot of my grandmother's garden. She had Winter sweet, Daphne, Freesias, Violets, Hyacinths, and Roses. I think of her when I smell any of those.

Kez asked me about frost cloth.It helps in spring to stop the frost killing plants. It's a loosely woven, white, light cloth which we get in our garden centres. We need to start alot of our more tender plants under it and things like young avocados and citrus spend the whole winter underneath it. In my old garden we used fronds of a native? fern commonly called "pig fern" draped over things to protect from frost. It was more aesthetically pleasing than the frost cloth.

The family sit on the sun room steps eating fruit and throwing the stones into this skinny wee garden next to the neighbours driveway. I let this apricot grow from seed and have espaliered it's branches about 3meters along the fence. This is it's 3rd or 4th winter and this year for the first time it has a couple of blossoms at the end of it's branches.

Giant red mustard, just because it looks so good.

Thank you : )

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, I feel a bit embarrassed really because I've been a bit of a non blogger lately, with pretty vague posts, no pictures and not alot of commenting. So I really appreciate people taking time to send me good wishes.

Take a peek at what else I got for my birthday. Beautiful spring/summery retro fabrics.

I've been making an effort to get some bags made:

This one though was cut out before winter out of an old wool skirt. I need to get cracking on some spring time ones now.

I've sort of been pottering in the garden in between working and trying to practice positive parenting. I planted some early seed potatoes which I plan to cover with frost cloth when they pop up, I put in some carrot seed, ever the optimist that one day I'll have a really good crop of carrots. I'm still holding off on planting alot of seed, the hardy herbs and sunflowers have popped up as well as the tomatoes and peppers on the window sill. I've been enjoying reading the New Zealand Gardener magazine lately the collector edition book at Christmas really got me hooked. The monthly magazine suggests to soak the glasshouse for a week to get rid of salts that might build up in the soil. I'm giving that a try as last year the glasshouse plants didn't take off very well and that might be why.

From the universe

In the free box at the op shop, a birthday present for me.

35 feels good.

Snow, tra la la

I guess I should have known that as soon as I posted my tra la la spring post we'd be hit by a huge snowy winter blast. L wasn't able to make it over the "Hope saddle" to get back to work because it was closed with 2 ft of snow for three days. Friends in Murchison said they hadn't seen it this heavy for thirty years.
Aside from the cold, the wet and the fear that the shed roof was going to blow off, life carried on as usual.
I feel grateful to have:
a shed still half full with dry wood,
celebrated 15 years of motherhood,
some seedlings coming up in the glasshouse,
a night out at a book party and laughing till my sides hurt,
a Mum who works all week then saves my sanity by having the two littlies for the night,
apricot blossoms so close to popping,
and 10 chooks laying 9 eggs a day.

Spent the week sowing seeds, skipping spring is in the air and swearing at the chook that got in the garden.

Growing in the kitchen

At a recent seed swap with friends I was also given some Kefir grains. You use them to make a fermented milk drink which is good for your digestive system. I didn't know much about it and let my first lot perish somehow, so now with a fresh batch of grains I'm determined to keep it growing this time. Here's some info I found on growing Kefir , but I'd love to have advice from anyone else who's using it. My friend didn't tell me to wash the grains each time so hopefully that is where I've gone wrong. The ever suspicious and fussy kids are not keen on the taste but I plan to sneak it to them in fruit smoothies as summer comes. My friend told me the Kefir is something that should be given, not sold so if I can keep mine alive I'd be happy to share with anyone who wants to try it. I see there are plenty of people offering it for sale on "Trade me" and through the web if you're further away.

Again I'm wishing I had a goat or cow to milk, maybe I spend too much energy in wishing and not enough time in making things happen!

Sowing or sewing

Helen made a good point about pruning, if the weather is nasty don't do it. Disease can very easily enter through fresh cuts. I try to do the pruning with the moon but not if the weather doesn't suit.

The new seeds arrived in the mail today, I can't wait to get planting! I'm holding off till the first quarter of the moon to give them a really good start. I bet folks have already got tomato and pepper seeds going but I have learned in my garden that the late frosts will set back all the early seedlings so much so that the late ones catch up.

A bit of distraction is needed so I've got a project on the go to keep me busy. Fingers crossed this dress suits me cos I love the fabric, I've been hoarding it for a couple of years!!!

And one more thing, does anyone eat Jerusalem artichokes? I roasted them the other night, all the kids said "Yuck" and I wouldn't go for them again unless I had no other root veges to choose from. I wondered if anyone out there had a better way of cooking them?

I've been playing with the layout and adding to my link list because everyone has probably had enough of garden photo's and goings on for this week. I just realised I haven't actually talked to another adult since Wednesday. I've been fostering friendships here though which is nice when it's too cold to go out.

Pruning

Lance use to prune apple trees for a job, I found his tools today. I Love pruning!

It was a bit silly of me to not take Mum up on her offer to prune my roses though cos I still have alot of other pruning to finish.

Completed the biggest fruit tree this morning and my least favorite bramble, the boysenberry - they're so prickly. If you're turning a small section of land into a garden I'd leave these off the plant list unless you really love them. I've got four which I thought were going to produce enough berries to make jam, eat fresh , bottle and make wine out of but these four bushes take up as much space as the raspberries, require twice the effort in pruning and yield about half as much. I'd go for a thorn less blackberries and raspberries instead. Our single blackberry probably produces as much as those darned boysenberries all put together. To prune the boysenberries and blackberries cut out all last seasons fruiting canes and tie up the growth that came up during summer make kind of a fan. Easy. Peach trees I've got sussed too. Before......

.....after

When you select your tree or seedling from the garden centre have in mind the shape you want. All mine are vase shaped cos I reckon that's the easiest. You prune it to have four or five evenly spaced main branches. I like them to start low so they can be picked without a ladder. During summer I prune off alot of the new really fast leafy shoots and in winter I fix anything I don't like shape wise. Thin it out so there will be good airflow and sun reaching fruit to ripen. I shorten the end growth to try and keep the tree vase- ing out wards instead of upwards where I won't be able to reach the fruit. I don't let my fruit trees produce fruit for their first two years, picking off all the flowers so that they put all their energy into producing a good root system is worth it.

I found some buried treasures today too. Last year I didn't have room to put yams in, I've missed them, so I was pleased to find some wildings under some weeds. The Jerusalem artichokes are mammoth! I've grown them in the past for their ability to make a tall screen but these beauties will have to be tasted. I'm a bit nervous cos they don't look delicious.

Garden notes july- seaweed

I'm obsessed with seaweed.

I've been helping out a relative by managing a holiday home for him at Kina beach, after cleaning ready for guests I thought I'd pop out to the peninsula to give the dog and kids a run around. My heart beat with excitement ,( I know! I'm a pretty low maintenance chick.) when I saw masses of seaweed and leaf mulch deposited on the beach. Thank goodness my cruddy old station wagon was due for a clean out, I was able to fill a sack, some supermarket bags and 4 of my reusable bags with seaweed. When I got home, of course I didn't have enough. So I went again the next day with lots of sacks and some bribed helpers.

So that's the asparagus patch by the neighbours fence, it's thoroughly covered. The peach tree is living on borrowed time, if it doesn't produce with significantly less brown rot this year it's out of there. The little triangle patch next to the glass cloches and baby mandarin is also covered. Haven't decided what's going in there yet but I just love my garden at this time of year the control freak in me likes everything mulched and weed free.

See I've mulched more beds here with pea straw and seaweed over by the naughty chook ( prison) run. They go on weeding duty in this run if they get in the garden. No one's in there at the moment as they're all behaving and laying eggs.

Other jobs being done this month: Half the pruning is done, the rest is waiting for the last quarter of the moon next week to finish it off.

I'm not doing carrots at the full moon, my garden's too cold and wet but I've got pea seed in behind the asparagus right up against the fence where it's a little warmer.

The brassicas in the glasshouse are looking very happy on a diet of worm juice.

Cuttings of grape vines are done but there's still plenty of time to do cuttings of berries, grapes, herbs etc.

Tree tomato looks dead in the frost. Passion fruit is holding on.

Seeds are sorted ready to plant in the next first quarter. I'll do hardier herbs and veges in the glass house and tomatoes and peppers on the window sill inside. Feeling more low maintenance excitement here!

Not feeling like going back to work!