A Year In My Garden - Spring

It's been a while since I've written about the garden..I have actually been working hard. With pickaxe and shovel I'm digging into the side of the hill that is my plot of land and extending the vegetable garden. I'm putting in new raised borders. About 5 of them in toal adding up to about 50 square feet.  Doesn't sound much when you say it like that ..But it's taking A large effort to carve my way though either dense wet clay or near rock shale like clay depending what part I'm working on......This then will take me up to some 230 square feet of raised borders dedicated to growing food ..., I must look up what is the minimum area for say 2 people to supply their vegetable needs .....We have way more ...But then we can afford the luxury of growing way more tomatoes And I've aready planted 20 or so potatoes into a border ...That plus the 'dustbin' potatoes and purple Maori potatoes and Yams And we'll not need to buy any of them until the next winter....If they grow of course ....    











Do you all 'chit' or sprout your potatoes before planting them?? I do it ....Because my dad dit it and the "elders say you must. But I don;t see the point in it ...After all, where we grew potatoes last year and missed some they have sprouted abd are already a foot high !!! no Chitting needed for them!!  Even deep down in the depths of the compost bin they still manage to strike and sprout healthfully forth skywards....



















Anyway, not only am I building borders but I've sorted out the pathways between them. This past year we put up with roughly hewn pathays that had bumps and holes in them and soil and weeds and grass galore....So I've cut them out properly, dug in and built steps and retaining walls and started to lay weed matting and bark on top.....It will look a lot better :O).. Even Sis-in-law K on her recent visit was drawn into helping and laying weed matting for us :O)  We'll send down some chutney later on in thanks..:O) Whether she likes chutney or not !!! :O) 



















 But overall the veggie garden will always look "Wonky" as it slopes in far too many ways and directions....But I can handle Wonky :O) we'll get a pile of junk ornaments and decorate the place as well to add some je ne sais pas. I'm also planting up pots with various herbs ....I'm shoced at the prices they charge in the shops for a small sprig of say sage or mint !!!!!!   They Grows Like Weeds !!!! I cannot kill the stuff off in the veggie plot ....mint of 2-3 varieties has been growing up there since before I moved in.....It just grows ..Loves being mis-treated ...The ideal plant really I guess....

 

























I've plans to do more over the next 12 months around the outskirts and look at utilising the clay bank in someway. Also want to clear fallen clay/soil from the base of the band which I think will be enough space for gooseberry and black/red current bushes....On the other side are 'Scrub" bushes and ferns. I will cut them down and remove them. Room then for dwarf fruit trees ...probably in 1/2 wine barrels ....Apples, plum, damson and the like ....



I've also planted Fejoa bushes in barrels in the front yard ...Oh and a pomegranite bush, dwarf nectarine, and a fruiting cherry tree in a corner beside the front gate. Where Cola's ashes are but we wont dwell on that ....She would be happy though as we burried her favourite "Bad" food , sheep pellets with her and promised all deads cicadas will be placed there for her ...She loved them...Ate them alive or dead with a bottomless hunger.......



   









  

And now it's seed sowing time. Some direct into the borders others in cardboard or peat pots or seed trays and the  warm yellow room of the house will become a nursery for a few weeks ..............Spring has sprung and it won't wait for me ....dammit......Work work work work work..........What would I have have done if I had a paid job as well !!!!



And thats just the vegie garden!!!!!



I've also cleaned up the stone paths in the front as well as the front yard and dug the round border and planted some standard roses that were not happy in other places around the garden, and fed all the roses with rotted manures and started weeding the borders and cleaned up the paths at the back and planted 1/2 a dozen gooseberry and black current  bushes in tubs and  planted other tubs and not to mention the housework and the cooking and when will it all be done !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:O)  busy busy busy ...  

My Gardening Year # 1 - Too Much To Do..

Job Hunt: - Currently at 4 rejections to job applications …. 3 applications outstanding

July is never a good month in New Zealand .. It’s the middle of winter. This year winter is cold and wet. Not a good time for doing anything in the garden ….

However, There is a heap of work to get through ..I’ve a number of additional raised borders to build .. This means clearing the grass, leveling off the ground building the borders them selves and then filling them with soil …. It’s a highly manually intensive piece of work as the only way up to the vegetable garden is via a series of steps through a tree copse… So all soil has to be lifted up there in buckets …Good exercise though …As long as the old ticker holds out ….

However to do that I have to have somewhere to have the soild dropped … I’ve no intention of trying to do the Mel Bartholomew soil mix ..I need a heap more than that. So will order some ‘green’ soil in from a company called ‘living earth’ … We’ve had a mix of soils from them . Some good some not so good for the vegetable plots …This time we’ll pay them a visit first rather than just phone an order in …..

We also need to get some properly formed and barked paths around the veggie plot .. .I’m sick of sliding about up there ……

But – The yard then has to be cleared and tidy before I do that .. and it’s certainly isn’t at present … We have moved last years raised beds we had on the yard for Tomatoes and intend to build two more borders there as well …. We’ve spaced them alternatively with ½ wine barrels containing fejoa trees, a pomegranite bush and soon to be a lemon bush … I’ve even space in the corner of the fencing for an apple of plum or cherry tree….. But running out of time to do that now as well ….

And on it goes ….. Holiday in less than two weeks and on return it will be full on planting seeds

Meanwhile it keeps on raining ……

The existing veggie plots are still producing .. .Pak choi seems to thrive in winter and we use it a lot in stir fries and stews …. We’ve still a couple of cabbages left and I’ll make use of them over the next wek. That border has to be worked over and some of our well rotted compost added into it …then I’ll plant it up with potatoes. We don’t have a huge vegetable garden but I think it will be worth it to plant the whole border up ..>Some squares with our favourite early jersey benne and some squares with a later crop such as Ilam hardy… This year we have a new pest in New Zealand . Potato/tomato Psyllids. First reported in 2006 in Auckland they are speading quickly throughout the country … This is a major issue for both hobbyist and farmers ..I hope it never reaches Wellington ..But it will …

I’ve been buying heirloom seeds again … We had a very successful year last year with few flops … Tomatoes while turning out to be a lot of work in maintenance and worry about lack of flowers setting early on were delicious and with the variety of plants grown we had a different taste at each eating :O) And with 60+ kilos of fruit we managed to make more chutney and sauce than we would ever get through ourselves ….. . This year I am going to try some more varieties plus a few of the faves from last year … In front of my keyboard, waiting to be typed onto my seed list spreadsheet are Japanese Black trifele that actually comes from Estonia not Japan (go figure) but said to be delicious non the less, “Purple Russian” a cool tolerant variety from the Ukraine. Said to be the best purple/black variety on the work market …. And “Siberian tomatoes”. Also Cool tolerant ..With the long range weather forecast predicting a cold spring I’m hoping these plants will produce well despite the ‘el nino’ weather pattern ….We’ll see….

I’ve also another Pumpkin bed to build ..Hoping to beat my previous record set last year :O) I’ve also bought some other – more eatable – pumpkin seeds and need to find a place for them to grow as well …Well away from my Giant pumpkin efforts…I have some ideas on that ….



McD I need to talk to you about pumpkins and flower beds :O}

End of one gardening Year - Start of the Next

For the Maori of New Zealand the Shortest day (same day as the longest day in the northern hemisphere) heralds the start of the new year ... For the gardener this is especially true . From that day on as the days start to legnthen, Camelas start to flower and buds of trees start to fatten and the sap starts rising. It's a short dormancy in New Zeland for plants.



It's been a strange winter in that despite the unusually cold weather it's been patchy and in between we've had some reasonably warm days ... Plants are confused with some Rhodos and camelias flowering earlier than usual .. We have at least one native Kowhai tree in flower in the area ..These normally flower in September. We have Daffodils on the roundabout that begins our township already starting to flower... Put this into perspective - It would be like daffodils in January in England ........







Being out of action with my back problems, I didn't get to plant any vegetables in the autumn for winter cropping .. .We do have a few cabbages and pak choi and celery and chard to pick at. It's all great for stir fries or even just adding to stews and casseroles ....







We've planted a heap of garlic this year after last years wonderful heritage crop. So different to the shop bought garlic ..Very pungent.. wonderful taste ... We also planted a small crop of Elephant garlic this time ...Just to try it ... The garlic did try and make a break for freedom pushing itself up and back out of the ground ...Soil a little light ?? Planted too shallow ?? One heck of a good root system produced already - We tucked them back into the soil a little deeper this time with a good pat of the soil on top...







Strawberries were not only a great success last season fruit wise they shot a load of runners out that snaked their way across the raised beds. We've made use of a few of them  to extend the population ...Now having 8 squares (2 rows) at the end of each of the 3 main beds ... Already trying to flower I must get some decent compost for them with potash to get them fruiting .....







I was caught out at the weekend ...We saw some Broad Bean Seelings in punnets at the local garden centre ... Bought a few punnets as we planted nothing in the autumn ... Only to find out in reading that they do not grow well this way ..Not liking transplanting .... What can I say - I'd always planted seeds previously. I just never thought it would be an issue with seedlings ... Never trust a garden Centre ........ However they are in and we shall see ....But will be planting seeds as well very soon for my Christmas lunch harvest...







Another semi failure  story ...I'm trying to build a polytunnel over one of the raised beds (maybe two) .. We bought the tubing at what turned out to be about 3 times the cost we could have gotten it for AND what we bought was too flimsy for want of a better word ... But we will see what we can do with it and some wood or cane supports .... 







In one border wit hthe polytunnel I want to plant some potatoes ... The jury is out on this, As to whether the winter is mild enough to allow the spuds to grow .. One NZ gardening magazine  editor tried to gow them a couple of months back only to have the frost turn them black ... Maybe in a poly tunnel we can do it ....







I Quite like the idea of this 

Kitchen garden Design

Planting a raised border for a specific requirement...Not sure how practical that is ...Especially with the square foot gardening as you do tend to plant what you can and what wasn't there previously for rotation cropping...... 







More Bad news at the Dinzie household...Pepsi Dog (picture in last post) has ruptured both knees of her back legs ..Old age sucks eh .. She's on painkillers now but they want to operate ...$5,000 for the ops alone, never mind the pre/post op charges  ... She's almost 12 years old and life expectancy of up to 14 ......  



Well that is number 4 of the bad things that can happen to the dinzie household in 2009 .. And it's only July .....  

Gardening Horizontally !!

 

Being happily told by M-in-L that this sciatica may never go away – Oh great ........

 

No easing on the pain at all...Can sit for a time but can’t walk more that a dozen paces without extreme pain in the butt...The right butt to be precise .....

 

Funnily enough the most comfortable place for me is the front passenger seat of the car!! Which has been good as I’ve made poor McD take me out for drives around the place to alleviate the boredom ...But I want to do much more ....It’s driving me nuts.....Last night was bad ..I’d pushed it too far in trying to walk and do things ....The ache kept me awake for hours until I finally tried some old meditation techniques I used to practice in my youth ... for what ever reason I then fell asleep for a few hours anyway.........

 

This morning I hit the heavier drugs again.... Pain too much....

 

Really pleased I’m off next week ....But the thought of work looming is starting to worry me a lot ....But will go to the Chiro and the Physio next week and see what they can do...

 

I hobbled up the pathway this afternoon to the veggie garden. Its all so over grown. The grass etc is getting too much and we just have to get it sorted. McD harvested the last of the tomatoes, green and red (and yellow :O) And then we pulled out the vines emptying the border...The sun is about to disappear from this are soon as it dips behind the hill. It’s a shame but that’s  the land we have ...I may seed it with broad beans or peas as a manure crop in readiness for spring.

 

While McD worked on   the tomato border I sat and lay down on some loose weed matting and clipped the strawberry plants and dug up the runners saving the strongest to add another 8 squares of strawbs at the end of the raised border mcd was working on. Gardening on my side lying down being a whole new experience....but at least we did some.

 

The rewards are there as well though as we piked the last of the beetroot and pulled a few carrots that are quite large now considering they only have 8 inches to go down before they hit the hard clay ...(Where they either do a right turn producing an L shaped carrot or they start to twist and push themselves out of the soil.) With the tomatoes and already picked garlic and onion McD copped it all up and made a chicken casserole ...Delicious.   We had it with fresh baked bread rolls...

 

As part of our trying to eat more healthfully McD has been on a marathon run of cooking meals everynight.......Personally - I’m loving it ....   :O)