Seeds Sown Indoors Today

Passionfruit
Spinach Strawberry (heirloom from www.kingsseeds.co.nz)
Rhubarb
Bean Roquefort
Sage
Oregano
Thyme (wild)
Lavender Dwarf Munstead
Watermelon Georgia Rattlesnake
Cucumber Green Dragon
Cornflowers

Stop Raining, I want to get out there!

Sheep Fertiliser

After seeing liquid sheep fertiliser being made on the "Good Morning" show I decided to give it a go. Simply half-fill a bucket with sheep pellets and top up with water, then put on a lid, but don't seal the lid in case the gases build up and it explodes. Leave for 3 weeks and then dilute 1:6 with water.

Sheep pellets themselves are dried and inoffensive. For some reason my brain did not compute that I was turning them into a big bucket of sheep diarrhoea and I was quite dismayed when I opened the lid to reveal a very offensive greeny/brown sludge which I would then have to somehow get into my watering can!

I have done it though and my vegetables better be grateful. I have a feeling I now smell offensive too, or is it that the smell just won't leave my nostrils? I always wanted to live rural and now I can honestly say that my place smells like a drive through the country on a very hot day.

Lawn Replacement

Hubby thinks I've gone mad. Yesterday I started removing our lawn because it is a mixture of weeds and kikuya and I'm replacing it with anything I've got an abundance of seed-wise and that is easy to pull out later: corn, wheat, marigolds, parsley, buckwheat, alfalfa and goodness knows what else as I go along. Why? Because I'm organic and I don't want to spray my lawn to get rid of it, neither do I want a muddy bog while I painstakingly remove it. Since I don't have oodles of spare time it will probably take me quite a while, and then when I've finished I can pull out the replacements all in one go and then level the whole thing. Finally, I will put in pebbled paths and sow some nice grass. Yes, the kids won't have a lawn to play on for a while but I think they'll enjoy hiding behind the corn and examining all the beneficial insects and their backyard will definitely be unique for a city garden.

Sowing and Slugs

I got back from my weekend away to find that slugs had found their way to the seedlings in the greenhouse. They annihilated the chamomile and all but a couple of the livingstone daisies, and had a good chomp through most other things.

I potted up the one surviving thyme, the hollyhocks, morning glory and poppy peonies.

Sown today: Tomato Moneymaker, Tomato Gardener's Delight, Tomato Roma, Basil Sweet Genovese, Lettuce Fancy Leaf Mixed, Bean Cannellino, Bean Scarlet Runner.

Record for Crop Rotation 2009

Obelisk Garden 2009

Left hand side: Garlic, Rosemary (out of sight), Red Batavian Lettuces, Mustard, Brassicas, Peas in obelisk (snapped off in wind) Mesculun starting in foreground, Brassicas, Red Batavian Lettuces, Curry Plant, Red Onion, Rhubarb. (Wheat and Vetch interplented on right 1/3)

Fence Garden 2009

Rear: Silverbeet (green, yellow, red), Calendulas, baby spring onions, Calendula, Blueberry, Brassicas, Beetroot, Celery, Brassicas and Swede (harvested) Pak Choi (some interplanting of wheat and vetch on right 1/3) and Red Onions here and there

Front: Garlic, (out of sight) Perpetual Spinach, Calendulas, Brassicas, Blueberry, Parnsips (germinating, formerly patch of Cress and Mesculun), Brassicas, Spring Onions, Brassicas, Pak Choi

The above is a record of what is in the garden now so that I can ensure I rotate my crops correctly. I'm not that good at photo editing and I had to do a spot of cutting and pasting to line them all up - not trying to trick the followers!

Gardener's Best Friend

Note to self: made sheep pellet fertiliser today so ready in 3 weeks from now.

Spring

It's my favourite time of the year. My fig tree now has leaves on the very ends of it's branches (above) and the seed trays on the dining table are starting to come alive. Everything is full of promise!

Last year when I was completely new to having a vege garden and everything seemed to take soooo long, I had doubts that it all would come to fruition and felt a great deal of impatience, but this year I am just carrying on doing a little bit here and a little bit there, happy in the knowledge that whilst what I do in the garden today may not be immediately obvious, it certainly will be well and truly evident and worthwhile in 3 months time.

The best decision I've made so far was to grow winter veges and the fact that I'm still harvesting them and my beds are reasonably full means that I'm not desperate for some new food to grow. I even grew a great winter lettuce "Red Batavian" available from www.kingsseeds.co.nz.

Even though we had several frosts, and some of them quite hard (very strange for Auckland) all of my vegetables made it, (with the exception of self-sown pumpkins) even self sown spuds and tomatoes refused to die! We havested the spuds a couple of days ago, which is quite amazing for this time of year.

They were self-sown because I put my homemade compost into the garden bed when I sowed my winter veges - there is nothing more satisfying that free food!

Hydrangea Cuttings

Today I potted up some hydrangea cuttings my friend gave me. The above picture is what hers looks like, but the beauty of hydrangeas is that they change colour depending on your soil ph. I'll be interested to see what becomes of it at my place. Pink = alkaline and Blue = acid.

Parsnips

Today I tried again with my parnsips - the last lot failed to germinate. This was no surprise after catching Celeste the cat using that part of the garden for her toileting requirements on several occasions.

My 78 year old neighbour, Clyde, has told me that the best way to sow them is to flood the area (doubly necessary I suspect, in my case after Celeste's antics) and then scrape back the very surface, put the seeds in and lightly cover. Next, cover them with wet newspaper. In 3 weeks time, he swears I'll have loads of seedlings. I'll let you know...

Other garden jobs today; dug in some compost where the tomatoes will go later and covered the area with leaf mould.

In the seed trays the morning glory and hollyhocks are starting to appear.