Working in the garden

This weekend I got quite a lot completed in the garden. Items I have procrastinated about for a long time. I am a doer and action person. So when tragedy hit our region in the form of a massacre one of the ways I deal with things is to keep active. The garden was the beneficiary.

I did not think of taking before photos until I was part way through. But I had cleaned up all this area and already installed the first sleeper you see on the left. Where the spade and bucked are is still a higher area due to having been the dumping ground for stuff from our other garden changes. The sleepers have been sitting there since January when I purchased them knowing what I wanted to do.

This is the finished area. I just couldn't handle having the ground at a different height, so as well as squaring the garden beds off I dug out the lawn and flattened it all. 

The piece on the right will be completed after I purchase more sleepers. Then there will only be one area left to complete (the side of the house). I'm really pleased as it now looks like a purposeful area outside. 

I also composted this garden and put in some more brassica's (tiny little bits of green down the left side). The ones I planted last month are now a good size. One of the four beds all tucked up for winter! 

  

Redcurrants

 A significant part of summer for me is about picking fruit. This starts in November and goes through to April. I love being in the sun entangled in vines or trees, adding to the bowl, basket or bucket and enjoying warm fruit as it's being picked. We have two redcurrant bushes and this year due to all the rain the currants are enormous. I don't normally net our bushes but was we were going away just when everything was ripening I thought it prudent to do so.

I went out to pick and thought I was done but every time I went to leave I would lift another branch and find it dripping with fruit. Perfection.

The first of the season's raspberries

Picked today, the first real pick of about about 500 grams of raspberries. Oh so delicious. I was laughing at myself as I was picking. My picking style at the beginning of the season is not to miss a single one, checking every branch, being careful. As we're going away I feel that I am missing out on all my season's raspberries.

I have three varieties. Some get more bugs than others, which are always clean. So I pick with two bowls - one for eating and one for jam.

Everytime I drop one on the ground it is a lost opportunity and a scrabble to get it, normally by the end of the season I don't care !!!

I killed the lawn

Last year I sprayed the lawn and we got rid of quite a lot of weeds and it was looking healthy for the first time since we moved in. This year, same spray.... but......I killed the lawn too! The new grass that had grown was a type the spray killed and I had no idea. Now we have no lawn, its actually died more since I took the photo!

I've finally purchased more railway sleepers to start working on the borders for the rest of the garden, you can see in the background. It will now match what Aaron has been doing for a vege garden.

I really like what he has done and the edge of our garden vs the start of the lawn has been very murky and hard to maintain. Yesterday we sweated and I dug in the beams and Aaron back filled them. We managed to do half before giving up. Today we just about finished. 

While Aaron is away, Karen does play

Et Voila! A neat brick edge to the garden. Not quite completed I have to say as just past the bucket there is about 2 foot that needs to be bricked. But it was 6.30pm, I was finishing in the dark, it starting raining and being winter it was downright cold! Anyway, I have been meaning, like many other things, to get this done for a quite a while now. Aaron has spent a lot of time ever since we moved 3 1/2 year ago, block laying paths and using railway sleepers to create and edge garden beds. The path is gorgeous but as you can see from the photo below, all the dirt and therefore weeds kept skidding down onto it.  Aaron was in Rotorua with Eli for his 13th birthday so I used the time at home to start this and get a couple of other things completed.

When we arrived to our new home there were some bricks around and I have picked up a few more since. These are a hollow brick which means the edge is not so attractive, but I am into free and upcycling so I use what we have. At our old place I got pretty handy with a trowel and mortar but the lack of practise in between shows, this job is no where near as tidy!!. But it's done, or rather started as I have to finish that row and then do the other side. To do that I have to pinch bricks from the other side of the house, which means new edging there, which means completing one job just creates another!!!

I've added my latest photo of Pepper and me. She is soooooo cute!!! We all fight over who gets to cuddle her.

A bit of clearing and recycling

 I have first world problems in my garden. Blackbirds and Thrush's...grrrr. They get into the undergrowth, scruffle around and flick all the bark and dirt onto drives and paths. Drives me nuts.

 I've been meaning to fix it for ages. So I spent a hot Saturday and part of Sunday cleaning up and putting in some serious edging. I thought it was going to be a 30 minute job, but it took 3 hours.

A bit of trimming of trees and bushes as well as wedding and moving some things were required.

Finally all cleaned. This is only part of the drive but it was all the wood that I had. 

Aaron has been making new garden edging and paths, using railway sleepers. He had pulled the old (though reasonably substantial) edging out a few months ago. It was sitting just waiting for me to use it. I'm thrilled with the result of both projects.

Sunday afternoon I had my reward. A gorgeous afternoon at the river with my boys, my sister and brother in law and their kids, not to forget Auntie Colleen. Great swimming hole and gorgeous BBQ dinner together.

Garden refresh.. Another area finished

Last year my son decided he wanted a vege garden. So one weekend we put in edging and compost and planted. He got to about week six and gave up interest. But once the broccoli finished I planted beans and tomatoes. A great crop as it is very sunny. However it is right by the basketball hoop and things just got squashed all the time.  

So time to start again with something hardy. Completely cleared it out.

Now it has a two different types of flaxes that will take the basketball hammering coming their way. Then there are two smaller trees, which when grown will be lovely flowering NZ Native - Kanuka. I also chose the Kanuka and flax as Aaron created a native garden further down this fence using the some of these plants. Hopefully it will all tie in together. Not that you will see it much as the woodpile in in between. The only plant I left in was the clump on the left as it is a gorgeous summer bulb from South Africa. I broke some off and planted it on the very far right of the bed, just to create a cohesive look.

Conquering the garden - another section completed.

This section of the garden goes down the East side of the house. So it gets morning sun but quite a bit of shade. As it is under the eaves it was really dry and the only thing growing were dahlias.

The great thing about conquering the garden for me is that it is free!! I knew when we moved that I would be wanting to do things so every time I cut something, I just stick it in the ground to see if it will grow. The photo on the left is one of 4 gooseberry plants just grown from pegging the branch to the ground. The plant on the right has a gorgeous root structure (you can see if you look hard) and is one of many many many rosemary plants.

The photos left to right show gooseberry's planted at the back and rosemary to hedge at the front. The middle photo is Ugni berry (in New Zealand people call it NZ cranberry) as a hedge to be. I have left the dahlias in the back to deal with the dry conditions and have moved a struggling miniature rose in at the left. It should do better there. I have been careful not to put prickly plants around the hose access.

Then further up are two white currant bushes, again from cuttings that I just stuck in the ground when trimming and some very large rosemary plants as I want to have it hedge at least half way up this brushwood fence. What I do need to do yet is to move a beautiful red climbing rose into the rosemary hedge area. It is in the shade and not doing well where it currently grows. Then it will cover the top of the fence. I am going to purchase one thing though. A pear tree. As I have decided to make an Arch into the back garden from two pear trees.

The lovely gooseberries grown from cuttings.

Conquering the Garden...bit by bit

Sometime I have been feeling that our section and garden is just too big and too much. That is when I am tired or not feeling so well. Then when I get time in it I start to enjoy it again. What I have discovered to stop me feeling overwhelmed I have to just think about bits of it and not the whole. 

So I have been concentrating on fixing up the area in front of the hot tub. I have grown the two Feijoa trees on the left and middle from cuttings and the one on the right I bought. I am slowly making a Feijoa hedge here. At the end of next summer we will be able to remove the two tall trees that do not fit with our style. I also rounded out the garden bed as it had a weird kink in it.

Now I am working on this side just a wee bit further round from the bit before. I have  pear on the left side (just past the rose) that I am going to stake forward and start making a pear arch. I will plant a pear on the left to join it. This is my next "bit" of the garden. By doing bit by bit I feel I achieve something.

Winter has well and truely set it and this is the look in the TV room most days after school!!!

How to make your own plant rooting hormone

While my sister was here with me on one of our walks she picked a pile of young willow branches from the river. We brought them home and put them into half a bucket of water. It is just under the bark that all the goodness lies. This is where they get asprin from and is also a great starter for any cuttings. I always used to buy rooting hormone from the garden centre until I found out that willow is essentially the same thing (just not dried and in a container).

So once the willow has steeped for a while I put a pile of cuttings into the water of the ugni berry. This has two common names Chilean guava and NZ Canberry. It is not a cranberry but is the closest thing we can grow and the flavour both fresh and after a light stewing is stunning. Anyway the ugni berry cuttings are all planted up to do their thing as I want to use it to hedge the raspberries. So with the leftover water I soaked the punnets that I am planting my cucumber and courgette (zuchini) seeds into. Lots of people are spending money at the moment on seaweed liquid as a plant starter - but hey just pick some willow and get the same result!

My first outing since surgery was for Aaron's birthday. Date night (earliest date night ever - 5pm as I fade after 7pm)

We went to the Polo bar and restaurant. It was great. 

Jakob has been the best company for me during recovery. He has accompanied me on all my walks. Being spring the blossom trees (cherry) are amazing and planted in groups of three all around our suburb. Jakob just kept stopping to look at them as the petals were drifting down like confetti. I thought that wedding couples should be stopping for photos.

Linking to these places.

I am going to say it... I love my garden

8 Months ago we moved into a new house with a garden that had been neglected for more than a year. We know that because it was empty for more than a year before we purchased it. I knew when we looked around that we had some Peony's, Roses, a nectarine and two apple trees. The rest was a mystery. 

But what a fantastic mystery it has been. As each season has passed and we have added things into the garden, watered and pruned, slowly it is being revealed. The hellebores had me the moment they flowered in the middle of winter, peonies are amazing, the iris's stunning, the rhododendrons were spectacular and more things are just popping up.  

Every day I walk around and admire the garden and what is springing from it. I love the surprise, I love seeing what we are planting come to life and grow well.

I feel very fortunate to have such a stunning garden. 

First garden bed in.. veges on their way!!

The first garden bed was finished on the weekend. A mighty job by Aaron and the boys. Slowly making the new house feel like our own.

Looking good. Paving for the path started on the lefthand side.

The reality of the mess!!

This is what it looked like just as we started to remove beds that for some reason were plonked in the middle of the lawn. Weird.

Brocoliflower and a garden update

Was absolutely thrilled with my brocoliflower this year. Other years it has bolted and gone to seed as do most my brassicas. But this year it is a ripper!! Huge, it has feed us for three meals so far and those were generous. 

A year ago I said that we were going to redo the garden. Well Aaron has done all the paved paths but I am still finishing the brickwork (probably still will be doing it by this time next year!!) 

Wow the photo below is what it looked like just as we started.

This photo is what it looked like part way through.