Having had a day off from work, I spent part of the day sieving soil and planting two different sorts of carrots. I also spent part of the day assembling a very ‘rustic’ sun screen for my ballerina granny smith apple tree – as it was looking singed, and we are only into mid to late spring here!
I have manage to fulfill a long held gardening dream! My passionfruit died and so I have planted an apricot that I will espalier in the same place.
It is a Moor Park apricot – referred to by Jane Austen in one of her novels
Not much activity on the blog in the recent past – sorry. I have become involved with the local community garden on the weekends, so my time is limited. A community garden in Australia is almost the equivalent of an allotment in the UK, but not quite so informal. Anyway, here are three photos of the garden:
I have also taken delivery of a new rainwater tank at home (only 1100 litres) and have been busy transferring the water from the old rusty tank to the new plastic one – by hand! No photos of the tank yet, but they will come.
I offered to help my goddaughter get her vegetable seedlings off to a good start this spring, by germinating them in my cold frame. This involved us sitting down and selecting her preferred seeds from my collection. I thought that I had inferred that the selection was not to be too big – this is the result:
And this is the resulting set of pots:
So she now has:
Basil, ‘sweet genovese’, Coriander (generic), Capsicum ‘sweet delight’, Lettuce Baby Cos (from Diggers), Parsley “Giant of Italy”, Pumpkin “Bohemian” (from Diggers), Red Cherry tomatoes (saved from her crop last year), Lettuce ‘Great Lakes”, Sweet Corn “sweet white F1” (from Diggers), Rockmelon “Sweet Granite” (from Diggers), Cucumber “Sweet and striped” (from Diggers) – plus several others that I have forgotten!
I have discovered that using your hands to pull up beetroot, is not a patch on tripping over said beetroot in bare feet, getting the stalks caught between your toes, and up rooting the plant. Ahhh – innovation.
I have also moved two fully grown and flowering/fruiting broad beans, to make room for a new rainwater tank – water being like liquid gold here in the summer.
Well, a lovely early spring day here in Adelaide (it only got to 27degrees). So I used part of my rostered day off to move a camellia (Dark Knight) not once, but twice! Here’s hoping the poor little bugger hangs in there.
I also moved an dwarf apple tree, to make room for the camellia. It is now in a pot, and has a dwarf peach tree next to it (the apple is in the middle). Now to wait 6 weeks until the nursery has some dwarf apricots and I can complete my mini orchard.
I also took advantage of the glorious weather to spend some time under my new pergola watching the garden grow.
What can I say – nice to see the head gardener hard at work incubating an (admittedly) weedy looking passion fruit vine:
Woopee – spring is here, at 27degrees C mind you, but still woopee.
I took advantage of the warm weather to have my first potting session using my home made potting bench, see the results below:
The seeds are as follows:
Parsley “Giant of Italy”
Dwarf Pea “Blue Bantam”
Coriander “nameless”
Climbing Bean “Purple King”
Lettuce “Great Lakes”
Bean “Lazy Housewife”
Despite being unwell today, I managed to jury rig a climbing frame for my sweet peas, that look as though they are climbing to heaven.
I have also picked the few sweet pea flowers that are out at the moment and plonked them in a beer glass (in lieu of a small vase). Hopefully as the weather continues to warm up I will get more flowers.
Well, spring is in the air. My front garden is showing that all the hard work in the autumn was worth it. I have anemones in flower, my sweet peas have gone nuts and my stocks and snapdragons are flowering. I even have a beautiful cornflower in bloom.
The stocks are so sweet that even I can smell them, and I have a crap sense of smell.
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