Last May Day

Did May Count?  Were my efforts to prevent this month from slipping away worth it?   Did I make a difference to my gardening journey?  Historically this is a strange month and looking back over my previous blog posts for the Month of May for the last 8 years it seems to be a collection of moaning about the weather with a combination of frosts, not enough rain and too much rain with a cyclone thrown in for good measure, a bit of chicken talk and some cooking, including my most popular blog post ever, >My Mum’s one pot sultana biscuits<.   There was also a lot of end of season tidy up, which is pretty much what I was about this month.

This month I’ve made leaf mould that will take a year before I can use its wonderful goodness.  It feels like I’m investing in the garden.  I faced the elements with a week’s worth of rain days that turned up on the days I really wanted to be in the garden.  Often times this was accompanied by high winds straight off the ocean that wreaked havoc in my poor garden and had me lying awake at nights worried for my plants.  I planted daffodils, and sneaky spuds for the winter, and sowed all the cover crops that were needed according to the master plan for the garden.  I harvested peanuts and my kumara which was kind of disappointing but in a delicious – better than nothing way.  I even did some cooking and made that absolutely delish red onion marmalade.  It was also a time for celebration with the garden itself having its first birthday and I also had my very first garden visit from a local garden group.

So, while I did a lot there was also a lot that didn’t get done.  I was hoping to have my garden shed built by now, but it was delayed.  It has finally arrived and now sits there in its box waiting to become my office in the garden where I will be able to be inspired by the garden as I write, by being in the garden as I write.   I also didn’t get my water catcher under the tap finished.  It is hard to explain without showing you pictures.  I am halfway through and almost achieved it during the Make May Count month, but I underestimated the resources required and had to buy more hoping to finish it today, but today is rainy and I’m not crazy enough to complete the task in the wet.

I didn’t get on to the Muehlenbeckia cuttings either and to be honest I have no idea why.  I need to put this down to procrastination and try to do better at avoiding it.  Besides from what I understand it is better to do the cuttings in winter and that starts tomorrow so all is not lost.  I also didn’t lay the irrigation cables in a mile of trenches not so much because of procrastination, more from the fact I was dragging my heels with all the digging that was required.  But having said that I dug a deep hole yesterday for my water catcher and it wasn’t that bad, so maybe I can convince myself to throw myself into it in June.

Even without these ‘overflow’ tasks June is a month that isn’t spent searching for things to do.  It may be the first month of winter, but the tasks are many and exciting.  I have to prune back the raspberries and sort out the strawberries and clearing out the runners.  The asparagus needs cutting back and getting ready for the new season.  The onion seedlings will go in and the most exciting of all is it is tree season so I can make the new orchard, properly, for once and for all, with irrigation!  And all of this juggling around the tumultuous weather expected from the season.

Even though I didn’t get everything done I wanted to, I certainly think my Make May Count concept was a good idea.  It had me looking for things to do in a time that could have easily slipped by unproductively.  So much so I have popped it in the diary to do it again next year.

Come again soon – winter starts tomorrow.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)