What I did in the garden this week.
On Monday
It was howling a hoolie with gusting winds recorded in the garden of 27.7km per hour. Thanks to my garden wind breaks I’ve learnt that beyond the garden this is almost double. It is still a lot for the poor plants in the garden, but they seem ok. The wind wasn’t alone and was joined by rain that fell in fat drops. The weather station in the garden measured 13.8mm which is confirmed by Wilbur the Wheelbarrow sitting there half full of water. It seems wrong to tip it out knowing that in the summer we’ll be a bit thirsty.
So, this meant no gardening, but that was ok there was a lot of indoor computer gardening and projects to be getting on with. No time was wasted on this rainy day.
On Tuesday
It was more computer gardening to catch up on some final bits and bobs I didn’t get finished. The weather was much improved, so after lunch I headed out into the garden and really looked at it. I’ve been doing my best to maintain things throughout my busy season, but somehow the weeds just started to get away on me again. It is certainly a sign things are warming up, so I whipped around the beds as quickly as I could removing all these interlopers. It was interesting to see in the beds dressed with my homemade compost that tomato seedlings were popping up… maybe its time… maybe I’ll wait a little longer.
On Wednesday
I got out the power tools! I’ve had a long term problem. The chickens have been escaping. This is because in our salty sea air, chicken wire dissolves in 5 years and this year it completely collapsed so the girls were wandering about the place as they pleased and eating my lingering crops. I didn’t mind so much because I was mostly sick of the crops by now but didn’t have the heart to pull them out. So maybe they were doing me a favour.
But this situation couldn’t continue when I had my new season plants in the garden, so I’ve been making long term, more permanent repairs. I’ve replaced the top of the chicken wire with plastic trellis which, although I’m not that pleased to be using plastic, it will have a much longer longevity than the chicken wire. For the bottom, I got a load of seconds fencing palings, and I started building a fence to match the rest of the garden. It’s starting to look quite good. I’ve plugged the biggest escape route, and the rest has been temporarily patched. I’ll work at it in a little and often approach over the next wee while, because I need to clear Muehlenbeckia and kikuyu to get clear access to the horizontal beams to attach the palings and that is a horrible job.
Meanwhile, in the greenhouse I noticed some of the seedlings were romping away. I started them at the same time I normally would, but I can’t seem to remember if this was normal or not for them to be this big already. But I couldn’t turn a blind eye to them, I needed to get them ready for planting, by starting to harden them off and toughen them up after the soft life in the greenhouse. Most are brassicas and salad leaves so won’t mind an earlier than usual start in the garden – remembering I don’t get frosts.
The rest were my glass gem corn. Usually I start them the same time as I start my tomatoes, and they usually get a couple of transplants into bigger pots between now and mid-October. Well these got moved into their second big pot today, because the roots were poking out the bottom already! I think they will end up out in the garden sooner rather than later. But not yet. The soil thermometer is still under 15ºC when I checked it first thing in the morning.
On Thursday
This is the day my Wee Helper comes along and at the moment we are working on weeding The Palace. She’s in Room Two which needs a complete overhaul because the plants did their first year sleep, the second year creep and instead of the third year leap, a lot of plants turned up their toes and died. It is really harsh here, so I’ll take the lessons, make some changes and then give it another go, so watch this space. Once it has been thoroughly weeded, I’ll have a blank canvas of sorts to start again.
Meanwhile I was up in Room Three – the dinning room, clearing weeds around the edges to slow that Muehlenbeckia – kikuyu creep. If I give the garden a good spades width and keep it clear with regular maintenance, it generally holds it back. This particular area is the last of the neglect the garden suffered with all of the travel we did earlier in the year. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was a glamorous jetsetter and then I had a short stint as a momentarily and quite locally famous author. But now I’m back to my happy place, scrambling about on my hands and knees pulling weeds out of my lovely earth.
That was until a rainy squall came in across the ocean looking like it was here to stay. So I sent my Wee Helper home early and the rain soon dried up – in spite of what the rain radar was suggesting. I continued to potter about the place, sowing more seeds for the faster crops and I directly sowed carrots, radish and parsnips into the garden.
On Friday
I started by chopping the head off my beautiful kale. It was starting to go to seed, so it was now or never to catch the last of the leaves. I gave them a quick wash and dehydrated them in the air fryer. I’ve found this is the quickest, easiest and still retains that gorgeous vibrant green colour. Then I blitz it up into a fine powder to be sprinkled into almost every meal for a burst of goodness.
Then we nipped into the garden centre to take advantage of a good sale and came home with a carload of compost to finish enriching the garden before planting, because we’ve used all of mine. Mine did go a long way and has saved a fortune and provided the satisfaction of knowing exactly what it contains. Soon all the beds will be ready for planting but I’ll leave it a little longer because spring is a tease and it might be warm now, but the cold isn’t finished with us yet.
And then I accidentally had a nana nap in a patch of sunshine on the sofa while the wind picked up and howled a hoolie around us with gusts up to 38.5km per hour recorded in the garden. Definitely not gardening weather, even if the sun is shining.
Come again soon for more gardening activities as spring gets going.
Sarah the Gardener : o)