It is always the way – you just get to sink your teeth into an exciting project and something comes along and throws a spanner in the works. We had a productive couple of days with the bulldozer sorting out my land. Gone are the undulating lumps and bumps. All but the merest hint of Kikuyu grass is gone and the base for my garden … Continue reading Looking to the future
Currently, in my gardenless state, any opportunity to get up close and personal with any kind of gardening and I’m in. Even a rain soaked autumnal day won’t dampen my enthusiasm, so when I was invited to help pick apples and help get them pressed for cider making I jumped at the chance. I even dragged Hubby the Un-Gardener with me as being cooped up … Continue reading Collecting apples for crushing
We have survived our first month living in a caravan with just a handful of weeks left before the house arrives. We seem to be in a lull in the busyness that has been swirling around us in the last few months and will continue to do so in the months to come. The weather has yo-yoed between being perfect camping weather with clear blue … Continue reading When you’re not you
It is fair to say the process of selling a house isn’t a simple process. Pop a holiday season in the middle of it all and it can really be challenging. The first step of getting the house ready for sale doesn’t just include the standard decluttering and making a home a house of show room standard, devoid of all but a few personal items … Continue reading The hardest worker of all.
Historically I have been absolutely terrible with keeping plants in pots and containers. There is so much pleasure and joy found tending the garden that I seem to run out of time for the small pot bound plants, not as in out grown with encircled roots, but bound as in confined without the freedom of sending their roots off at will in a direction that … Continue reading Keep you friends close… and your water closer.
After much anticipation, I left my country garden and headed into the big city to check out the NZ Flower and Garden Show. There hasn’t been a garden show on this scale here for a few years, but it takes more than an earthquake and a few soggy seasons to keep good gardeners from gardening. It was a delight and a pleasure to see such … Continue reading Flowers and Gardens
With less than a week left of spring, it is pretty much safe to say the garden is all but done. There are a few bits and pieces left to do, like sort out the flowers – but they don’t really count and only one of the Cannellino beans came up and that just won’t do. You can’t survive the winter on the heart-warming minestrone … Continue reading Final Stages of Spring
Since I have had my wonderful new irrigation system installed in my garden, late last year > you can read about it here <, I have had the pleasure and privilege of using it in a full weekly cycle a sum total of once! And then the rains came and didn’t stop. So, I didn’t need to use it at all – which was very … Continue reading Wishful thinking
Finally, the rain has stopped for long enough for the soil to dry out enough to begin the laborious task of digging and weeding. This is when I regret having such a large garden, but this feeling soon passes as the garden is transformed from weedy overgrown mess to something respectable. And when I am sitting in my garden with a basket full of goodies … Continue reading Easy weeding
You have to admit a vast expanse of well-maintained lawn in middle of summer with the fresh cut aroma invoking some kind of childhood memory where you would roll down hills, do handstands and lie on your back looking for shapes in the clouds, is a pretty cool thing. Our lawn journey is more of a boom and bust thing. We don’t have immaculate single … Continue reading Making the Cut
