Out front we decided to extend the garden to screen off the road. Last weekend we ordered a load of soil and mulch to fill in the area. I began regretting our decision to do a new garden while moving the soil-the morning was really warm and still. I was soon very red in the face and had a cut knee from where I’d tripped-so blood and sweat definitely went into the making of this garden. The two ute loads of plants we’d gotten kept me motivated though-Masters were having 20% off all plants just for the weekend, so we stocked up. We got two large Big Red lillypillies for instant screening, then got a mixture of other plants of varying sizes-Resilience lillypillies, Cherry Suprise lillypillies, Golden Cane palms, Giant Strelitzia’s, Cordylines and a white bottlebrush. We’d planted a few natives among the existing bed too to fill in spaces, and tie in the native tropical mix. I put down the woodchip bit by bit after work. This weekend we got more of the red cordylines to edge around the existing bed, and some more tea trees for along the path. Shane is going to connect the beds up to an automatic timer-so the extra water should get the plants growing faster and help them screen the house in no time. Shane connected up the sprinkler to the remaining fruit trees last week. We'd planted two new trees-another fig and an Angel Peach, a variety I’d never heard of-it has flat disc shaped peaches. No idea what they’ll taste like-but it was a nice looking plant and already had fruit forming so we got it to try. The nectarines on our peach tree are growing much faster than the peaches on the same tree. Some looked like they were nearly ready to pick…until some critter munched half of them. We discovered the Acerola Cherry has flowers-they are very pretty. Looking forward to seeing what the fruit looks like (and tasting it!). The apples on the tropical apple tree are getting bigger too-though they are a bit of an odd shape right now. The mulberry tree has been growing like crazy and was blocking the path and shading other plants near it-so it was time for it to be trimmed back. I wanted to keep as much of the branches as possible as they provide nice cool shade. The lower branches are also much easier to pick the fruit from. I got the paths opened up so we can actually walk down them now and it lets a bit more light through to the other plants around it. I picked all the mulberries I could reach as I was pruning and made a batch of mulberry jam with them. There is still a lot of fruit higher up that I may need a ladder to get to. We also stocked up on some fresh herbs with the sale. The herb garden had been looking untidy with weeds and plants going to seed, so it was in need of an overhaul. I got the weeds and old plants pulled out and pruned back the sage which was going very leggy. I pulled out all the shallots-they were getting twisted. I used these to make some shallot oil. I sprinkled the flower heads from the shallots around which will hopefully sprout-they usually keep coming up each season. I also pulled out all the onions as they had started flowering-apparently you don't want onions to flower as they stop producing the bulb. The flowers are really pretty though! I added in some mushroom compost and planted out the new herbs-basil, dill, more thyme, sorrel and lovage, which I think tastes like celery and Shane thinks is me trying to poison him. This weekend I also got a lemon verbena to plant. We also got some watercress to try growing. I planted it in a pot that I used to have in my room as a fish pond-so hopefully with it retaining water it will stay wet enough for the watercress.
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Well it's official, I'm a car owner. A car owner who doesn't have a licence yet. We picked up the Suzuki Jimny on Friday. Our first ever brand new car and it's for me to learn to drive in-eeeeep! I went for my first drive in it with Shane on Saturday. We have since decided I'll do initial lessons with a driving instructor until I can get a hang of the basics. Shane joked that teaching me would drive him to drink. There was an element of truth to this ;)
I start my lessons next week-eeeep! |
![]() "And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." William Shakespeare Archives
February 2017
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