I've pulled out the passionfruit we had growing in the vege garden beds. Those beds and the trellis weren't intended for passionfruit, but birds had planted some there and they'd grown quickly. They'd made a good screen from the neighbours so we'd left them. But it was time for them to come out-the vines were taking up so much room we couldn’t grow much else with them. And we needed more space for veggies. I only got as far as removing the vines that weekend, as we had some assembly to do. We got a steel gazebo kit and began assembling the frame-I'm very excited. Finally we are underway with having an outdoor eating area! The following weekend we put on the roof cover and side walls and mesh. It was a little bit fiddly. The mesh sides will be handy for keeping the bugs out, and the canvas for creating more shade as needed. I finished pulling out the old plants in the beds that weekend-we ended up with several leek and a few decent sized onions. I topped the beds up with mushroom mulch, to prepare the new plants. The corn seemed to like having more space-all the plants have cobs forming. Once the beds were tidy it was time to install the solar lights. They were too awkward to put on the gazebo so I put them on the trellis beside it. The following weekend I got some more and made use of the log Becca had stood in one of the beds. It wasn't doing anything before-but was too tricky to pull out-so now it makes more sense being there. I still don't think there are enough-I may be little obsessed with outdoor lights. It took me ages to get some photos of the lights at the right time of day. I first went out at night-but it was too dark, all you could see were little dots of light and black. I would remind myself each day that i needed to go out just before it got dark….but then would forgot and suddenly remember and look outside to find it was too dark. Finally I just hung around outside for the afternoon till the lighting was right. So now there are lots of light photos ;) Now all we need is a table setting. And maybe some more lights!
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It was a nice surprise coming home from another weekend away to find more changes in the garden. Some things can happen so quickly. One of our apple trees-the Tropical Apple-has flowers. The buds start out a bright pink and then open to a pale pink flower. There are lots of buds, hope we’ll get a few fruit. Not expecting too much as it was only planted a few months ago. Our new roses also have flower buds-can’t wait to see the flowers! We had a look to purchase some more, but unfortunately the site says roses are now out of season for ordering. When they come back in season we’ll get some more. Other flowers are coming out too-the Iffa lillies that Nana sent me which come up each year-they seem to vary their colour, this year they are a pale peach. We have calendula flowers around the fruit trees-the puppies have been enjoying crushing these. And we’ve had the first cornflower-a pale pink. The leaves of this look a lot like some weeds we get-so I think I may have accidentally pulled out some cornflower plants-whoops! I was very, very excited when Shane pointed out a dove nesting in the passionfruit trellis in the vege garden. I was trying to get a clear photo of it without standing up beside it and startling it. It doesn’t seem too bothered by our presence around the garden-it just pretends to be invisible when I look at it. The asparagus has been going crazy. We’ve had lots of spears nearly every night. We’ve also started picking the broccoli. Our bok choy have bolted and now have tall flower stems, so we’ll be pulling those out soon. The flowers are pretty and yellow so I wont remove them just yet. The red centre lime and the lemonade tree have been producing more buds-we may have to thin them out if they produce a lot of fruit as the plants are only small and won’t support much weight. Our peaches are getting bigger too. I hope they don’t get fruit fly. The mulberries have started ripening-the puppies are very happy. Technically the tree was planted for Becca-so the puppies are stealing all her fruit. We even discovered Horse had mulberry stains on his face from where Shane had given him some mulberries in his bed-he must have slept on them.
I’ve decided I’ll try using some this year too instead of the puppies and birds munching them all. We aren’t a huge fan of them fresh so I’ll try out a few different mulberry recipes. I’ve started freezing the blueberries too so I can make something with them (there are lots of fruit on the plant, but they seem to ripen one by one). |
![]() "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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