... which makes a nice change from last year, when it was cold and dank and damp; all very nice for bushfire prevention, but not so fun for heat-loving humans.
It's been rather a good few months on the planting front, and I can but apologise to those few readers I apparently have for not actually telling anyone else about what's going on. Going on and on about why a blog hasn't been updated, without actually providing the long-awaited updates, seems rather a waste of reading space to me, so suffice to say - sorry, and I'm going to try and be better from now on (I say that a lot though, I do admit).
So. I've planted a lot of fairly usual summer-bearing plants. As usual - but hopefully for the last time - the planting often involved the actual creation of garden beds to plant into. From this point, I'm hoping the seasonal planting will just mean improving the existing locations, not actually hauling out the mattock and wire for the fencing and claybreaking necessary to keep stuff alive around here.
Mind you, things might go better if the chooks didn't get into the carefully-planted beans, peas, zucchini, corn, cucumber, chard, amaranth, native raspberries (their destruction really hurts) and tomatoes ... !! I'm teetering between a temper tantrum of destructive and ultimately-pointless, but feel-good proportions, or mindless purchase of replacements and replanting. The latter is, of course, the option that means we'll have something to eat in a few months, but ARGH!
I was so proud of getting the seeds in on time; of the growth coming up, slowly but surely; of the thought of the more unusual plants I'd put in the ground. Of the seedlings bought at the Canberra Outdoor Show a couple of weekends ago and nurtured in the greenhouse until I was ready and able to plant.
It's not completely too late to put in seeds, but they'll need more nurturing to get them going before the summer really hits. Or I could just give up (AGAIN! - seeds and me just do NOT seem to get along! - I just don't have the patience ... ) and go buy a batch of ordinary advanced seedlings - I probably won't be able to get the interesting varieties I'd put in. Not as cost-effective, and I won't be able to put in as many as the seeds I'd planted, but I won't have lost so much.
On the plus side (I'm not _completely_ in despair), the chooks have turned the soil over nicely, and it'll just be a case of me putting it back into its elegant heaps and replanting. That is, after all, what I got the chooks for. It's not their fault I've given them a taste of the free-range life among the grasses, which I cruelly keep them out of except on those evenings we're home early enough, or on weekends. Or, rather more to the point, that I underestimated the ability of chooks to squeeze through gaps in the gate to get to the greenstuff.
So it's off to Bunnings or similar for a batch of seedlings.
Aside from that, though, coming along nicely are:
- The redcurrants, white currants, blackberry (thornless), and gooseberries
- The self-seeded tomatoes and potatoes
- the self-seeded warrigal greens (and this is EXCELLENT news. I just need to transplant them!)
- the red grape and the kiwifruit (but the green grape appears to have snuffed it for reasons unknown)
- the scattered salad leaves around the verandah
- the scattered (and sometimes self-seeded) herbs along the verandah (including the comfrey, which came back from winter-induced death; I thought it had died from fungus, but apparently not!)
- the fruit trees, particularly the newly-discovered almond (discovered as it has two actual almond fruits!!) and a possible mulberry (yay :) )
- the midyimberries (well, ok, they're not completely dead; that's my definition of "alive")
- the self-seeded rhubarb
- a figtree that's been trying to grow since I moved in - it came back from a bare stick and I'm coddling it now, as it deserves to live!
- the three citrus (these, too, aren't completely dead, although not very happy)
The natives are prettier than ever, and the bottlebrushes are putting on a particularly spectacular show rigtht now which I may try to photograph.
My greatest pride and adoration right now, however, is reserved for the new greenhouse, created during two weeks off in July. Designed by me, and created over three days by Th'Bloke, his father, and me, it's made of recycled hardwood, recycled clear plastic panels, and strawbales. It's spacious but not huge (about 4x4m, roughly), has a bed in the ground, and is my haven. It's warm, cosy, and smells of (currently) compost, beanflowers, maltese blood orange flowers, kaffir lime leaves, and radish. And things don't die.
In that small space, I've got:
- Beans and peas
- Assorted salad leaves
- Radish
- Carrots
- Potatoes (in sacks)
- Warrigal greens
- Vanilla lily
- Snowy River mint
- Maltese blood orange (awaiting transplant into pots)
- Kaffir lime (awaiting transplant)
- Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, eggplant - raised from seed as well as bought seedlings awaiting transplant
- A batch of native edibles awaiting transplant, including raspberries, lillies, mint, lillypillies, native plums
- "Fruit Salad Trees" - Xmas pressies for lots of people
- and anything else I need to keep alive for a few weeks before going somewhere else.
It's this latter point that makes me adore my little shed. No longer do seedlings wilt and die from four weeks of neglect as I run out of time to plant. Sure, they might be neglected; but they don't die!!
And not-dying is what it's all about ...
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