A weekend of gardening, a bit of drama and some sadness.

Saturday looked like this! Just glorious and a perfect day for pottering around in the garden. What was really nice too, was that there we took plenty of breaks, a break for breakfast, a break for a cuppa and again for coffee, then lunch and even some reading breaks. Oh and we definitely squeezed in some gardening too.

The herb garden needed a bit of attention, some plants needed cutting back and some a good prune, the edges were in need of a good trim.

After: Take from the deck, looking down. It doesn't look much different does it really? Trust me we did do some work on it, in between all the other stuff!

The rose garden was weeded and I cut back the hedging, it has grown too tall and I need it to bush out and join together, or it wouldn't be a hedge would it. ;-D

I'm really pleased with the hedge, all from cuttings.

Looking down from the deck

When we made all the mulch the other week I forgot to show you where most of it went.

It went here on the Phallic border. It wasn't supposed to be phallic shaped; but after telling Joe how I wanted it to look and after clearly marking the shape, this is what he did!

Over compensating methinks!

There aren't too many things planted in there yet, this little cluster I particularly like, the acer is Ambers(goat) tree and the leaves are changing colour. The burgundy shrub, whose name escapes me right now, goes a deeper shade in the autumn. On the right is a cornus, or dogwood, when it's leave are gone the stems turn a vibrant red as do the stems on the acer.

Acer

Cornus

The giant Phallus from the deck

The bit of drama was a rather large fire down our road. I knew nothing of it until Sue called me and asked why so many fire engines were racing up our road? Her son Jak had seen them on his way back from Raglan. I'd even had a text from Natasha asking if their house had burned down?

Tucked away at the end of the road we were blissfully unaware of all the excitement.

Then Joe reminded me that one the farmers further down our road could have started to burn gorse.

He had done much preparation beforehand, clearing fire breaks with a bulldozer etc. The photos make it look like it's a pretty major fire, and it was but I'm pretty sure he had it all under control.

I whizzed off to Jan's to take photos, she had a good view of it all

 The fire department were standing by, although I'm not sure the chap in the water truck (right) would have made much impact! Gonna need a bigger truck.

 

Oh and there was a bit of cuteness going on at Jans too.

Sunday wasn't quite so sunny as Saturday but it was still a good day to get jobs done outside. First we did some goat maintenance, their feet got trimmed and they all were given an oral drench for worms. After losing Ella a couple of weeks ago we felt they all needed to be treated. I did notice that we had another one, Emily, looking a bit poorly.

After they were done we took a trailer load of rubbish to the dump. Once the trailer was empty we went and got a scoop of garden mix, I have a few things that need potting up and other stuff to do that requires soil, one such job is described below. 

In our garden, set behind the spa, is what Joe calls The Naughty chair, it's a stone 'thing' with four insets which we assume were meant to be seats. Each seat appears to point to north, east, south & west! Perhaps it was built for some ritualistic purpose! Who knows, anything is possible here.

I didn't take a before photo, it was full of weeds, so a mess. I had planted bulbs in there at one stage but they never really put on the kind of show I wanted them to, so they were dug out and will be planted elsewhere. I have a lot of succulents and intend to use them in another garden project soon. Some I've used here, these will just continue to grow, the agave in the middle will get huge and the surrounding plants will multiply, hopefully. Those naughty seats will have pots with succulents, the pots you see have just been left there because it started to rain. The black weed mat still needs trimming.

For some reason the big agave ended up off centre, so Joe will see if he can wiggle it back to where it should be. The whole structure is on the skew so the planting will never balance quite right but then we're all on the skew here so it fits in nicely.

Our feijoa tree is giving us feijoas! 

Woohoo, first year of fruit.

It's really hard to describe what these taste like, slightly bitter sweet, tangy & dry in the mouth! 

People either love them or hate them.

They're a conundrum really, good in cakes, I have a recipe I want to try.

If you want to taste one then you'll just have to come visit.

The stripy crocheted thing is growing and the yarn stash is going down ....slowly.

And now for the bit of sadness. Above I mentioned that we had one goat looking poorly on Sunday. She had looked a bit brighter yesterday but as Michael was passing earlier he noticed she had died. Poor girl, RIP Emily.

 

And then there were three. 

And on that sad note I shall sign off, it's time to sit in my chair and catch up on some TV.

see ya next time

Day three and it's really starting to look like a deck

The length along the kitchen side of the house now has all it's joists

This side only needs one more joist, they ran out of time today.

The spa will sit under this end

 

 It's bloody massive!

The whole thing still needs Z nails, joist brackets, more coach screws etc, etc to stabilize it.

So still lots to do in that respect.

**********

The reason for running out of time today was because M&T were having people over for a BBQ, we went and joined them for more lovely food, summer is all about BBQ's isn't it?

 While we were eating the dogs were put inside, Max is a little sod when there's food and people around and we get the odd scrap between him and Astrix. Astrix wasn't overly impressed being shut inside and watched us through the cat flap

 

Sue called over earlier today to make an inspection of the proceedings! She ended up picking my rhubarb with me, so I had to go and do something with it once she'd gone home. One thing I did with it was to make a dessert, what I called UK meets NZ crumble. NZ like to think they invented the Pavlova, the Aussies claim they did and I read that someone had traced it's origins back to centuries ago.

Who cares? I'm just very grateful than someone invented it at all. ;-D

There was a choice of either a mini pavlova which is soft to eat or a meringue nest which is crunchy. 

I put a dollop of cream (with icing sugar and vanilla essence) then some rhubarb. I put the chunks of rhubarb in a flat pan, added some brown sugar, ground ginger and a couple of capfuls of Cointreau, I cooked it until the rhubarb was soft. The crumble was made of flour, porridge oats, white and brown sugar. I melted the butter and stirred it into the dry mix (so much easier that rubbing the butter in) then I placed it all in a pan and popped it under the grill to toast.

So the UK bit was the rhubarb crumble which met the NZ pavlova.

I am pleased to report it got a big thumbs up.

So in the garden today I picked all of the peas

 And spent a gazillion hours shelling them all and got 1.3kgs of peas. A lot of effort for not too many peas but so worth it just for the flavour. They are all in the freezer

I diced up 2kgs of rhubarb and that too is in the freezer, I'm going to make some rhubarb wine but only after there's a little less chaos around here!

I kept some for fresh, half of which went in the dessert.

And that's me done for today other than to thank you all for your comments over the last few days, it really is nice to hear from you. I do try and reply to each and every one of you BUT I reply here on the blog. I know lots of other bloggers reply to the posters email. I really don't have the time to do that I'm afraid, my apologies. If you've missed my replies, again I'm sorry, underneath the comment box where it says 'Choose an Identity' you can tick the box  'Email follow up *to your email address*' So if you don't want to miss out then this might be an option.

I'm tired so I'm off to bed. Until next time see ya xxx

In the veggie garden - Jan 2015.....

....and probably the best year ever, and who's in charge? Well li'l ol' moi! Due to Joe being useless out of action the job of tending to it has fallen to me, I have probably shot myself in the foot though as Joe will say well you've been doing such a great job you might as well carry on!. I don't mind if truth be told as long as he's there to do the heavy stuff and the digging. I can dig if needs must but my back gives me grief after a while, working with small kids all those years ago does that to you, bending over for most of the day. It took me years for the penny to drop and actually sit down on their level. Anyhoo I digress, earlier today I decided to get my sewing head back on and get on with quilt I started an age ago, made a bit of headway but when I started to melt I stopped, made some lunch and watched You've Got Mail, I'd forgotten how much I loved that movie.
Once that was over I went armed with the camera to take some photos, here they are...

The nursery by the laundry, plants cuttings etc, for planting in the autumn.

 Sunflowers by the greenhouse

 Runner beans and spring onions

 Courgette patch (front) Pumpkin patch rear

 Pumpkins are needing water every day.

 Beetroot & more spring onions, need to plant some more

 The later planted garlic is a fail this year

 No cloves, just one big bulb.

 Bronze fennel, I'm going to collect the seeds this year.

 The border behind the greenhouse, there are cucumbers and beans in there but they are being engulfed by comfrey, bloody pain in the arse that stuff!

 lebanese cucs not swamped.

 Peeking in the greenhouse window

 We're picking beans now, I'm trying not to let them get too big

 Tomato triffids, I religiously pinched out the laterals then we went on holiday and they went mad. So I've just let them run riot, the one at the end left is the shop bought plant and has steadily been producing fruit since way before Christmas

 the others I grew from seed are now ripening, sweet 100s

 Another Early Girl

 and beefsteak

 

 The basil is faring better in here than in the garden

 As is the celery, we just come and pull of stalks when we need them

 Oh and as for my capsicums and peppers, they are just loving the greenhouse

 Time to make a relish methinks

 I have been plagued by green and white fly, it is an ongoing battle, I need to spray the aubergine again, it's covered. I thought I was losing the plant a while back the fruit was rotting on the stems, but once I started opening the windows to improve air circulation they are now slowly growing

 Outside I'm getting gherkins but they're all growing at different rates which is a pain.

 You have to love sunflowers

 Florence fennel, ready to use, I saw someone on Masterchef yesterday make a fennel and orange salad and serve it with snapper, might have to try that.

 The zucchinis are growing well, the worlds worst gardener could grown these!

 And we have pumpkins, only small yet but they'll grow

Time to wander to the top garden, we've been working on clearing this and harvesting the biulk plantings such as peas, beans etc. It worked really well, there's not much up here now that will need watering and we'll start getting the beds ready for autumn planting.

 I've been disappointed with the strawberries this year but then we found out why , a ceratin small dog has been helping himself, sneaking under the netting! Anyway I got ruthless and pulled all the runners out, the cows loved them! Reduced them back down to two rows again, cut them back, fed them, chucked a load of slug pellets down and laid out a bale of pea straw. Already they are growing back, so we might get another crop yet.

 The kale continues to grow and I snap bunches iff and use it raw in salads, along with silverbeet and spinach, these are great and a good substitute for lettuce that blots in the heat.

 Small figs on our new small tree

 After harvesting all of the peas and sugar snaps, all that is left are two rows of beans, we're harveting those too, if they produce more than we can cope with I'll just freeze them

 Maincrop Agria potatoes

 And the Jersey Bennes, these have been wonderful and some are huge, gotta love horse poos, lots of horse poos. Joe is going to start up the supply again next week.

 The raspberry canes are towering above me, although some pre-schoolers tower above me.

 Flowers with the promise of fruit.

 Corn bed and behind more main crops spuds

 A view from the far end of the veg garden

I've wandered back down to the main garden now, we had lots of extra plants, some I gave away and Michael was meant to come get the rest, he didn't, so Joe just dug them in randomly around the garden, they are fairly neglected and some are fairing better than others. These are two butternut squash plants, from seeds saved from a shop bought  pumpkin

 The two feijoa trees are past flowering, one flowered more than the other and it looks like we're going to get plenty of fruit off it, as ling as we beat the possums to them.

 The same goes for the peaches

There was no end to our excitement when we discovered two hazelnuts on our tree!

Woohoo!

 

 The new double grafted plum had a few fruits on one graft, none on the other. 

We did lose some in the winds.

Our other and older plum trees always give us heaps of fruit although we've probably lost half in the winds last year, never mind, we can't eat them all. I do however make some pretty good wine.

The herb garden is having some maintenance at the moment, Joe's been re-edging and digging it over. Some things we've pulled out as they either bolted or we didn't use it, as was the case with the sorrel.

 The rhubarb just keeps giving and I'm freezing it as I pick it.

 Parsley, celery and a forlorn looking cherry tomato

 Most of the self seeded sunflowers are past their best but we've left them, they still look interesting and the heads will dry in the sun.

 The dill has fallen over and needs supporting. Not so many leaves now but plenty of lovely flower heads and I'll collect these seeds too.

 Globe artichokes, I must find a recipe and actually eat them, I just love looking at them.

 Aren't these dill heads lovely?

 Rosemary & globe artichokes

And here are our harvested peas and sugar snaps, all bagged and frozen and ready for use.

We picked 5.25kgs of peas and 4 kgs(ish) of sugar snaps.

 A big bag of broad beans, some salvaged leeks that bolted while we were away 

and more sugar snaps

 and lastly woobarb.

That was a lot of photos, hope you enjoyed looking at our garden

Tomorrow I'll show you the real pretty stuff.