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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A Day of Domesticity.

Finally it feels like Autumn!! We have had weeks and weeks of hot and humid weather and I have done nothing, that's what it feels like anyway. This morning, with a fresh breeze blowing, and a much needed day off, I decided to get the garden sorted out, something I have been planning to do for weeks but weather and the lack of a wheel barrow has stopped me. The veggie garden is very bare at the moment with all the summer stuff finished and my poor soil in much need of a boost. I have plenty of compost but no way to move it from the end of the garden to the veggie bed. Steve has been promising to get a wheel barrow for weeks - but - it's got to be just the right barrow, a proper builders barrow for when we do the big renovations, yeah like that's going to happen any time in the next decade. I know I shouldn't be so cynical, but........
Anyway back to the garden and I made myself a nice little compost mover, a grape box, very waxy inside so would stand a bit of damp and dirt, and a length of old whipper snipper cord for a handle and I could drag it box load by box load, remembering not to be too ambitious as to how much it could hold as I would have to pick it up to empty it at the other end - worked a treat and the compost bin is now empty of good stuff and the garden bed revitalised


I must admit I don't know much about this gardening lark and just do what I think needs doing, but I'm sure my compost wasn't supposed to have quiet as much wildlife living in it, particularly the ants nests and remembered reading somewhere that not enough moisture was the cause of ants - so while I was dragging my box loads up the garden, I rigged up a sprayer to get it well watered while I was adding it to the bed.




Yes I did get a bit damp when emptying my box, but it's still warm here :) You can just see one of my erosion bundles tied to the pole there, it was completely surrounded by tomatoes plants when I first put it up, but is now a bit exposed.  As you can see though, this must be one of the turquoise ones as the colour is showing through it's wrapping, wonder what else is happening in there?




I have finally found myself a lemon tree on a dwarf root stock that will be happy in a pot and it seems to be doing OK along with the red peppers and rhubarb which has given us one delicious crumble already this year.




I am lucky enough to have as my main 'weed' problem, nasturtiums, which I let grow indiscriminately throughout the garden and they in fact help to control the unwanted weeds.
Under this old chair there is a hole in the concrete, which, of course always has weeds growing out of it, but once a nasturtium finds it's way in there, it's left to it's own devises and I think looks quite lovely and gives mad Mango a treat as he love a nasturtium or five.







I have also planted up the three pots with some asian greens and other things that are totally out of season, but interested to see what will grow in an Aussie autumn as it is exactly the same if not warmer than an English summer. So the garden is all neat and tidy, the pumpkin patch has had a bit of a weeding and the compost bins cleaned up a bit.




I have also recycled an old TV unit into a small coffee table by removing the glass door and touching up the bare bits with black paint, (a real Better Homes and Garden sort of project this one). It's an ugly thing but much smaller and more practical than the huge ugly thing  we were using before.

The morning started off cool and sunny but the clouds slowly built as the morning went by.




And now it is pouring with rain so the garden is getting a good soaking and the house is filled with the smell of just baked hot cross buns, the first batch this year, so I'm off for a coffee and at least two warm buns covered in butter, I think I've earned them :) Oh I do love a day at home.