April - May 2013

Well the glorious weather continued well into May and proved to be one of the hottest years on record. We enjoyed prolific harvests, including far more of our own yummy feijoas this year - although they grow so well in our area that the neighbours had always been able to satisfy our needs while our own plants were growing.

And autumn has always been a time for me to attack another area of bramble and gorse and so I started with a small section at the top of Brambly Bank that had been overlooked last time.

Before ....

mmmm.... don't seem to have any after photos!! But I did then move onto the area of brambles behind the compost heaps. Some kanuka plants were regenerating rather nicely in front of the heaps ...

... but behind was rather a mess. Fortunately Dave seemed very keen to clear this area and so he helped me - I cut all the canes down and he followed behind and dug up all the roots (and cleared away my cuttings and burnt them).

 By the end of May, the potatoes were growing rather nicely in the pumpkin patch but we were a bit worried about the possibility of frost and so we made some frost covers. These proved a mixed blessing as they caused endless discussions about whether to put the covers out each night and then in the mornings, they were soaking wet and we had nowhere to dry them out.

Alice came to visit at kumara time and helped us collect this year's supply. Again we had rather a lot of rather little ones but we have learnt that even marked and damaged ones store OK.

March 2013

Long hot days, no wind, no rain, sun and more sun ... need we say more!! Yay it was awesome - lots of trips to the river mouth for a swim, lots of time watering the garden and eating strawberries, raspberries, passionfruit and melons!! Oh yes and sweetcorn and beans and more sweetcorn. And cucumbers - one day we picked 16!!! I had thought the cucumber seedlings were melons - although even 16 melons might have been a bit much in one day!

The whole northern half of the country was declared a drought region and water restrictions were widespread although this didn't affect us as we have a bore. But for the first time, we think, we have had to have town supply water - we only take that if our tank falls to less than one third full. Normally we just use rain collected from the roof - and you could certainly taste the difference!!

The garden started going brown - even the kikuyu grass was affected although that usually manages to stay green all summer.

The pony paddock was the worst affected - the top looked quite dry ...

 ... but was quite lush when compared to the sheep paddocks.

We were beginning to get a bit worried about our little woolly wonders until we read that they liked sweetcorn husks. This was good news indeed as we had so much sweetcorn and ...

... it had the unexpected benefit that they were instantly tamed. We had meant to tame them when we got them but they didn't know that they would like the sack of sheep nuts we bought them. But after a couple of days of sweetcorn, they came running as soon as we called them. 

For some unknown reason, the plants we had planted down the pony paddock drive were thriving, even though we rarely watered them. And we had a new house or two springing up across the road.

Surprise of the month was that Dave finally stopped finding urgent jobs to do and started to think about the deck. Ironically the area was the site of the thickest, lushest grass but I gave it a short haircut in anticipation.

 

He planned an elaborate system to retain the good top soil from the deck area and use it for the beds that are going all round the house.

The wood arrived but will need to be stored for a while until it dries out. Needless to say Dave meticulously weighed and measured each of the 85 pieces.

And then some holes and some piles appeared.

 

And then more holes and piles.

Meanwhile I attacked the fruit cage. We were in the unknown position of having so many raspberry canes, it was a complete jungle! And here new canes fruit in the autumn of their first year as we well as in the summer in their second year. Amazing! So we had fruit on the new canes we had planted along the bottom of the cage in spring and which had spread all over the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes.

 And an enormous tangle along the two original rows.

Another new experience was shearing day, although our friends didn't seem all that keen.

It was clear they thought something was up but had trotted into their pen as soon as they were called. And they were now so lovely and cuddly!

But Alan the shearer soon put paid to that. It was very disappointing when he told us that our beautiful quality wool sheep did not have very good wool. He suggested we should have got our lambs from the lavender farm, which we of course we had!

Mo was the last one, and she has gorgeous chocolate coloured wool on the outside - which turned out to be almost black underneath. Alan reckoned that her wool was better and even 'quite stylish'.

All I know is that it is smelly in a sheepy sort of way, full of grass and other bits, and makes up a huge pile. Lets just hope that I can turn it into something lovely.

By the end of the session they had turned into skinny black goats which I did not like very much. The shearer said they would not even recognise each other for a while!

Another big improvement was the new nursery where Dave put some more pallets to good use. At last we could keep things on the level, now we just have to build up our stocks of natives for the winter planting.

We had a visit from my former colleagues, Julie, Nick and Anne, who did not seem to be doing a very good job moving the chooks.

And the winter garden was thriving.

And last but not least, we produced the most amazing beetroot, which was tender despite its huge size!

January and February 2013

In December, we had felt that things were more settled than usual and this was continued in January when we started one of the longest, hottest summers ever. We had 3 weeks away, as volunteers to a remote offshore island, so we missed the only rain (on Feb 4th - which caused local floods!) but fortunately our bore and watering system were up to the challenge under the guidance of our very kind neighbours.

Before we went, we took the opportunity to tidy up the shelter belt at the end of the orchard where we had left the self seeded tree lupins as extra protection but they had rather overstepped the mark and also allowed the gorse and blackberry to re-establish themselves.

 

We had held off thinning the pears on the tree in the vege patch until after the 'December drop', but the expected winds never came. So when we did this in January, I realised there were rather a lot of them and they were almost big enough to be edible raw. So they became some rather delicious pear jam.

As always, I had planted the tomatoes much too close together in the greenhouse and some of them looked rather sick. Never mind, I'm sure we will still have a huge crop.

And we actually managed to grow enough onions to store at last.

 

And then there was the Winter Garden. I had long wanted a conservatory or indoor area like the Begonia House in town. When we were designing the house and decided to turn the house more on an angle, we had considered making the extra bit of lounge into just that but decide against it. Anyway, on our way back from the island, we had a free morning with Alice and she suggested we check out her local Winter Garden which we did and were inspired to make our own. Dave was surprisingly keen on the idea and offered to design and make one when we got home. I was uncertain as it would push the deck off the top of the list once again (and just when I thought we had worked through all the other jobs that I considered were delaying tactics) - but he persuaded me that it was a good idea as it would be much quicker than the deck. So he went ahead and made one.

The frangipani, my wonderful frangipani, had rather taken over that end of the lounge and was always struggling with scale insects and thrips so I very reluctantly decided it had to go. (I subsequently thought better of this and converted it to 4 cuttings!) Anyway, that freed up a lot of space. And we converted this ...

... into this! There was the slight problem that I didn't have enough plants for it but one that I was happy to work on. Dave had the master stroke idea to put the palms on the top level - we had wanted to buy big palms but had to settle for small slow growing varieties. But this was perfect!

And the final great idea was to ask Kath the local green gardener to come and prune our fruit trees. The plan was to get her to teach us to prune them while she was doing it - I had been to one of her courses before and it all seemed straightforward, but when we came to attack ours they never seemed to have branches in the right places. And of course, Dave and I have such differing views of pruning - he wants to attack it with a chain saw and I am reluctant to cut anything off - that it is a recipe for disaster.

We also had our amazing apricot tree in the vege patch that was so vigorous that I was a bit afraid of ruining it.

Anyway, the exercise was a great success, we both had the same lesson on pruning AND we got our trees pruned.

They all looked much better and I'm sure we can keep them in good shape from now on. And much cheaper than both of us attended a pruning course, so yay!