Weekend round up.

Saturday 

I was up bright and early and at the supermarket at 7.00am!! I wanted to get my shopping done as we had a small load of pavers to collect at 9.00am. These are for the floor of the greenhouse. Shifted them down the back in the wheelbarrow and layed them down- just to see how far they will cover. Not quite as many as I thought there would be, but probably enough to suit my purpose. I relocated a "table" from our wee shed which will be perfect for potting up on. I need to get a shelf system to house my trays of seeds once they are sown. However before I do all this I need to get some sand to put under the pavers as they are a little uneven and wobbly. I guess I'm a typical woman and want everything done yesterday- things just can't happen fast enough!! 

I did more weeding in our back flower garden and filled my big green bin. Frustrating as this won't be collected until Tuesday morning. I'm trying to just have tunnel vision at the moment and focus on one area at a time. If I looked at everything that had to be done I'd get very disheartened. I've gone from spending one day a week in the garden to up to 4 days a week depending on the weather. That must make a difference at some stage........surely?

Sunday 

I was out weeding again and filling buckets with weeds. My bin will be half full before I start again on Tuesday. My aim was to get the plants I bought last weekend with Mrs HMM in the pouring rain planted. Goal achieved and ticked off.  

Dining room garden planted and mulched.

I've planted a daphne, white penstemon, lavender, scabiosa and butterfly plant. Plus 2 other penstemons which I had potted up as freebies from around here. I now really appreciate "free" plants. Final straw (sorry) was mulching with pea straw. This had been out in the rain and was literally smoking when I laid it down. Just need to finish the other end of the garden now. Unfortunately I broke my big fork inherited from my dear Dad. Ended up on my bottom in the garden calling out to Mr SFP much to his amusement.

Haven't had much time for cross stitch this month, but I managed to get July's project stitched and started on one for August. Mrs HMM will be pleased. I don't want to let her down.

July Christmas cross stitch project.

Monday 

Today was cold and wet so I did a few errands, including a stop at the local plant nursery and went on to visit Mum. She lives in a lovely sheltered valley which doesn't get many frosts and her garden is always so inspiring. We had a cuppa and then headed out to inspect the garden in the misty rain. Mum is so generous with her gifts from the garden- came home with a bag of lemons and tamarillos (you don't usually see a tamarillo tree growing in Christchurch because of the frosts), a gorgeous white hellebore, purple and violet violets, a rasperrby hydrangea and a little fuschia which was from my childhood home. Gardening has always been a part of her life, I'm sure my love of gardening has been inherited from both my green fingered parents. I want to add to that love and become more self sufficient. I remember our vegie garden growing up. Dad's pride and joy that would feed a family of five, sometimes from necessity. I also have fond memories of our back yard chooks and collecting fresh eggs. All done on a quarter acre patch. In those days everyone had a vegie garden and I want to get back to that philosophy with my garden.

Brought my plants home and admired them in the rain from behind the window.

Lovely gifts from Mum's garden- in the rain.

Tuesday 

Today has turned out to be a glorious sunny day- one out of the bag. I started the day in front of the computer screen, but felt the garden calling me........and I had to obey.

Our garden is quite big (for one gardener) and I have been concentrating on the back, getting ready for vegie production. Today I felt the front needed me to at least make a start on it, so I did. Brought the big bin in from the curb after just being emptied and managed to fill it up again. Hopefully the more I weed the less will have to go in the bin. I compost lots, but still have lots to go in the bin. I'll take some pictures tomorrow if it's not raining, which it is supposed to be doing again. I realised that as I blog tonight I really need to take pictures as I go.

I also got some of the plants I bought yesterday planted. I'm trying to be good and plant as I buy. I have a VERY bad track record of buying and not planting. New motto "just do it!!" is very good for combatting this.

Blackberry plant and pansies.

 Blackberry is now in down the back and pansies will be in the new dining room garden soon.

Tom the Supertom.

Tom the Supertom has now been potted up and will live inside with us for a while. I am determined to get a jump start on tomatoes this year, so Tom is part of my cunning plan. I added milk powder when I potted him up which is supposed to improve the flavour I think? 

Phew, busy couple of days in the garden, but very rewarding. I'm off to have a bath and rest my weary bones. I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of our beautiful big boy Mr Spock, alias Spocky do da. He always seems to know how to relax! TTFN Mrs SFP XX