Make hay while the sun shines.....

Monday and Tuesday have been a wash out- literally. The back yard is looking a bit like a small lake. However yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) the rain stopped and today we even saw the sun!!

I'm trying to get out in the garden each day, even on the days I'm at work. On these days I manage about an hour before it's time to come in, light the fire, make tea and school lunches- i.e. turn back into a pumpkin LOL.

Two weekends ago I managed to get my second raised bed filled with dirt from dirt mountain, topped with compost and pea straw ready for planting. In this bed I've planted a punnet of broccoli and broad bean seeds. I wan't happy with the beans I started inside- they got too leggy too quickly. I've just sowed these ones directly into the soil. I see in the tyre next to this bed one of my potaotes is peeking up. These were old ones I had from the supermarket which I've planted as an experiment. 

It was hard work filling the raised bed- you don't realise just how much soil they take. I consoled myself with the fact that once it's done I don't have to do it again......until the next raised bed.

Second raised bed up and running.

I also potted up my lettuce plants and made little cloches for them out of 2.25.litre fizz bottles. They are planted in our old recycling bins- Christchurch City Council have since updated to a 3 wheelie bin system. These bins are a perfect size with handles and a drainage hole already in the bottom.

Lettuces in old CCC recycling bins- perfect!

Mini glasshouse/cat deterrant.

Today (Thursday) I got out and planted the blueberry bush and more lettuces. Weeded down the drive- not vegetable related, but still necessary maintenance.

Our local plant nursery are advertising tomato plants- with the stipulation that they must be grown in heated glasshouses. I'm very tempted to go and buy one and grow it indoors......does this make me a true gardener, or just a wee bit strange?

I've also started following the long term weather forecasts- supposed to be fine for the weekend... great!

Talk soon Mrs SFP XXX

Garden Centre road trip

On Sunday it was absolutely pouring down- we're talking serious rain. Very frustrating as I just wanted to get out into the garden and play.

Arriving home from Church and there was a message on the answer phone to ring Mrs HMM. She convinced me, that even in torrential rain it would be a good idea to hit the garden centres. I guess if you can't be out in the garden you go plant shopping? 

We stuck to her side of town and visited 4 local plant places- Portstone, Oderings, The Warehouse and Mitre 10. Portstone and Oderings were disappointing and I didn't buy anything, although I was itching to. Got my best haul at Mitre 10- plants looked good and were the most reasonably priced. I was impressed and will definitely call back there again.

New plant haul just waiting for a sunny day!

So, my plant haul consisted of another punnet of lettuces, a blueberry bush, a daphne bush (to replace the one out the front that was squashed when the trees came down) and several small perennials. I'm developing the garden in front of our dining room and these will help fill up the space along with some already propagated plants. It felt funny buying plants that I won't be able to eat. But they should look pretty once they are established, so I can justify buying them.....

So now all I need is the sun to come out again and dry up all the ponds down the back.

Next area to be developed in front of dining room.

Hooray, the glasshouse is up!!

Saturday dawned fine- not too much wind. Perfect day for errecting the glasshouse. This has been a bit of a "work in progress". We have a lovely handyman friend who helps us put our dreams and ideas into practice. I had been frustrated as Mr SFP has been getting him to do lots of other projects over the last couple of months. Finally on Saturday it was my turn. 

I purchased my poly carbonate glass house a few months ago through one of the auction sites here in New Zealand. It measures 6 foot by 8 foot and looks lovely sitting in the garden. I have to keep pinching myself every time I look down the back!

A work in progress.

Mr SFP lending a helping hand- he did well.

Slowly but surely- can't wait to get started!!

It was a lovely day for being in the garden. Unfortunately it was my job to feed the workers date scones and lunch and I didn't get to do much outside.

A few more wee minor tweaky things to go and then it will be finished. I also won a paving stone auction which I'll use as the floor in my little house. I need to level the floor and lay the pavers down. This will give me dryer feet and help reduce any mud. I've already started making plans for using this new wonderful space. Although I'm sure our two spoilt pussy cats will claim it if I'm not careful LOL

Thanks guys, you don't know how much this means to me. One more step closer to growing more food to feed the family.

Seed ordering ticked off the "to do" list

I've been procrastinating for ages about ordering seeds. Here in New Zealand we have a fabulous site called Trade Me where you can sell things you don't need and buy things you do need. One of the sellers lives in Christchurch too, and specialises in heirloom seeds. I figured this would be great as they are grown in the same conditions that I will be growing them in. They offer bulk deals and I thought I'd be able to get away with their 20 lots of seed for a special price. Think again, I ended up going with the 30 lots of seed, and that was a struggle.

I wanted to get some interesting heirloom tomato seeds and these are some of the ones I narrowed my list down to:

Tomato Black Elephant

Tomato Green Zebra

Tomato Black Krim

Tomato Believe it or Not

Don't they look exciting and exotic. I can't wait for them to be delivered and make a start. I've quizzed Mr SFP as to if he'll be keen to eat a black tomato. He said yes, but then asked me if it was REALLY going to be black?? Yes, sweetie it will be.

If you're interested here is the whole of my list:

1. Tomato Black Elephant
2. Tomato Green Zebra
3. Tomato Sub Arctic Plenty
4. Tomato Dr Walter
5. Tomato San Marzano
6. Tomato Believe it or Not
7. Tomato Abraham Lincoln
8. Tomato Black Krim
9. Tomato Baxter Bush Cherry
10. Chilli Ancho
11. Lettuce Heirloom Buttercrunch
12. Lettuce Salad Trim
13. Sunflower Giant
14. Bergamot Bee Balm
15. Bean White Lady Runner
16. Bean Top Crop
17. Pea Easrly Massey
18. Zuchini Black Beauty
19. Pepper Topepo Rosso
20. Onion Red Amposta
21. Spinach Santana
22. Black Cumin
23. Cucumber Spacesaver
24. Cucumber Market More
25. Basil Fino Verde
26. Onion Stuttgart
27. Phacelia Tanacetifolia
28. Carrot Mini Sweet
29. Beetroot Cylindra
30. Chives

Well, I'm committed now, and hopefully I'll be a successful seed raiser.

Talk soon Mrs SFP XXX

More from the garden trenches.......

Well, I couldn't do much in the garden last weekend as my green bin full of weeds missed it's weekly collection. This weekend was a different story.

Saturday I put away a load of wood for Mr SFP as he was studying. We have had a particularly cold winter in Christchurch and had run out of wood for the log burner. As we were expecting a lot of wet weather this week I didn't want to get caught out. Very satisfying to see it stacked in the wood shed- made Mr SFP go and admire it. A little dark in the shed for a picture.

Sunday after Church I donned my gardening clothes, gumboots and rolled up my sleeves. I've decided to try and concentrate on one small area at a time. I'm in awe of gardeners who have every part of their gardens organised, utilised and neat and tidy. I have such a long way to go, but am looking at the small, rather than the big picture. I worked on the garden where we have 2 feijoa trees which are in front of my compost bins. They reward us with a fabulous crop each year for very little effort on my part.

Feijoa trees

I trimmed the trees away from the washing line and compost bins and mulched under them with pea straw- they look much tidier now. I mulched the foliage in my muncher- amazing how a wheelbarrow full of branches becomes a small basket full of goodness.

Compost bins- see the horse poo.

One job in the garden always seems to make another. I then needed to reorganise the compost bins so I could add the munchings. So I turned the middle one into the end one and covered it with pea straw and some weed mat. Mrs HMM needs some worms for her worm farm and I was happy to see there were hundreds of wiggling ones there. Told her we would have a worm hunt on Friday when she comes to craft. We have got a lot braver at handling worms since our first attempts. Started the new bin with the munchings and the horse poo collected earler in the year.

Chicken corner

My big news of the year is that we're seriously thinking about getting some chickens. Since having bantams and chickens growing up, I've always wanted to have some of my own. We have a HUGE convolvulus problem in this area which should be the vegetable garden. In the past few years it's gotten away from me to the point of despair. I've now decided to move the vegetable garden to an area without convolvulus which means this can be chook corner. Hope chickens enjoy eating convolvulous!! Next step is getting a friend to help us build an enclosure and chook house, I can't wait!!

Beans are up

I'm also excited that my beans are up. To date all are up, except for one. This is my first real attempt at seed raising and it's definitely given me confidence to keep going. It's still a miracle to me that you can plant seeds, raise plants and get food from them. I'm a true believer. Mrs HMM and I will be scouring seed catalogues for tomato seeds to plant in August.

Blueberry plant

I treated myself to a visit to the garden centre today- one of my favourite places to shop. Decided I would invest in another blueberry plant. I have one and harvested 2 blueberries last year. Hope to do better with another plant, maybe enough for a muffin this year.

Well that's my garden round up. I must admit I'm very excited about my new adventure. I go to sleep with gardening books next to the bed and gardening dreams.

TTFN Mrs SFP XXX

Oops it's been a while, sorry

Sorry, I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I seem to have gotten bogged down by life, Winter and reading other people's amazing blogs. Everybody else always seems to have a clear vision about what the purpose of their blog is. I haven't got to there yet. I guess to some point I want it to be about my journey to a more purposeful and sustainable lifestyle. I realise the planet is in big trouble and we all need to be responsible and reduce our carbon footprints. I've always wanted to have a proper grown up vegetable garden that helps supplement our families diet. So, to that end this in part will be a diary of my adventures in the backyard.

Welcome to my new follower Miriam from Make it Give It- let it Shine. I read your blog every day and it always leaves me feeling a little lighter :-).

It was a beautiful day here in Christchurch, New Zealand today. A little surprising for this time of the year, being Winter. I spent the morning doing some sewing on an order I need to get finished. After lunch I treated myself to a distraction and went to our local plant nursery. One of my favourite places to hang out after the library and Spotlight LOL. I was after some broad bean seedlings to replace the ones that the dogs had destroyed. Alas there were none to be had. So, I made do with some pretty rainbow silverbeet and some seed raising mix.

When I came home I made use of the empty toilet rolls I have been saving for the last few months and planted some broad bean seeds. Much more economical than buying seedlings

 

Planted broad bean seeds.

Each year I mean to plant my own seeds and I always procrastinate and the season passes me by. I grew up with a wonderful Dad who was a great gardener/handyman and nothing was ever a problem.......he just did it. Didn't think that he couldn't, didn't google it, look at You Tube, just did. So, from now on that will be my motto, just do it!! I often feel Dad's keeping an eye on me as I potter about the garden.

After that, I thought of a few more things I could do. I planted out my rainbow silverbeet in one of my raised beds and covered them with hoops and a bit of netting to stop the dogs, hopefully. I'm always very good at buying plants.......and never planting them. Not anymore.

Raised bed, neat and tidy. Potatoes in a tyre- left overs gone to seed.

I also had a weed out of some of the tyres I have filled with dirt and added some pretty pea straw. The rhubarb is starting to come away again and will benefit from the horse poo I added.

Can't wait for some desserts using it. Confession- in all of the 16 or so years we have lived here, I have only cooked it up a couple of times. Bad person, just do it!!

Blueberry, blackberry, rhubarb and mint.

The 2 empty tyres will be for garlic, I know they should have been planted sooner, I guess I didn't "just do it", but I will tomorrow.

I have made progress here- I'm getting it ready for 2 raised beds.

The small back lawn doesn't look much different, but I have disposed of and mulched quite a bit here, believe me. The grass has died off, and was never very good anyway. With 2 dogs, there's not much chance of replanting a lawn. So I've decided to buy a couple more raised beds and turn it into a food productive area, how exciting!!

I've been totally inspired by Gavin's blog and philosphy over at "The Greening of Gavin". Wow, what an environmental super star. Reading his blog this afternoon prompted my visit to the garden centre. I just wanted to get something planted in the ground. I am reading my way through his blog from the start and eagerly awaiting new posts. Well worth adding Gavin to your list of blogs to visit.

Hopefully with the nicer weather, inspiring blogs and partner in crime in the garden Mrs HMM, I'll be blogging my garden revolution more regularly.

Mrs SFP XXX

Frugal firelighters

I would like to welcome Roz from squiltz- she is a fellow Cantabrian and has a delightful blog- well worth a read. Thank you Roz for stopping by.

Self sown Cabbage Tree which towers above our garage.

One of the most useful trees in our garden is our cabbage tree. It's hard to believe that this started as a self sown seedling and is now a majestic specimen. This tree is native to New Zealand. It's leaves are a bit of a nuisance to most people. They don't compost particularly well (sort of look like flax leaves) and they can't be put in our Council recycling green bins. However wind about 12 together and tie with a spare leaf and they make fabulous firelighters! Two with some newspaper get the fire going in no time at all. As we are heading into Winter a good fire is much appreciated.

I try and use the fire for other purposes as well- cooking on top, heating water and drying or airing washing in front of it. It really is the heart of our home.

Firelighters- something out of nothing.

Pumpkin seeds- future planting.

I made up a big pot of pumpkin soup the other day and in my new gardening frame of mind decided to dry the some of the seeds. I manage to grow pumpkins in the compost bins OK, so hopefully purposeful planting will go well. Which reminds me- there is a vine down the back which has deposited a pumpkin on the neighbour's shed roof. I must go and nab it, just not sure how to tell if it's ready. Friends grow pumpkins vertically up supports, so I think I might give that a go. Roll on Spring!! Off to watch New Zealand's hottest home baker, bye for now  Julie