A trip to Thornton on Sunday

Another wonderful weekend very balmy reaching 18C. Took a drive to the Thornton river mouth this afternoon, still a bit chilly in the breeze off the sea,  it looked nice and old post cardish...

Looking back up the river to Putauaki

 
Did good deeds with blood and bone for the nitrogen lovers, the garlic especially, and general purpose thrive for the flowering things. The problem with blood and bone is that the blackbird thinks there are huge smelly worms under the soil and flick it all over the place. Here is a thrush looking for snails and grubs, there will be a feeding frenzy around the garden soon when they all have nestlings.

I do like the pea tendrils, I made them a nice new frame today, it's very pleasant to pick a fresh pea as you pass. They remind me of kowhaiwhai patterns.

Beetroot and garlic getting a gentle watering, after mixing the fertilizer into the soil this will help get it to the plants and settle the soil down.

Good things start early

Indeed, like all things worthwhile, the earlier you start the better it becomes, so it is with gnomes and gardeners.
This rare early photograph of a very young Nigel Gnome honing the skills required for great vegetable gardening, namely the finely co-ordinated work with spade and barrow.

Just shows that even a grumpy old Gnome was cute when he was small!

We are curently having a lovely extended period of fine settled weather and it really feels like spring now.
:)

A beautiful early spring weekend

The sun was shining and there was blue from one end of the sky to the other, just lovely. The pink blossom tree was looking a treat and was visited constantly by monarch butterflies and wax eye birds

a waxeye in the prunus blossom

small waxeye in the prunus blossom

incoming monarch

I found my old gumboots in the shed, amazingly useful for damp jobs (like cleaning the new car), I had forgotten I owned such handy things. They are showing their age but still functioned well.

My old Redband gumboots

 I had to take another shot

long shadows from short gumboots

 The french early peas are starting to produce, though only enough for a snack now and then

tender pea flowers and lovely tendrils

french peas

The broccolli just keeps delivering, these young shoots are delicous steamed with a grate of nutmeg

fresh young broccoli sprouts

a tall one from the side garden

tall head of brocolli

these seedlings are starting to look good, the lengthening days are starting to make a difference

silverbeet and beetroot seedlings almost ready for planting

 I finally got the spuds planted this weekend, all six of them! I had three really nice black potato sprouts and made three out of these nice white ones.

happy potato sprouts ready for planting

 I dug six spade deep holes spaced well apart (that's why there are only six) and heaped the soil next to the holes. I put a cople of inches of compost in the holes and out the potato pieces sprout side up on top, then coverd them with a couple of inches of the soil.

potaotoes in their holes

the potato holes coverd on wire to stop dogs/cats/blackbirds from doing damage

 once the sprouts start to emerge from the bottom I will keep adding more soil to keep them covered to get nice deep tubers forming.

Long time no post!

It's been a while, not too much to say, we've had a long damp period and all that's been done is basic upkeep. There have been visits and coming and goings as well so it was great to have this fine patch leading up to the weekend to get some essentials done. Spraying the outside paved areas with 30 seconds moss and mould remover was the prime task as it needs the area to be quite dry to encourage the grunge to absorb the bleachy stuff greedily. They seem to die almost instantly and I was able to water blast the worst bits quite quickly.
The garlic has grown really well and the broccoli side shoots can be harvested every few days. We planted three new rosemary babies around the patches.

The garlic


overview


Applied a dressing of citrus fertilizer around the drip line of the lemon bush. Pruned the standard ice berg rose and the last of the hydrangeas.