Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

With typical fervour around this time of year, and because Kim’s mum is flying in from the UK on Wednesday, we decided to perform a go-slow tidy-up around the parts of the garden that we hadn’t spend much time in for the last few months. Mainly because of Winter being so cold this year (for us, anyway), we have been cooped up indoors for most of the season, only venturing out when there was a sunny break to eat a yoghurt, get the required Vitamin D to help stop seasonal depression, and to maintain the vege-patch!

So, on Saturday, first of all, Kim mowed what little lawn that we still have that is under the hills-hoist. I think she quite enjoyed it, and it definitely saved my back. It is the only lawn we have remaining other than the medium strips between the footpath and road. I packed away all of the tools that I had used to build the chook house into the shed, and got rid of the paint equipment that Kim had used to paint Ben’s room with.

Then we cleared away big weeds from under the plum tree to give it a fighting chance for its fruiting season. It is in full bloom now, and we had to be very careful, so not to knock any flowers off. Each flower destroyed is one less plum in Jan/Feb. The bees are going crazy around it at the moment, which is just how things should be. It is well mulched with wood chips, and I think it must be at least 20 years old, and is still going strong.

Next, we cut back a jasmine vine that had died off, and was on its last legs. Seizing the opportunity to plant more edible species, we decided to put two passionfruit vines in its place. It should grow up the trellis quite quickly. We had to trim back quite a big shrub first to get to the jasmine, remove the vine, and dig out most of the roots. With me on my knees and Kim standing, we managed to cut, dig, unwind the jasmine off of the trellis and get the passionfruit in the well prepared and compost laden ground. What a pain in the behind that was. The roots went everywhere. Luckily, it was planted in a large raised bed next to the plum tree, and I had put weed matting and rubble at the bottom of the bed when I constructed it, so the roots did not reach the ground level. I didnt get a photo of the passionfruit in the ground, but here is one of the nice tidy fruit tree/chook house garden. Click on the picture for a larger image.

To finish it all off for the day, Kim swept the cement floor under the veranda, and we decided to call it a day. We both held up pretty well, and it took us about three hours all up. I then rested for most of the afternoon in bed reading blogs, and Kim did some art work.

On Sunday, we got up at about 0900, had a quick breakfast and got organised for planting the corn crop. We decided to start converting some of the front garden beds for food production, therefore enabling a larger crop this summer/autumn. We have a 1.5 metre picket fence around the front yard, so I don’t think theft will be much of a problem. We prepared the bed near our bedroom window by removing all of the wood chip, putting the wood chip on two other beds with ornamentals, and digging in two wheelbarrows full of compost, which Kim turned in with a pitchfork. We managed to mix in some of the native clay into the imported soil and compost to help with the water retention. We then levelled it all off with a rake, and planted in short rows running north/south with enough room between each row (about 40 cm) for a planting of lazy housewife beans as soon as the corn pops through. That way the beans will be able to climb up the corn stalks, and I wont need to put in supports. I read that tip in a companion planting book that Amy bought me for my birthday (I forgot I had it). Here is the finished bed. Not much to see yet, but it is well watered, and we will mulch it with sugar cane mulch when the seedlings emerge.

The next job was to clean out the veranda gutter as it was full of rotten leaves. Kim was in her element. With me holding the ladder, she was up it with bucket in hand mucking about in the gutter. It took about 30 minutes to clear and I dumped all the leaves into the compost bin. After the gutters, I quickly checked the top of the rainwater tank, and removed a few leaves from the leaf and mozzie guard, and then put the ladder away for the day.

I then crawled along on my hands and knees and weeded the entire pebbled area in the fruit tree garden. I ended up with two 10 litre buckets full of little weeds. They manage to grow in between the rocks and are on the surface side of the weed matting. It looks very tidy now. The weeds went straight into the Aerobin as it is the hottest compost bin and will kill any weed seeds. It took me over an hour, but I took a break every 15 minutes just to make sure I didn’t do any back damage.

Then it was around to the other side of the house to the deck area. We haven’t used this much in Winter because it is just too cold, and I blatantly refuse to buy a gas deck heater. Heating the outside is not my idea of being green. On a side note, I read somewhere that they were going to ban outside gas heaters in Europe for that very reason. Too much wasted energy for little effect.

Kim got to work straight away, and Ben decided to help vacumm all of the flower heads and leaves. It was comical to watch, and once he even managed to suck his tracksuit pant leg half way up the pipe! I had a great laugh. As Kim was moving furniture around, I watered the potted plants. Here is the finished area all ready for Nan’s visit.

Other than watering the seedlings in the green house, I didn’t do much more in the afternoon. By the time we finished it was about 1500, so we called it a day and cracked open a bottle of red. Here are the seedlings. Still only the broccoli showing, but there looks like some movement in the capsicum row!

On the tray above are the six tomato plants, with three now showing flowers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have fruit on them before I get them in the ground.

And just for Kel, here is a picture of the thermometer that I have hung inside the greenhouse. It is a balmy 23 degrees C inside, with an outside temp of 15. Truly, a winter in Fiji!

When we went inside, Kim made and baked a small loaf of bread and some hot dog rolls. For dinner we had some sausages in the rolls, and home made chips on the side. Not very healthy, but after a hard days work, it was just what we needed. It was our version of fast food, without the bajillion calories! A great go-slow weekend with plenty of rest in between bursts of enjoyable work. Rock on Wednesday. We all can’t wait to go to the airport and pick up Pam (Nan). I hope she carbon offset her flight!