Spring Is In The Air

The weather took a lovely turn for almost two weeks and so while we would love to keep working inside, we felt we must make a start on our vegetable plot and other areas if we are to reap the rewards later in the season.

Daytime temperatures were getting up to 19.5/20 degrees, which is not bad for February - you could compare this to end of August in NZ. Our nights are still cold but the days have been brilliant and I'd love it to be like this most of the year. Having said that, we are just having a cold snap - Kiwis should know what that's like :) Many things have started to flower - the apricots, cherries, mimosa and a lot of spring flowers both in pots and in the garden. the irises are shooting up large new leaves in preparation for their beautiful flowers (which I can't wait to see).


Now preparing the soil is important - we let things slip during late autumn and winter for a few reasons - we didn't have our things from NZ until late October, we planted a few things in beds but soon after that the weather deteriorated pretty fast, the soil is not very nice to work when it's wet - it's very claggy clay just like Auckland soil, but once it dries it becomes sandy - we will need to add organic matter over time to improve the soil structure.

We found out that the land we are on used to be a river, and therefore the soil is from the river bed. We find lots of stones while working in the garden and leave them in small piles until we have enough to go around and collect. Wouter is the 'slasher' (as well as the pole dancer!) and is getting rid of the large weeds, turning the soil once to dry it out a little and then running a manual tiller over it to fine it up. It seems to be working ok.

preparing more beds, broad beans in foreground (left)

Before winter set in Wouter planted a whole lot of things which just sat there all that time nice and cosy - heaps of onions, garlic, shallots, broad beans and so on - won't mention the obvious...... and now they are starting to shoot away. In the beds which are already prepared I've planted some more radishes - we got quite a few before the winter, but the ones which were left were eaten out by slugs and the local rabbit! An aside here - I put the old and crusty radishes in the wheelbarrow so they could be put onto the compost heap or just thrown out with the rest of the weeds. The following morning Wouter found Cassy half in the barrow having a feast of radishes...

Some seeds have been sown in pots to germinate and await warmer nights before being planted out. These include capsicums, tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. They should be planted out when they are a bit bigger as we will have problems with snails and slugs - we will do our usual trick of "hunting by torch light" and either burn them or pop them into boiling water and let the birds eat them the next day.

We've also bought lots of flower seeds - things like sunflowers, prairie mix, poppies, cornflowers and so on. It should be a riot of colour here later in the season.




For now we have jonquils flowering, daffodils, crocuses (in pot), cowslips, violets. The existing hydrangeas are budding - we transferred some round to the southern garden where they have the spring sun but in summer have shade from one of the trees - they are looking happy so far and we will need to water them in summer. The oleanders we planted earlier are looking fine, and some of the other shrubs we transferred from spots in the garden we didn't think they belonged also seem to like their new spaces. I must say that it's quite fun playing around in a new garden - loved my one in Waimauku and often miss some of the things there (especially my lemon tree, which I may have mentioned before...) but it's exciting to create a new look with different variables and see how we manage to feed ourselves and have flowers throughout the year from this new place.

Now for another story about the dog - while we were working in the garden, Cassy was getting the occasional ball throw and having a lie down on the soft soil in between - every so often he would get up and sniff around underneath the fruit trees with obviously fond memories of the figs which used to be there when we first moved in. Lo and behold, he managed to find some old potatoes - so, the garden once again becomes an interesting place.

While our backs were turned he had a munch - I called out to Wouter to check out what he was eating and we found it was raw, but fresh, potato. The following morning the potato magnet was strong and Wouter found Cassy slinking back into the laundry, looking very guilty, and his paws were so caked with mud that his toes couldn't fit together any more - this must have been really uncomfortable and was a dead give-away as to where he had been - you've guessed - in the vegie patch to find more potatoes. Pity we don't have truffles......

I'll just wait until they're not looking...