A lot has happened since my last update – mainly photography adventures, but also a house warming, a trip to Wellington and just life in general! Cannot believe how quickly we are racing towards the Christmas season, this year has flown past.

Fortunately I have been able to keep an eye on the garden and it is growing quite nicely, although we are now having to water it most evenings as the raised beds dry out very quickly. Wish our irrigation system was up and running but it remains uncooperative at the moment so hand watering is the current mode.

Apple trees have budded and one at least has been  covered in flowers, although the other one seems a little slower off the mark. We have sadly lost the grape (not sure how much Wayne watered while I was away) so will have to replace it.

I’m also very worried about our heritage rhubarb. It was a monster of mythic proportions is our previous place but seems to have not enjoyed the move and  is small and spindly at the moment. I think there are two more ‘pups’ still in the plant nursery so I might have to try again with one of those. I will be so upset if we end up without our rhubarb – as it’s a heritage plant it will be hard to replace 😦

Potatoes are growing like crazy – having to mound them up continuously so here’s hoping for a bumper crop!

Citrus trees are all growing with great gusto and providing a lovely scent as you walk past them.

I have planted some lavender around the side of the garden to encourage the bees and also because I love flowering plants in a vegetable patch.

On the ornamental side we are making great strides. We now have a buxus hedge around the rose gardens (one that is supposed to be resistant to the dreaded buxus blight but we will have to see how it goes). The roses are starting to bud as well which is very exciting.

As we had our house warming last weekend I decided that it was a good time to do some work on making the decks look a bit less empty. I don’t know why I often think it is a good idea to embark on major projects with a stupidly close deadline (and bad weather was in the forecast) but it was worth the hunting down the troughs, lugging the potting mix around and planting like a madwoman in the rain and the wind  as I love the finished result.

“Weekly” (more like monthly this time) round-up
Planted
Buxus, lavender, impatiens, emerald gem (like a buxus), rosemary, oregano, pizza thyme
Nothing harvested yet about from lots of herbs and the odd delicious pea!

Waste
Feel like we have strayed a bit as we have been so busy and certainly trying to keep rubbish under control (especially plastic) when you have a big party proved a bit of a disaster! But composting is going well and we are just about ready to put our second batch in. Pleased to say Bosco hasn’t eaten any more Bokashi…

Coming up
This weekend will be Labour Weekend, which is the traditional weekend for planting tomatoes in the more temperate parts of New Zealand. As we will be at our beach house for the holiday weekend, I am heading to the garden centre tomorrow with our daughter and one of the daughters-in-law to choose some tomato plants. They are new to vegetable gardening but are keen to start growing some things (and means I get to have morning tea with three cute grand-children) Always hard to decide which varieties to get so will have fun seeing what’s available tomorrow!