New Season Carrot

More from the 'one only' department:

"Don't eat all at once".

I am grateful though, truly, to have even one. Such an improvement on the last years.

Planting kumara

What the heck do I do with these? Sprouting kumaras. I've just bunged them here for the meantime, and they've become attached to the ground. I feel they should be buried though.

This might help Stuff NZ Gardener

New season butternut

There is only one though. And I haven't figured out when to pick it yet. Also...note the dying kale in the pot in the background, didn't quite get it into the ground. But I've done it now, and they seem to have rejuvenated.

Garden Envy

Every year, when I go to the Auckland Botanic Gardens, I have a wander round their vegetable garden. And am overcome with garden lust, "I want a garden like that!". Well not this year, I came home and checked out my fecund vege garden and sighed a satisfied sigh, SUCH a relief to have my own garden now, and not altogether such a hard thing to achieve either.

I would like to thank my willing helpers who all helped me to get there though :-))) Couldn't have done it without you guys (and you know who you are...)

reusing excavated soil

The top soil that was dug out of the soon-to-be paving area lived in a mound for a couple of weeks, while I decided where to move yet another pile of dirt from A to B to C. In the end I decided to put it on top of the planters to fill them up a bit more. I had pea straw and a thin layer of compost on the planters, but they were only half full.

Some plants, like root vegetables, and potatoes and basically anything that doesn't want too many leafy green bits, needs something more than just compost, which will encourage all the leafy-ness at the expense of other things.

New spring vegetable planting

This is a big big moment...my first vegetable plantings in my new garden! Its still winter, but I've not let that hold me back. A row of bok choy, a row of spinach seeds, which are too late, and don't do well in warm Auckland. And a packet of broadbeans to the left, and a packet of peas to the right.

I rather think I still have the 'not got very much space so I have to cram it all together' mentality though, these are lettuces, and could have been spaced just a bit more.

Finished planters, all waiting for spring and proper planting. I had to resist the temptation to fill them with winter stuff, because I know spring is just around the corner and I will be wanting to absolutely fill them with lovely summer things like tomatoes and courgettes and beans and pumpkins and cucumbers and other space hungry things. Maybe these aren't big enough at all then?

Winter Planting part one

 

 

 

 

It is going to be quite some time before I have the backyard 'proper' garden vegetable area done.  But I still want to have something growing over the winter.  So I have pressed the tiny area in the front of my house into service again.  I've got lettuces here (under the climbing stand that held the tomato plant).

 

 

 

And a little punnet of beetroot plants.  Had A LOT of seedlings in it, so that was a good bargain!

 

 

I got the seedlings from the Clevedon market, an all-round excellent place for a Sunday morning stroll.

 

I reckon I could squeeze another, say, packet of broadbeans, and maybe some more leafy things in this tiny strip.  Gardening in a small section does mean you are comfortable with close quarters for your plants.  No tidy rows here!

 

 

So you want messy, in-tune-with-nature then?

 

My only operational garden at the moment is the tiny strip out the front of my house, between the house and the little hedge by the footpath.  In spring I planted it with everything I could squeeze in - 2 tomatoes, beans, sugar snap peas, capsicum, 2 types of basil, 2 types of thyme, radishes (didn't do at all well though), Lebanese cucumber, apple cucumber, lettuces.  Looked gorgeous for a while. Then everything grew, and it looked abundant and luscious..

 

 

 

Now it is autumn, and it looks .. well .. autumny. All the beans and peas have finished, the 'wild' stuff is taking over.  You can still see a couple of tomatoes.  Things are starting to die back.  And flower.  And go to seed.  So, this is how a garden looks, for real, in autumn.  Wouldn't win any House and Garden shows.  People on a garden tour would not be impressed.  If I had uppity neighbours (I don't, my neighbours are lovely) they would be leaning over the fence tutting.  I think that autumn messiness is all part of nature's cycles, part of setting seeds in the ground for next year.

 

 

One of the most prolific 'weeds' I have in my front garden is this pretty flower.  It arrived on its own probably 20 years ago, and has never left, reliably pops up every autumn.  It is a native NZ hibiscus, quite small and very lovely.  An excellent reason not to weed until it has finished flowering.