Garden Days

I planted a packet of cactus dahlia seeds two years ago and forgot about them. This year they flowered for the first time and I was so surprised and happy.

Today I am bringing you several more days in the garden, because they are quite fun.

 Wednesday: Today is a good day. One day near the end of summer you wake up here in Tasmania, to a chilly morning and an intensely blue sky. The air is still and clear as glass, and suddenly your hands itch to plant and harvest. The beginning of the end of summer is here, and the beginning of the beginning of autumn. It will get no doubt get very hot again throughout March, but the land knows: it is nearly time. 

I started out a day's gardening today trimming the grape vine over the deck. My neighbour was concerned that grape leaves will block her downpipe, fair enough, the leaves are kind of large, so I cut them back. While I was up the step ladder I cut the first bunches of grapes. This is so exciting. The vines are fairly dripping with grapes this year. I popped a basketful into the dehydrator to make my very own sultana bunches:)

Update on dried grapes: well, the difficulty lies in the fact that the bunches don't dry evenly. I either have crispy dried up grapes, or ones that aren't quite dry, but delicious. I have popped them into paper bags so they don't go mouldy and may have to eat them over the next couple of weeks. That will be so difficult..

The next job was trimming the ivy back along the southern fence. I love the high wall of ivy, but I don't love ivy flowers, which make me sneeze. The bees have been loving them for a couple of weeks, but that's enough of a turn for them, now it is cutting back time. The fun of this job is climbing on the shed roof to trim the hedge. The shed roof is below the level of the street, because my cottage is on a steep hillside. Before: here is the view from over the front fence.

Ivy trimmings are one thing I don't compost, because otherwise I would have a garden full of ivy, so I cut the hedge until I filled up the bin. The rest of this job will have to wait until the weekend when the bin is emptied. (Update, it will now have to wait until next weekend, because rain) After: so neat:)

Next I put chicken manure pellets, crushed egg shells and compost on the garden bed I cleared last week and gave it a good water. On the weekend I can plant the lettuce and silverbeet babies. I cut back a lavender bush and deadheaded the dahlias in the bee garden. I cut back some leggy chrysanthemum stems and brought them inside to root in a bottle of water. 

It has been a lovely, lovely day of pottering quietly and being so grateful to have a garden.

Thursday: Grated a lot of zucchini in the food processor, and froze it in ziplock bags for later. I squeezed out as much juice as I could before bagging it up, and fed the zucchini juice to the lemon tree. Nine cups of zucchini for the freezer. 

Friday: A big gardening day today, because I have a day off work. Gardening work at home is such a joy because I potter and stop to have snacks and read and play with the cat. I pruned the tomato plants first. It is about eight weeks to first frost, not enough time for more tomatoes to form and ripen, so I tip pruned the plants above the top tomato bunch so the plants can put their energy into ripening and growing the tomatoes that are already on the bush. 

I also pruned away the leaves that were covering up the tomatoes so they can have some more sunlight and ripening time. Before: can hardly see tomatoes.

After: Not a huge difference, but a lot more tomatoes visible now. I found a lot more to pick as well, now that I can see them all. Especially the ones hiding at ground level.

I hope you are appreciating my cardboard-covered paths. Ideally they would be covered in woodchips, but I haven't had any delivered this season, and the cardboard is not pretty but does an excellent job of weed inhibition. 

Climbing on the roof to prune the nectarines today. That was fun. And I cleared out two overgrown wine barrel tubs and planted the new citrus babies. Before:

Herb Robert, seaside daisy and warrigal greens. Big mess.

Snow in summer, gazania, cotyledon, weeds. Big mess.

These half wine barrels are over ten years old now, and beginning to deteriorate fast. If I could go back in time I would sternly lecture past Jo on the advantages of treating the inside of the tubs with waterproofing before planting in them, no matter how impatient you are, because in ten years time they will double in price, and then where will you be? Bit late now, so I will just hang onto them as long as I can and do better next time. Maybe. I am very impatient.

After: 

Cara cara orange tree

Emperor Mandarin tree

Last week in the comments Blueberry recommended some rusty iron in the pots, because citrus need a lot of iron, and don't always get enough. I have a collection of odd objects I dig up in the garden, and added several rusty iron spikes to the new citrus pots.

Saturday: It is going to pour with rain tonight so I have spent the day getting things ready. I pruned the grapevine which hangs over my neighbour's gutters, swept all the decks and paths, and trimmed all the wild growth along the paths so I can walk to the compost and the bin between showers without getting wet. 

This week a friend gave me a dahlia she didn't want in her garden anymore, so I planted that in my bee garden (dahlias, rudbeckias, salvia, sedum, Japanese anemones). 

Rudbeckia, from seed I planted in the spring, and a very pretty gifted dahlia in the background.

Japanese anemones. I brought these from the old house, and have dug up clumps of them to give away for years. They pop up everywhere.

The dahlia friend (one of two dahlia enthusiast friends) also potted up a heap of dahlia seedlings from her garden and gave me a couple. She has so many dahlias, they could turn out to be anything, although my dahlia friend says most of them throw back to yellow (dahlia enthusiasts are a bit snobbish about plain yellow dahlias, which is fair enough, because fancy dahlias are amazing and gorgeous). One of the two seedlings has buds on, and I am too excited to see what it will be. There is nothing like the bud of a new flower in the garden to send me mental with impatience. I am perfectly happy for it to be a yellow dahlia. I am not precious. I just want to see it! It is probably at least a week away..

Well, that is nearly all. Today I also fixed the pea trellis, which was sagging sadly. I bashed the iron droppers with a metal mallet until it stood up straight again. I can be very persuasive. Then I weeded all the grass and wild clematis out of the trellis, and this week will plant snow pea seeds ready for spring. All the winter veg will have to go in in the next couple of weeks. All hands to the wheel!

Yellow rudbeckia and pink geraniums. Not a classic combination, but I think it works. 

Tell me about your week in the garden. Did possums, deer, rats, iguanas or bugs eat everything? Did you plant some seeds, not quite able to believe that spring is around the corner, or as in my case, not quite believing that it will soon be cold enough for cabbages and spinach? I love your garden stories and advice:)