So close, but not quite

Presented with a perfectly sunny Saturday, I couldn't put off the dreaded task of mattocking up the cursed runner-weed. It took me the whole morning to dig it up and remove, leaving me with uneven upturned clay, but I figured it shouldn't be too much of an issue once I give it the gypsum-cardboard-mulch treatment. 

This is how it looked at the end of the day:

I ran out of cardboard and I only have two buckets of mulch left, which clearly isn't going to finish this area off. So I was left at a natural stand-still. 

It's also left me with a slight dilemma. I can only afford one load of either soil or mulch next month. I was originally going to get soil, because I'm keen to get the garden beds ready for spring planting. But without more cardboard or newspapers, I can't properly prepare for garden beds to put the soil into. 

Whilst I need more cardboard for the mulch areas, I don't need as much as I do for the garden beds. I also need less mulch than I do soil, so technically it would be cheaper to finish mulching than starting garden beds (even though the mulch company charges nearly twice as much for delivery as the soil company).

So I have to decide what I want to achieve most next month. I'm sure I'll post something in the next couple of weeks that'll make it clear what I end up choosing.

Mid-week wander around the garden

With the opportunity to wander around the garden to reconnect with a sense of peace and stillness, I couldn't help noticing how many more beautiful flowers are currently in bloom.

Just to give you perspective on how big those freesias are, I have relatively large hands for a woman. 

The master of the house was keen to join me on my walk outside, but I find it's easier to practice mindfulness when I'm not having to keep an eye on a cat who will try eating plants that he really shouldn't. 

Mini peaches give me a small glimmer hope for fruit in spite of the fact that the trees have leaf curl for a second year running. I sprayed them with lime sulphur in winter, but obviously the unrelenting rain has made the fungus unavoidable. I am relieved to see its not as bad as it was last year though, so I'm cautiously hopeful.

Baby nectarines also make me hopeful. 

Apple blossoms not yet open on my Pinkabelle (columnar Pink Lady) Apple tree. Can't wait! 

Cherry blossoms! If these provide me with any amount of cherries, then I will be netting and guarding them fiercely after losing my meagre first year crop to either birds or possums.

Mini cabbage left to go to seed. I'm pretty impressed with how long it resisted going to seed - I planted this in August 2015, and it's only in the last month or so that it started bolting.

My largest picking of snow peas to date. I ate them raw as a pre-dinner snack. Yummo.

The weekend's progress

Yep, with enough 'rainless' weather and a goodly amount of cardboard gathered from work, I was back out in the garden to continue the gypsum-cardboard-mulch routine. I was pretty happy with where I got up to.

I'm now up to needing a mattock to dig up the large patch of deep runner-weed that has been my bane since moving in. I'll save that for next weekend. 

Another weekend of mulching and admiring flowers

First up, the flowers I was so happy to be surrounded by...

This double daffodil is called Enterprise. Being a fan of Star Trek, of course I had to get this one and grow it.

This was meant to be a cottage mix of blue and white anemones, which I only got because I wanted some of the dual-coloured ones that only seemed to come in the mix. Now I have had a couple of plain blue and plain white anemones flower in this mix earlier on, but as you can see, I ended up with plenty of the anemones that I had been hoping for! 

I originally mistook this freesia for a gladioli as I wasn't used to the size of the flowers or leaves. I had another lot of freesias from the previous year which aren't as big as this one. I'm wondering if it's because the first lot are in a shallow bowl shaped pot, and these newer ones are in a much deeper pot.

My poor soggy peacock irises. They've not fared well under the constant barrage of rain. I've moved them closer to the house in the hopes that the eaves and wall can help shield the pot from the worst of the rain.

A lettuce might not be anything fancy, but this variety is called Tennis Ball. Until the moment before this photo was taken, I didn't really understand why it was called that as it's a buttercrunch type lettuce. But now I see that it does look a bit like a tennis ball in the middle. It's very tasty too.

Kiwiberry has lovely leaf growth. I'm not sure when it'll flower, or whether it flowers in summer, or even if I will have to wait a year or few. Either way, it looks wonderful as it begins to cover the bare fence.

Given that I now have mulch next to the concrete path, I finally started moving some of my potted plants out from under the alfresco to where they can receive some of the free watering (ie rain). Those are blueberries, rhubarb, and an Afourer mandarin tree next to the recently erected greenhouse. 



This is my berry garden. The thornless loganberry is by far and away the most prolific vine. The two African daisy shrubs are enjoying the rain and have been flowering cheerfully for weeks.

And lastly, the mulching progress. I've finally started working on the biggest section that needs mulching. I've decided to mulch around the potted fruit trees before mulching underneath them. There's going to be another berry garden bed along the back fence, so I have to keep that in mind as I mattock weeds and put down gypsum and cardboard.

Peacock Iris!

I can't begin to tell you how ecstatic I am to discover that my peacock irises have bloomed for the first time! I've had this batch of peacock irises for nearly eighteen months, and though it put up the grass-like leaves last spring, there wasn't a single flower stem in sight. 

But this spring-!

The photo doesn't do its beauty justice.

Just in time for Father’s Day

As my family were to gather at my place for the obligatory Father’s Day luncheon for our dad, I had only the Saturday in which to get garden things down. In particular, I wanted to finish off the front mulch path. 

It was hard work all day, starting early in the morning and going into late afternoon. I was aching at the end of the day, but it was worth every pain!

You can see below how the mulch path splits the front yard into two long strips that I intend to turn into garden beds for annuals until I can decide precisely what I want as the final design. This is merely the cheapest and most useful option for the front yard so I don't have to continually weed the whole thing back and forth. Not to mention, this way I have more space to grow annual fruit and vegetable plants. 

After all the work, I then took the opportunity to admire my collection of potted plants. Lots of flowers.

Below is the Fantasia nectarine in flower. The flowers are beautiful.

The first of two Ever Red rhubarb crowns that I bought over the winter has been throwing up lots of healthy looking stalks.

Annoyingly, the cauliflowers that I'd been trying to get growing all winter have decided to finally grow and the white cabbage moth caterpillars that decimated the early seedlings in autumn obviously aren't around to kill them off now. I'm not sure whether I'll get any cauliflowers off it, but I may as well just let it keep growing.