In the Garden

That’s where I’ve been for the last month!  Spring is a busy time for the garden, our garden beds are perennial flower beds so there is winter die back to tidy up, plants to split and move around and as always new plants to add.

This year the flower border that lines the back garden fence was in desperate need of an overhaul.  Whatever flower plan was there in the border had dissolved into an unruly mass of plants.

The best thing to do is to be brave and take everything out, well almost everything, the grapes and trumpet vine on the pergola stayed.  We leveled the garden beds, amended the soil by adding azomite, which adds trace minerals and heaps of Gaia Green.  We also made the beds a little larger too. 

The original plants were heeled into part of the veg patch just for short term storage.  We then looked up each plants needs and added them back to the border in the correct place.  Some of them were moved to another part of the garden and new plants from other areas of the garden moved into the prepared beds.    

The bones of the new border are in but we grew a lot of annuals that need to be added yet, like nicotiana, calendula and alyssum.  So it is still a work in progress but it is looking hopeful.

Here is a little peek into the greenhouse, the shelves are groaning under the weight of all the plants.  Some plants are ready to be planted out and some are ready to pot on.

The tomatoes are looking good, nice and sturdy.  They are the same size as the ones at the local nursery! The advantage of growing tomatoes from seed is the sheer variety of types out there, much better than the dozen or so varieties that our local nursery carries.  This year we are trying twelve new varieties and four oldies but goodies.

We have a new neighbour move in, a white crowned sparrow.  It has made a nest nearby and always seems to be in the back garden cruising for bugs.  When we first moved here, there wasn't even an ant, so finally getting bird life is a real miracle!