Potager

Last weekend we had perfect weather. Warm, sunny and summery. I spent the entire weekend in the garden - weeding and tidying up on Saturday, chipping more branches on Sunday (pictured). Saturday was the most fun day - Sunday got old very fast! But as I worked, I dreamed. And I thought about what I want to do in my garden. And I think I've got a plan.

I'm going to make a potager - similar in design to this one. I like the concentric circle layout of the paths, which gives a strong structure to the whole thing. It means that when the broccoli is flopping around, and the cabbages have all been harvested leaving a big bare spot, there will still be a strong design element at work.

Especially if you plant diagonally!

Of course I'll still have flowers and flowering herbs scattered throughout...

And something decorative in the central bed.

I also think raised beds are important - building curved ones will be quite the challenge!

I definitely want brick or stone paths.

The above images are from "New Zealand Potager - The Ornamental Vegetable Garden" by Diana Anthony. It's a really helpful book if you are planning a potager!

This is my rough sketch. I'll be keeping the existing concrete paths for now (far left and bottom right). The rectangle shape in the lower right corner is my glasshouse, and the circle above and to the left of it is the cherry tree - I've designed the path to veer around it. (Should I leave this in do you think? I don't want its roots making the paths buckle, or sucking up the water from my veges. But I don't want to just chop it either...)

Anyway, that was last weekend. This weekend has been nothing but rain, gales, and the two mixed together. Much better to just curl up on the couch and forget about it all....

Gardening days

Weekends of late have been full of gardening activity (weather permitting). We have removed a large section of overgrown, bushy shrubbery from the side of the house, and are about two thirds through putting all the twigs and branches through a chipper. It's a noisy, dirty, backbreaking job, but I'll have some nice mulch at the end of it. I've also been battling the overgrown-with-oxalis strawberry bed, and that job is taking so much longer than I thought that I don't even want to talk about it.

So, onto something a little more cheerful - shall I show you how my garden grows?

The butter beans of summer have succumbed to the frost, but the broad beans are loving life and growing bushy and beautiful.

I have plenty of cabbages, kale, broccoli and cauliflower...

Even some bok choi which is obviously tasty.

Parsnips are fattening up (and taste much better after a frost).

Foreground: spring onions and background: leeks (my pride and joy!)

In the glasshouse the last peppers are still ripening.

A little viola, her face dirty from the rain.

As I took these photos the sky opened up once more so I scrambled for the shelter of the porch and used my zoom lens. See the chrysanthemum at the back fence? It's flattened under the weight of the water. Poor thing...

That's better!

This afternoon

Life has been busy. Not in an exciting way, just in a getting-things-done-with-the-house kind of way, and as each day draws to an end, and each weekend rushes to a close, and each week passes with a sort of breathless finality, I think to myself, oh, I really need to update my blog...

But I don't, because I haven't taken any interesting photos, and I have to weed the garden, and the washing needs folding, and it's time for tea, and I have to finish a swap, and I just want to take a break for five minutes and curl up with a book -

but

this afternoon

in between baking my bread rolls for lunch this week and a trip to the library -

I saw it. The petals of the dahlia and the soft strands of the solomon's knot crochet. A photo! I cried, grabbed my camera and snapped before the moment was lost. And then, relieved, I got on with my housework once more.

Mystery solved

I have an identity for my sweet red berry plant! It's a Chilean Guava, also known (presumably only in NZ) as a New Zealand Cranberry. Thanks to Tom from Sydney on Flickr for providing the first diagnosis of the Chilean Guava, after which I googled and found that my plant matched the images and descriptions. Then my workmate brought in a sprig from her cranberry bush, and I was puzzled to see that it matched that too. She'd also brought in the plant information card from when she bought the plant, and eventually I realised that the botanical name was the same for both - myrtus ugni (I'm sure it means pretty)

So there we have it - it's a cranberry and a guava. Soon it will be dessert - if I can stop snacking on it when I get the mail, that is!

Mystery plant

Is this a cranberry? It grows at the foot of my drive near the letterbox. I kept noticing a sweet, sugary smell in the air when getting the mail and traced it back to this plant. I had just thought it was ornamental, after all, wouldn't a cranberry be planted somewhere near the blueberries or blackberries? After a minute's hesitation I ate one of the berries. It was very sweet and quite yummy. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with cranberries and actually thought they were rather tart, so I'm still none the wiser (not reeling with a stomach ache or anything though!)

So... does anyone know what it is?

I actually bought a small cranberry seedling at the flower show, it looks kind of similar but has redder stems. And no berries.

Also, on a gardening high after hearing a talk about compost, I assembled a compost bin this afternoon and nearly filled it. Worm farm is next. We still want to get chookies, but buying a chicken run turns out not to be cheap. I had hoped to buy one in kitset form so I could play builder and put it together but that option is $600 - plus chickens, food etc. Making them rather expensive eggs...

Time spent...

...cooking
...baking
...making relish and lemon honey

...digging oxalis out of the garden
...planting out seedlings
...planning tree and shrub removal
...researching chicken coops
...researching composting and worm farms
...attending Ellerslie (more to come in another post)
...planning my garden beds

...photographing a wedding
...downloading photoshop actions and brushes
...editing 600+ photos

...taking Lui to the vet as his emo (self harming) ways resurface
...buying a dining table and chairs
...arranging vignettes on windowsills and dressers
...lighting the fire and blissing out
...reading



...(not crochet)
...(not organising my craft room)
...(not fixing the letterbox)
...(not fixing the leaky washing machine)
Oh well... perhaps next weekend...

Update in brief

THINGS THAT MAKE MOVING EASIER
-A note of welcome from the previous owner.
-Discovering that we have moved into a good, old fashioned, friendly, everyone-knows-your-name neighbourhood.

NEW HOUSE
-Moved in, half unpacked, half settled (feeling a little bit more 'homey' every day, and less like I am staying in someone else's house!)

NEW GARDEN
-Left beautifully weeded and dug over, with some silver beet and strawberries already established.
-My transient pot plant garden is being slowly moved to new homes... some of the winter veg went in on the weekend, the rest are waiting for me to have a spare 2 hours of daylight...
-Established fruit trees - cherry, blueberry, lemon and olive, plus blackberry canes and a giant rhubarb patch.
-Glasshouse - oh the possibilities...

LUI
-Took a good week to adjust to the house before we could even consider letting him outside.
-Spent a lot of time hiding under the bed.
-Ventured bravely out on Saturday, has made several brief visits since then, but still prefers to be an inside cat.

CROCHET
-Incomplete. Sadly. I haven't touched it since moving day :( I am now officially Out Of Time to finish by my deadline...

STUDIO
-Neglected. Full of the boxes I don't want to unpack yet and not much else.

INJURIES SUSTAINED WHILE BIKING TO WORK
-1 skinned knee
-1 scuffed shoe
-1 punctured tyre
(I am not a useless cyclist, I hasten to point out! I slipped off the pedals because the gears were out of whack from being stuffed in the boot, and I count the puncture as a blessing in disguise, because it poured with rain the next day and I was given a ride!)

UPCOMING PROJECTS
-Be the official photographer at my brother's wedding this weekend.
-Frantically re-read all the "How to be a wedding photographer" websites I have bookmarked.
-Get my computer unclogged enough that it can handle mass amounts of photographs.
-Clear some space in the studio so I can fit an air mattress on the floor.
-Sleep.

Winner!

I have a winner for the print of Sweet House and matching ATC! It's #51 - Danielle! Congratulations - I will be sending out the prize as soon as the madness of shifting house has subsided!

For now, it's all go. We got our key yesterday so I've steam cleaned the carpets, and we've shifted several carloads of boxes into the garage to be sorted into the house as soon as the carpets are dry. Today I'm shifting the garden (all the potted plants that is) which is sure to be back-breaking, especially since it rained hard yesterday and overnight and they'll all be full of water...

Before I go I want to say a big thank you to everyone who left a lovely comment on my giveaway post. Thanks for all the well-wishes for the new house! You are all welcome to come around for tea and lemon cake :) But now it's time for me to go and load some pots and boxes.

Mystery

Does it look like someone is going somewhere?

Or maybe someone is building a fort out of boxes!

Careful investigation is required.

Evidence = inconclusive.

Never mind - I have a clever hidey hole. They'll never find me here!...

...oh. Bugger.

Crochet update

Here's where I'm up to on the cardie right now. I've restarted since I last posted about it, though - it finally got big enough to try on, I tried it on, and... it was too small. I'd only done the bodice and armholes, so I gritted my teeth and restarted it in the next size up. It got big enough to try on again, I tried it on, and yay - it fits!

However. Yes, there is a however. My gauge is still not correct (in the excitement of it actually fitting I forgot to check this part) so, while it fits, my shells are a lot smaller than those in the pattern. That means I have to do more rows - many more - to get it to the right length, which I wanted longer than the original pattern in the first place. Which is where I'm at right now. I'm thinking two more repeats of the shell pattern might finally do it, and then I can start on the side/front patterning (more extra stitching will be required), and then the sleeves - I'm leaving them till last so it can be a sleeveless vest if I run out of time!

My deadline is March 1st. And I'm moving house this weekend. And I still have oodles of stuff to pack. And I've developed a cramp in my left hand which I'm worried will turn into RSI if I don't rest it, so I really need to take it easy on the crochet today.

*Breathe deep*

Still. It's going to be stunning when it's actually finished, isn't it?

Say yes!