August is a busy time in the garden. We have been pruning trees and shrubs that blocked valuable sunlight last summer from the lawn and vegetable garden. The last of the roses have been cut back and weeds are starting to appear thick and fast.
The work re-laying the vegetable garden is pretty much finished, I just need to find a use for the old garden edging that is cluttering the fence line. Seeds are being sown to get a head on spring, today Luke and I planted spinach, silverbeet, lettuce and tomatoes. The leafy greens have gone into our handy little grow house and the tomatoes (called Big Red) are going to get started on the sunny kitchen window sill.
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| Flower hut - a good use of pruning till we get time to cut them down for the wood heap |
Over the weekend we cut down one of biggest camellias from about 8 metres tall to just over 1.5 metres. It was the biggest culprit for blocking morning sun in the vege patch. If it survives the rather brutal attack we made on it, it should bush out nicely to make a nice wind break for the lemon tree. I made a little hut for the kids with the branches - lots of fun.
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| Recycled pallets make an excellent compost system |
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| Vegetable garden coming along nicely - so happy to have more space! |
I've recently planted out loads of leeks and spring onions in the new vege garden. I used an upturned rake handle as a dibble for planting the leeks (a dibble makes a hole, around 10cm deep, to drop leeks into - the extra depth gives nice white stems). To plant nearly 80 spring onions in just 20 minutes I used a garden fork. I pushed the prongs about 10cm down and gently rolled the fork around till the holes we're 2cm across. Using the fork gave me 4 evenly spaced holes at a time. Then with the help of a pencil I pushed the seedlings and their roots into the holes. The is no need to cover the seedlings, a good water drops enough soil in to cover the roots. Eventually the hole is filled while watering and stems covered for soft white growth under ground.
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| View from the lounge door - a lot tidier than last year |
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| My little helper in the garden -the broad beans will out grow him soon |
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| Parsley happily growing in the shadow of the broad beans |
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| I can see lots of bees in the garden at the moment - I'm sure they'll visit my broad beans - they smell amazing. |
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| My Red Sprouting Broccoli has been going strong all winter |
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| Pretty much zero maintenance flowers have appeared again - Euphorbia |
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