Seasonal Change in the Garden

The garden is looking scrappy. This is a polite way of saying that it looks a total mess! Being the end of summer here, everything is getting a bit sad. As I've been busy on Practicum for the better part of a month, the garden has also been somewhat neglected...adding to the general disarray.

The 'Top Garden' as I call it (the highest one that holds vegetables) - the tomatoes are done, and need to come out.

Yesterday Boyo and I made a small start on the big autumn tidy up. I pulled up the Borlotti Beans and shelled them, sitting on the garden wall. He dug up the climbing beans (a task I decided was too much for this preggy to manage). Mum is planning on tackling the main tomatoes in the Top Garden. Over the next couple of weeks, Boyo and I will hopefully then dig in some blood and bone plus a generous dose of sheep pellets so the garden is ready for Dad to move the strawberry plants into it. Once he has done that, the bed they have been in will need a similar treatment, before being ready to plant some winter salad greens under the cloche.

Have you ever noticed that there seems to be specific times of the year that gardening is hard work? I seem to recall early spring being similarly filled with digging, manuring, more digging, planting, and more digging. I guess that's all just part of the seasonal aspects of gardening, particularly as we grow year round in Tauranga. I was hoping to go out and collect fallen autumn leaves for the garden over the next 2 months. Sadly, I might have to give that idea up, my maneouverablity becoming more and more limited by the week. I have thought about bribing Boyo and/or my parents into collecting some. I still might, but I suspect it will take all our combined efforts just to prepare the garden beds around our other various commitments.

A mid summer planting in the 'Feijoa Garden' (closest to the feijoa tree) of broccoli, lettuce and pak choy has been growing well despite white butterfly attacks. I have seedlings just started for another plant once the other garden beds are ready.

It will be nice seeing the garden all tidied up and ready for our winter harvests. I am certainly looking forward to that. What have you been up to in the garden lately?

Amy