Alison's Garden Blog

Still not confident that I would actually get a lot of time to garden and seeing how much needed doing outside I decided I would focus my attention onto the vege patch first aiming to have a productive patch this summer.  After all if I could have strawberries for the littlies to munch on and salad greens for our lunches I would achieve some very noticeable results and easily validate the time spent out there.  Considering the outrageous prices we have been paying in the supermarket lately for fruit and vege (tomatoes have been up to $8 a kilo!) even getting lettuce and tomatoes growing would be good. 

So out I went, gumboots on and weeding tub in hand.  My daughter came with me while hubby stayed indoors with our son.  We had a ball.  With the patch completely overgrown with lush green weeds the work was relatively easy.  Large handfuls of plucked weeds quickly filled the tub which was then emptied into the compost bin.  As the plot was cleared my daughter entertained herself with my trowel and hand fork.  She carefully dug the dirt then, with intense concentration and two unsteady hands transferred it from one heaped mound to another.   I was sitting there for a minute just watching her when I heard hubby speak from the deck, ‘whatcha doing?’

‘Me?’ I replied, ‘well, I’ve grown some great weeds for the compost bin.  I feel like I’m harvesting a crop, a winter crop of compost!’

I discovered a Rhubarb plant and two Silverbeet plants nestled amoungst the weeds.  Silverbeet grows like a weed in Auckland.  I reckon everyone has it in there garden and yet there’s not much you can do with it.  I do make a delicious silverbeet and cottage cheese lasagne but that’s it.  I can’t give the stuff away.

I also had six strawberry plants growing in an old tyre.  I had been told they were great for warming the roots and the berries grow over the side staying free from the soil.  They were soon lifted and divided.  With fresh compost dug in I soon ran out of space so now we have strawberries in the tyre and in the main plot.  While working on them they had a stern talking to as last year we got nothing but a few sad excuses for berries from them.  This year if they don’t produce they are coming out.  But to give them a fighting chance I composted them well and a week later hubby gave them a feed of blood and bone.

So after my first visit back into the vege patch I had the plot cleared out and dug over and the strawberries sorted.  Next visit will be the hot house…..

About six weeks ago we started to get the odd sunny day that heralded the arrival of spring and my inclination to start getting out and sorting the garden began. 

Now my son still has a morning and afternoon nap giving me two opportunities to garden and my daughter is now old enough (two ½ years) to play alongside me without a constant eye on her.  So for the first time in three years I could see a possibility of actually achieving my gardening goals.

Hooray!  Maybe I could actually start doing something for me.  Just me.  Something that I get pleasure from, a sense of achievement from and something that others can see the results of. 

One difficult thing about having an enjoyment of creative writing is that people know I do it, hubby even sees me toiling away but all I seem to end up with is a bottom draw full of stories that are precious to me and little acknowledgment.  Hence the starting of this blog where I can combine two loves, gardening and writing.  I hope to have a lovely garden, a few stories to show off and see a response to my work.

After spending the last three years either being pregnant or caring for newborns my garden has gone to rack and ruin. 

My garden, I see it as three gardens on the one section.  The Front Garden consisting of the driveway with two large raised flowerbeds and small patch of lawn.  The Vege Patch including a small hot house that is so hot it is difficult to get anything to produce in there and The Back Garden originally containing a large swimming pool, a few fruit trees and a large area of natives mass planted at the far end.

I had rampant kikuyu grass competing with overgrown marguerite daisies throughout both front flower beds, a winter crop of weeds in the vege patch and after my darling hubby had taken the swimming pool and associated decking out last summer a large lawn of weeds and overgrown ‘bush’ out the back.

Over the last couple of months I have managed to get outside a few times and began a massive clear out and clean up.  This has motivated me and now that summer is here and I’m am determined to get more gardening time and hope to have welcoming front flower beds, a vege patch producing salads and a back garden for the children to play in.  Let’s see what happens ……