Lovely fine day – barely any wind and sunny most of the day. As a result, I spent rather more time just sitting on the deck in the sun than I should have done.
Caging: my berry garden. I stapled bird netting to the fence then draped it over some stakes, although I bought the wrong size stakes, so I will need to go back and get a few of the next size down.
Observing: the bird net gives the bumblebees a bit of trouble – they usually have to take a few tries to figure out how to get through it – but they still manage to get in and out to my raspberry flowers.
Planting: tomatoes (cherry red, sub-Arctic plenty – bought seedlings), Russian red (my own seedling), capsicum (bought seedlings, I’ve never had much success growing them from seed). I hoped that my own seedlings would be ready by now, but I’ve lost half of them to bad weather and snails.
Constructing: a windbreak for the tomatoes, which should also serve the dual purpose of stopping the blackbirds digging them up.
Buying: a cheap mini-greenhouse. I wanted to get something decent that would last, rather than junk that would only last a couple of seasons and then would be rubbish. But I got sick of my seedlings being destroyed by the wind. Now I have a little 4-shelf greenhouse with a plastic cover, tied very firmly to the deck.
Germinating: I have four asparagus seedlings. Finally. They are so tiny they are almost impossible to see. I hope this means that the snails can’t find them either.
Weeding: I pulled out some very large buttercups and erodiums. The asparagus bed needs to be remulched to slow down the weeds, but I need to wait until the seedlings are bigger.
Mixing: coffee grounds, chicken manure, cocoa husks, comfrey and random food scraps in my compost bin. I should have some more ready in a few weeks, but the lot I put in the bin today won’t be any use for a few months.
Eating: celery, radishes, miner’s lettuce and the last of the silverbeet. Fortunatly my next lot of silverbeet will be ready very soon.
Not far off: broad beans, and a couple of peas that germinated out of the pea straw. Some of the strawberries are also nearly at full size.
