Sorry, No More Regular Posts.

My dear readers, 

Well I tried to continue  for a bit longer but I have finally decided to quit regular blogging after 8 1/2 years.  I have read a lot of blogs where writers have just stopped with no announcement, but that's not my way. 

 

Some of you have been with me since day one, through all the trials and tribulations, overseas holidays, garden changes, illness, hobbies, even I am amazed at what I have accomplished and pushed through, as I have read back old write ups. 

Thank you to my 14 followers and 17 who are on an email list (but only 10 opened the actual email, this month, this is pretty normal.)

I roughly get between 25 to 50 hits on average per subject, it depends on the subject and google search, some readers will read 2 or 3 or more at a time as well. Occasionally some posts just take off like the Homemakers Forum  at 2764 hits, over time...Why??? if all were like that I probably wouldn't stop lol.

30 readers looked at last month about the October Garden Roundup, but in that time during the month, 310 looked at something on the blog. Could have only been several readers, looking at other subjects or actual 200 or more individual readers. 

It is amazing at the plethora of subjects investigated with no rhyme or reason. Some months it could be 700 or more, so I guess google is part of that. These numbers are very, very,  small compared to popular blogs.

They say getting rid of the old ways leaves room for something new and hopefully exciting, I hope so.

 I am also stepping down as moderator from the homemakers forum, later this month, which I helped from the beginning 7 years ago. Time for someone new with fresh ideas.

 

The garden is going great which is so unusual, for by this time of the year, as it is usually very hot and I close it down till Feb/March, but I just planted bean seeds, and picking all the salad veg. still, which is lovely.

 

Lots of small vases of flowers from roses, snapdragons to a large vases of hydrangeas, especially my white ones, have been picked twice a week. This year I planted a lot of flowers amongst the vegetables and it certainly spruces things up.

We have had 3 attempts to try and get landscape people to tidy the back yard, the last one saying 3 guys could easily do it, seemed keen with suggestions etc., to then tell us by SMS that he is booked out all of 2024!!!!!

I don't get it, we were in our 60s, when with the help of 2 young guys, did it all.

 

With all the nice rain, followed by warm weather the weeds are outdoing me, so I have encouraged John to organize the concrete landscapers at the bottom of our street, to do the driveway, entrance path and side paths in fancy stone embedded concrete. 

They are all paved that John originally did in the 1980s, and with the weeds coming up between, and left for too long, just getting too hard, and so untidy. John has sprayed them with chemicals this week,  but my garden is organic, so only the driveway and one side path was done. 

We saw the concreter's wife last Wednesday, who does the quotes and books. They are the same people who did the concrete for the community gardens, and I cannot see any problem in this being done and at least it will be a start. 

Thank you for all those who have commented over the years, and sticking with me. I may do a few updates over time if something exciting happens, like the concreting, or a major holiday, but it will be random. Basically every year in the garden is roughly the same so plenty to re read.

Enjoy your 2023 Christmas with hopefully your families, and if taking holidays for a  break. I think it is going to be a fairly quiet Christmas here, as far as I know two of the children will stay here about 5 days, and I have put out a limited amount of decorations, so that means a small amount to put away, not like the old days when the kids would help.

Time to pick some rhubarb.

I am looking forward to 2024, our youngest daughter and husband will be coming home from the USA in April for 2 weeks, we haven't seen them since 2019. 

I will do more decluttering, a little bit of door painting in the kitchen pantry, more art, embroidery, knitting, crotchet, quilting, scrapbooking projects, and the never ending gardening.

Life is always busy.

May 2024 for you be filled with many blessings,

 Happy New Year........... Chris 👋

 

 

 

 

 

October 2023 Garden Roundup

After such a dry winter, with the tanks at the Community Garden running out of water, the weather was still making it possible to enjoy a lovely Spring, today  like yesterday, it is pouring rain, and looks like it will be raining most of the week. The Community Garden of course are very pleased as all their tanks and containers would be full by now.  The 2nd. 10,000 litre load of water to be delivered at $250 mark was cancelled, a great relief on John's part as the first one only lasted a month. 

 

The council though ,finally installed the water connection, last Friday, so that the Garden can now have a water main and several taps around the acre to water from, once the plumber is hired. John once more has been elected President and Treasurer at last months AGM 5th year in a row. I was hoping he would  not take it on, and be home more, but as usual he is out nearly every day, reminds me of the old days when he was teaching full time. I am definitely missing the company of Einstein and Cricket these days.

I planted two Hollyhocks from my best friends seeds in Melbourne and both have put on quite a show, the flowers are just starting to drop off now, but have been very impressive. Certainly I will save these seeds. This plant is on the boundary line for all to see.

 I braved today's rain to take some pictures of the garden now. Quite a few plants are ready to pull out, the Pink Lady sweetpeas are gone, and the broccoli, celery, coriander, some alysum, and snapdragons are also ready for the compost bin.

The area I see from the verandah.

 The recent plantings are some lettuce and some french beans. I am usually the only one eating from the garden now, John likes his frozen microwave meals he can eat in front of the computer. Consequently there is usually way too much for me so I have had to freeze some.

Mizuna going to seed and a struggling Kale under the cover, White Cabbage Moth have been a problem. The lettuce is loving this rain though.

Yet another lot of french beans the 3rd try this time in a different bed.

I did plant some more beans yesterday,  the 3rd lot of seedlings, as to date they have been eaten by slugs or pulled out by birds, or so far this morning they are still intact, as I did change garden beds this time.

This end is cucumber, carrots Parsley and Basil

Two Zucchinni ,wild tomatoes and  beetroot in the middle of this bed.

The Blueberry and Rhubarb buried by Coriander and Paper Daisies plus Alyssum.

 One thing that has been amazing is the cherry tomatoes. I have picked so many and thrown out lots as I just can't keep up. I have also sent them to the Community Gardens where they sell well. Seedlings of course have been through out the garden like weeds.

Yellow Cherry

Yellow Cherry Toms are my favorite and this hangs on both sides of the fence, and more rhubarb in this bed. They grew wild but handy to have the fence to throw the long stems over.

Red cherries again both sides and overtaking a passionfruit underneath.

I moved a plant stand to the front of the verandah as it gets the morning sun and now some of  the rain and mist. It is a great spot for my cuttings and seedling trays.

Finally some nature pictures

Where I park my car this bush is on the dividing line so watch this lorikeet eating the flowers, from the car.

A baby water dragon finding its way to the verandah.

 And Finally, 

Kookaburra just resting on the fence for ages.

 

 Till Next Time.

Bowral Tulip Festival

 We have been on holiday and spent two days to see the Tulips in the CWA Park at Bowral in the Southern Highlands, known as Corbett  Gardens. The weather was quite cool compared to our local heat which was nice for me. I love this area full of old world style homes and lots of cherry trees, big fir hedges, plants that I  love to grow here are so much better in the cooler climate. 

  What was different to the last time we were here is the tents around the outside edge selling things. I don't know if this is good or bad but I did buy some local honey and also 2 geraniums from 2 different stallholders. There were soaps, 2nd hand clothes, candles, and food stalls that I remember, as I didn't take much notice of them. 

School Bands played in the bandstand with all the mums and dads gathered around them.

The children from several local schools played music, starting with the younger ones and working up to 6th grade and very good players in the bands. I must say their music programmes of teaching are proving great results from what we heard.

Parsley between tulips in this bed I found fascinating.

Loved this corner was so bright.

Quite a few fancy tulips as well.

We rushed back to stay at our local resort, for a week which was going begging via our youngest daughter. I spent the week doing some scrapbooking plus art and just relaxing as had a busy month pruning hedges, pressure cleaning and decluttering, another 4 boxes have gone. John worked on his car at home and Community Garden during the day.

My view of the river, thru the wire screened verandah.

I noticed a lot of changes in my own garden when I got back last Friday. The sweet peas are going to seed, should anyone want some, I will post. email chrisahig@yahoo.com.au and let me know. 

These roses are just starting to die off so I missed the full glory of them.

Pierre De Ronsard doing well.

The Blueberry garden, over run with Alyssum, Snap Dragon, Paper Daisies, yellow Coreopsis, Coriander

The Paper Daisies are out, all over ranging from Burgandy, pink yellow orange, as are the Hippeastrums, Lots of vegetables gone to seed, so plenty of work to clean it all up and start again. I was hoping the beans would come up while I was away but have to try that again and also carrot seeds. I will sometime this week pick all the carrots and freeze them. One cucumber has taken off and I need to put in a zucchini plus more lettuce. 

Yesterday I picked 9 cabbages, all full of slugs and ended up preserving 7 bottles of Chow Mein, using 5 of them so today will do some more. 

The backyard we are waiting on a quote, but it has been over 2 weeks now, so will have to chase this up. He did sound keen at the time. 

So as you are all caught up, 

 

Till Next Time.

Spring has arrived

Another month has gone and I think time is speeding up too fast. I have been busy in the garden of course, and it is looking lovely at the moment, I have managed to do some weeding and mulching. The flowers are all out, vegetables growing and well Spring is definitely here.

Side garden

Current Lettuce/Parsley, Celery bed I pick daily for lunch.

Sweet peas have been producing so much that I have been sending them to the Community garden in bunches of 20 and they have all been selling. This weekend is a big Plant Sale they hold twice a year and have sent in 6 bunches this time plus 2 of Rhubarb, 2 lots of single Kale, 4 x 6 Cherry Tomato punnets, and 4 of single Basil. Happy to say they all sold yesterday, so picked another couple of bunches of one sweet peas and they other yellow coreopsis for today.

Change of colour for sweet peas

An interesting effect has happened to 3 branches of sweet peas that now have a mottled pattern, so I have tied a ribbon to the branches so that when the seeds are formed I can grow that colour. 

I picked up a couple of plants from Bunnings this week and yet to plant them. They will go down the back. John has finished the beds and are full of good soil mixture. 

Liked the brightness of these daisies and carnations remind me of my wedding bouquet.

Kalanchoe lots of new varieties I hadn't seen when I was there last week. 

The Community garden has also finally transferred the container from our son's house and is now waiting for a crane to lift it into its proper space. This will be part office and part storage. 

A roof will be joining that tanks and the container, which allows for a seat area between the tanks. 

Tank got this far

Arial view of where it will go.

There has been quite a few new members this year, and all seem to want a garden bed to hire so John has been building  beds in a new area for this. There has been a lot of public events, and this has come to the notice of everyone. The garden is always looking neat and tidy and a credit to the workers there. 

 On the other hand we are waiting for a landscape gardener to come, he is so busy we had to make a booking, to give us a quote for the artificial grass out back plus maybe the gazebo roof, and pool renovation, fingers crossed for that. John has more or less finished.

There is now three smaller beds at sitting height filled with cow manure/mushroom compost., currently covered to keep the bush turkeys from scraping it all up. A couple piles of dirt have been left in case it is used for the base. Whether the paving will go I am not sure yet.

I will probably plant bush beans and maybe a cucumber vine and brightly coloured flowers so I can see easily from the verandah. There are still 3 long flower pots behind the RHS middle bed. The Pottery flower pots I will arrange somewhere together I think, and  also paint the fence again, most likely the grey. Maybe also a couple of hanging baskets off them as well. 

 

 One last look at the front garden.

 

New roses I have picked for this week.

 

Till Next Time .