More garden goings on.

Tony and I took an extra day off this weekend and spent Friday together. We took an hours drive to Ashburton, where I would usually visit Annies Country Quilts. But not this time, this time we were out to look at garden stuff. We did make a couple of purchases, the most exciting of which is a candy cane capsicum!  It's only a tiny plant at the moment, but hopefully later in the simmer I will have pretty fruits to show you. 

On Saturday we applied ourselves to actually doing some gardening. This thin shady bed was a mess of weeds and old bark chip mulch. We have tried in the past to get it going with something a little prettier, but with little success. After some advice from a lovely helpful lady at a local garden centre Tony got stuck in with his shovel and removed several inches of bark, weeds and soil, then we applied a weed suppressing membrane. I know some gardeners will be horrified by that, but it's our garden! 

 It will not remain as bare black plastic, we have already planted a beautiful sweet scented Daphne who, we are assured will love her shady corner.

 And two feijoa trees. 

We plan to add a good thick layer of fresh bark chips, a large ornament of some kind and a few planters with something colourful in there too.

So while Tony was busy with the diggy, diggy, I was weeding in the lower bed and on the opposite side of the path. It now looks much more presentable. We plan to give this bed the same treatment in time, although I'll have to figure out what to do with all the bulbs that are in there. Fish them out as we dig, then into pots and tubs I guess. 

As you can see, it is still very early in the season, the daffs and winter roses are still going strong.

My fairy didn't mind the NZ winter and kept company with her pal the kiwi amid the weeds.

After Saturdays exertions, Tony especially didn't want to go back into the garden on Sunday, but it was a much cooler day and I managed to convince him it was a good day to get the veggies in.

The brocolli, cauli and cabbage are in the bed with the green net over it, there is room in there for more. Good thing too as my little garden from the supermarket is all starting to show signs of life and I'll need somewhere to plant it all! 

In the closer bed, under the black bird cloth I have spring onion, celery, beans, beetroot and raddish.

We both agreed that it felt good the get that done.

While we were busy working there I was looking into the flower bed on the other side of the green mesh, I could see that the huge winter rose I had inherited with the garden has put out a bunch of babies and is showing signs of spreading and covering the ground below the cherry tree.

Last year I had transplanted some winter rose seedlings into the same area and they are also looking good and thriving.  That was good to see. Hopefully we get a good dry summer and will be able to get outside and keep things a little tidier this year. 

We still have a third veggie bed to plant, and plan to fill it with sweetcorn. I'll need to go buy some seed. 

So that's the gardening news. On the craft front....

I really still haven't done a great amount. I managed a couple of hours with M'Lady, a few rows of crochet and I took up a pair of pants.  Not much at all really.

Maybe this afternoon I can achieve something.

But first, I'll be making cheese and herb scones, with fresh homegrown herbs.