Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Time to prepare the vegetable patches


Dad has been very busy working on clearing and digging over our vegetable garden this past week. The Winter here in Auckland was mild and Spring has arrived almost a month early, so the weeds have been growing fast and have taken over.

The large plants in the photo above are taller than me. They self-seeded here from last years wildflower bed that was located at the side of this vegetable bed. I didn't have the heart to dig them out because they have very pretty pink and white flowers. I have no idea what these plants are called. They will be left here until they finish flowering.


There is still a lot of clearing and digging to do. Plus dad is putting up a wire mesh fence around the vegetable garden to stop the rabbits, ducks and pukekoes from causing damage. The brassicas will also need netting to stop the cabbage white butterflies from demolishing them.


I have been sowing vegetable seeds in punnets over the last few days: kholrabi, cabbage, cucumber, sprouting broccoli, zucchini, pumpkin, celeriac and artichoke. Plus we have bought punnets of leeks, chives, cavolo nero, tomatoes and silverbeet. I also sorted out seeds to sow directly in the vegetable garden when it is completed.


We bought 4 large cloches on the weekend and have assembled 2 of them so far. I have put the punnets of vegetable seedlings in one and the other cloche contains the punnets with the seeds that I have sown.

The cloches are an experiment that I hope will work, to germinate and harden off seedlings. Fingers crossed.

See you again soon with more news.

Hugs

Rose x

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