Monday, April 1, 2024

Happy Easter 2024!

 I am having a lovely relaxing Easter holiday this year. On Good Friday we celebrated with hot cross buns after dinner. They were yummy. 

Then on Easter Sunday, mum, dad and I went to my sister's for the afternoon. She made a delicious Easter meal of succulent roast lamb cooked with red capsicums and aubergines. This was served with crispy roast vegetables (kumara and potatoes) and green vegetables (runner beans and sprouting broccoli).

I took nibbles to start the meal with, which included; hummus and toasted pita bread triangles, hot smoked salmon crostini, olives and cream cheese stuffed pepperdews. 

My brother brought a cheese board and crackers, and my sister's friends made a Limoncello trifle and a raspberry-filled Bakewell cake.

Today I spent a lot of my time in the garden dead-heading hebes, then pruning back the osteospermums. They had become leggy and had lots of new leaves at the base of the stems.  I also watered the yellow cherry-guava tree which is full of fruit. I have harvested a few kilos so far and there is plenty of new fruit starting to ripen.

The blueberries have finished fruiting now that it is Autumn. I really enjoyed picking the blueberries to go with my breakfast of yoghurt and granola every day. And I also made blueberry muffins.

Last week dad and I went to the garden centre and bought lots of plants for inside the house and for the garden. 

For the house we got a purple-blue double African violet, and a burgundy coloured single one. Miniature cyclamens, white, pink and red. Plus a red gerbera. For outdoors we bought a yellow abutilon (Chinese lantern) bush.

We also have two different penstemons to plant, geraniums, canna lilies, fuchsias, a red and a yellow carpet rose and red monarda (bee balm).

Then there are the Spring bulbs to plant; anemones, ranunculi, bluebells and freesias.

Dad is gradually preparing flower beds. It is hard work to dig because the soil is very dry and rock hard. Some areas are black clay and others grey, sandy and gravelly. There are no worms to be seen. We will need to add a lot of compost. 

The arborist that trimmed our trees and hedges, said he would give us mulch and deliver it to us for free if we like. We need to figure out where he can dump the mulch load and where we can store it while it ages.

We didn't have much luck with our peach, apple and pear harvest. A lot of the fruit started rotting on the trees. We managed to pick some slightly ripe apples and pears before this happened though. The arborist said that the trees are old, neglected and diseased. The quince tree is on its last legs and needs to be removed.

The apricot tree didn't flower at all. And the black Doris plum tree, which had masses of blossom in Spring, didn't set any fruit. But it did look wonderful! 

There are not many fruit forming on the feijoa tree. Dad has fed and watered it, but ideally the tree should have been planted in a sunny spot. We have plenty of figs though and I managed to pick the grand total of ten raspberries! 

It was too dry for the boysenberries this year. We didn't know if we had enough water to spare in our tanks as it is our first year of living here. But we have worked out that we should have enough water for the garden next year.

Gardening in a new place is a steep learning curve for us :o) 

I hope that you are having a wonderful time this Easter.

Hugs, Rose xxx

12 comments:

  1. You had a lovely time with family and friends.
    Your soil conditions sound very trying.

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    1. Hi, thanks for your comment. It was a lovely Easter :o) I was in despair about our soil, but we tell ourselves that it can only get better. Just a lot of hard work. Fingers crossed that the plants we bought will be happy here. Hugs, Rose x

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  2. It sounds like you had a lovely Easter with your family and everybody bringing something to share is lovely.
    It always takes time to get used to a new garden and hopefully you can find new plants that will grow in the conditions you have. We once lived in a place where the garden was so wet that you could probably have grown rice and a good water cress crop. The plants I chose to grow in those conditions loved it and thrived. Good luck with your garden.

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    1. Hi Beverley, thank you very much. It's going to be a matter of trial and error for me with my garden and shifting new plants around until I find the right spot for them. There are so many different shade, soil and moisture conditions. Last year part of the garden flooded in the cyclone we had, and it took ages to dry up. I can't imagine gardening in a wet garden like you did, it must have been really pretty.
      Easter was lovely. We always split the responsibilities of cooking so everyone can relax and enjoy themselves. Hugs, Rose x

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  3. I have to say your dinner sounds wonderful, oh my! And I forgot that it's autumn there...the weather her has been so strange here - we had hail last week, which we haven't had in years. It snows, then it's hot, then it rains...very odd. I'm sorry to hear about your fruit trees...since you just moved in, maybe they've been neglected in the past and just need a little time and attention, A couple years ago our apple trees had so many apples, the branches were bending. Then the next year, nothing. Last year they bounced back again...maybe it has to do with the weather?? I'm sure you can make them thrive...it's obvious you love the gardens!

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    1. Hi Mary, your spring weather sounds really mixed up! We don't get snow where I live, but we do get the occasional hailstorm in winter and spring. At the moment our daytime temperatures are around 20 to 22 degrees Celcius, so I am still wearing T-shirts and going barefoot in the garden.
      It looks like all of our trees were neglected in the past. The ones that had been pruned were done badly, according to the arborist who came to trim our hedges and some of the trees. He said that some trees had been weakened by the way that they were cut in the past.
      Your apple trees sound wonderful. I did read, somewhere online, that if there are too many apples on a tree one year, then the next year they won't crop, and the way to prevent this from happening is to cull some of the heavily fruiting apples while they are forming. But I would hate to do this in case I lost all the apples!
      You are correct about me loving the gardens. I just need more flowers :o) We have got mainly trees and shrubs with not much flowering during the summer months. I didn't want to touch the gardens for a year so I could see what would come up. In a lot of places nothing came up at all, not even weeds, just bare soil, and we lost a few large shrubs along one fence line including two lovely camelias. The arborist couldn't tell us why this happened, but maybe something toxic was in the flood water? Here's to hoping things will improve next year. Hugs, Rose x

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  4. Hi Rose. Your Easter celebration sounds so lovely with your family along with such delicious sounding food. I've never had a hot cross bun, but I imagine I would thoroughly enjoy it! Sadly my mom became ill at the beginning of this year and passed away a little over three weeks ago. Our Easter was much different this year without her as it was also her favorite holiday. We tried to make the most of the holiday, but I really missed having her here as you can imagine. She is dearly missed, but I know she's no longer suffering and she's happy and healthy again and smiling down on me.

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    1. Hi Julia, I am so sorry to hear your sad news about your mum. My thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time. It is good that you managed to celebrate Easter still, especially that it was your mother's favourite holiday. I am sure she is smiling down on you. Hugs and lots of love, Rose x

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  5. Bonjour Rose,

    It seems you have had a lovely Easter with your family. You have a lot of different fruits and vegetables in your garden. You must enjoy it very much.
    I wish you a nice end of the week.
    Hélène

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    1. Hi Helene, thank you. I am having a lovely, quiet and restful weekend, and enjoying our garden a lot. Easter was fun and I ate too much chocolate as usual! I hope that you have a wonderful weekend too. Hugs, Rose x

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  6. Eatser is a lovely time of year! Now I'm longing for Springtime...
    Love from Titti

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    1. Hi Titti, I hope that your Springtime arrives very soon. It is one of my favourite seasons! It is Autumn here and the plants in the garden are very confused. I have Spring flower bulbs sprouting already and my blueberries have some blossom on the bushes. Love from Rose x

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