Big day in the garden

Firstly, compost. A good day in my garden almost always involves compost. Brighid and I went down to the beach and collected a bucket and a box full of pine needles. Then we grabbed a suitable log from the beach for a garden project. Lots of lots of logs wash up on our beach, especially in the stormy weather we've had lately.

Back home I layered the pine needles and wood ash from the fire in one corner where I am building a wee compost heap in readiness to grow pumpkins on it in Summer. I also used some wood ash and pine needles to create another garden patch. It is the patch I had initially thought of for the asparagus as it is in one of the higher spots on our section so should offer good drainage. But I didn't prepare it in time for asparagus and I've since thought that the perennial weed free requirement of an asparagus patch means an older garden patch would be more suitable for those gorgeous green spears.

The latest garden patch does not yet have a name but it does have four sides marked by wood I've collected from the beach or been gifted by friends leaving town. I have buried bokashi in it and then layered pine needles and wood ash on top and then pea straw on top of that. I'm not sure what will go in it but there are many, too many, contenders competing for the spot in my head.

I am considering using the new patch for medicinal herbs, as I figure I don't need them super close to the house (and I had such trouble squeezing them into my last garden plan that I had to knock heaps of them off my seed ordering list). I am moving, or have moved, my culinary herbs to the garden closest to the kitchen door.

Or I could put a bush tomato and basil and other companions to tomatoes in it. Now that I've made more garden space out the front, I don't feel the need to give this new garden over to pumpkins or zucchini.

Next up, the chook home. The shelter part is all built and fabulous and today Favourite Handyman was working on the run part. Unfortunately the alkathene pipe turned out not to be strong enough for his initial plans. Have to try something else. I felt his pain and decided to go buy him some beer as a treat/solace.

When I left he was considering turning the pipe lengths into mini tunnel houses and when I got back he had made one for my January raised bed. It looks fabulous to me. Just need to buy some plastic now. My goal with this one (and we may make others yet) is to improve warmth in Spring and Autumn and give a growth boost to plants we would grow anyway. When we get the big glass house built not this summer but hopefully the one after, I'll start playing round with capsicums and chilli peppers and the like then.

I pruned as much as the secataurs would allow me off an ugly fern at the front of the house and threw the leaves over one of my compost projects as mulch. I'd like to dig it out but it looks like two dwarf trees are very well established there and they may not give up without a fight. The photo below is before I got cutting.

Then Favourite Handyman pulled out the posts and windcloth from the dead lemon tree and used it to start off the shelter fence which I'd asked for at the front of the house. The afternoon sun is good there but in order for my pumpkins and zucchinis to do well out there, we need quite a bit of shelter from the wind ripping in off the sea.

To top off a fabulous day, we all went down to the beach just before dusk and played in the foam which the surf had brought up. I am grateful for this wonderful life.