Sunday, July 20, 2008

Nodeless

Late this afternoon was a node day. When we should rest and not work with plants or the land. I found out this evening in my Organics NZ magazine. Which was rather late but probably would have fallen on deaf ears.

Because.

Late this afternoon (after another trip to the local garden nursery) while Favourite Handyman continued his marvellous work on the poultry palace, I laid out Red Rascal potatoes in the shed to help them sprout. I sowed three peas. Just three because I had an idea that the moon was in the wrong place and I've been thinking lunarly-ish, especially after discovering Gillybean's fabulous gardening blog, where she is mindful of the moon and it's gardening influences. It's also pretty wet and still rather cool here so plenty of time to try a few more seeds each week or so. I stuck an old bottomless fizzy bottle over them to warm it a bit and also to ward off slugs. We have a minimum of 3897 slugs on our property at any one time and I am looking forward to feeding them to our chooks when they arrive.

I added some more gaffer tape to the plastic on my mini tunnel house experiment. We are getting lots of wind at the moment and so a good learning curve on how to keep it all on the ground and protecting the plants adequately.

I sowed seeds of rocket and mesclun salad mix into a rectangular pot and popped them on the windowsill in the kitchen. I moved one coriander plant to the porch - will it be tough enough to survive?

I found signs of onion germination - I sowed some 3-4 days ago. More sprouts of white Welsh bunching onions showing but some of the red Brunswick ones as well.

Favourite Handyman and I walked about our estate (hahaha, squelched along five metres together) and discussed what we need to do to improve wind shelter. Last Summer he fixed the fence on the eastern boundary (neighbouring landlord provided materials and FH provided the labour) and the state of the fence on the western boundary is looking rather dismal and in need of work. Once that is done, then the running boards will be strong enough to attach taller windbreak cloth above the fence. As for the neighbours who opened up the worst wind access by pulling out lovely well established shrubs and trees and since then leaving it turned up and unloved... I've got my fingers crossed that they find some tree love sometime. Meanwhile, we'll have to look at some windshelter cloth for that spot as well. Eventually the two cabbage trees which we planted will provide shelter there.

1 comment:

Nik said...

I haven't yet investigated planting by the moon - I must dig out my old pile of Organic NZ mags and read up on it (and check out that blog link you put up). Hopefully my seedlings I transplanted today will survive anyway lol.