Help in the Garden

Like delphiniums in New Zealand, orchard trees don't get a lot of rest either.

It is now getting on for Mid July (equivalent northern hemisphere January) and the last leaves have only just left the apple trees. They in their turn only beat the plums, peaches and nectarines by a couple of weeks or so. I know, I've been waiting for them to fall so I can get on with pruning, which I started a few days ago.

Yesterday and again today I had the help of a really enthusiastic granddaughter Jessica (age 5 1/2). So far she is the only one of my natural offspring to show even the faintest interest in gardening. Our adopted daughter Nadeeka, who recently started an organic garden on her section in Cherrybrook, Sydney, much to my considerable delight, is still ahead on points though, but only just. Watch out Nadeeka! Jessica is coming!

As can be seen from the images, Jessica's help was indeed both real and very useful. She clipped branches, helped me saw large branches off and painted the wounds on the pruned branches. She then helped cart the prunings off.

Of course, to do the job properly you have to be dressed right. The fancy shirt is one of my work shirts. A really big thank you Jessica!

Winter here. Spring here too!

ne of the great things about growing delphiniums in New Zealand is that by the time they die back for winter they are ready to shoot up again for spring.

In the nursery last season's plants are looking quite dormant but the seedlings sown in April are potted up and powering into spring. Also, close inspection of last season's apparent dormant plants outside reveals tiny new leaves starting to break from the crowns too.

We are now past the shortest day by over two weeks and sunset is 10 minutes later than June 21st. Cool! I swear the quality of light is different too and I'm loving being out in it, pruning our fruit trees.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we will take our granddaughters out for morning tea at a garden centre, maybe bring my mother home for lunch (or include her in the morning tea) have our kids arrive (parents of our grandchildren come to collect them after a week) and enjoy what promises to be a sunny day.

Gotta get the winter oil on the fruit trees.

Cheers

Terry

School Holidays

We are looking after our grandchildren thisweekand today Janice and I took them to Kowhai Park which is simply the best kids playground in the country with lots of lovingly made items for children to play on and climb over.

We also walked to the top of the tower on Durrie Hill and took this image.

Day Off

We had a day off today.

Family

After dinner last night I suggested to Janice that we play hooky today. She agreed. We did. Instead of doing any work we just went out and enjoyed ourselves. First we both went into Wanganui to my Rotary club (well, not all mine) for breakfast at 7am, listened to the speaker telling us about best practice in hospital management systems, had a chat to our mates and then just set off, away, gone!

Hey! Where'd Janice go?

It was a fine, sunny day (except for Stratford which is always cloudy even when its sunny) and we simply drove up the west coast stopping at a couple of beaches we hadn't visited before, looking at a few shops, some scenery and stopping for morning tea and lunch on the way.

Mt Taranaki, a dormant volcano of around 2000 metres high, is a great sight to see when snow capped and without cloud. Unfortunately lack of cloud cover is something the mountain does not suffer from so we hardly saw it at all and even when we did it was not snow capped as this is the end of summer. we settled for looking at a lake and the beaches instead and went for a short walk.

After all that strenuous exercise we drove slowly back to Wanganui where we just had to check out the progress on the refurbishment of a restaurant in town. This restaurant has already had three incarnations since we've been here (ten years) and is now almost ready for a new life as an Italian restaurant. The new owner was out painting the entrance and window sills as was delighted to know he would have some customers once it opened, which he thinks will be in about 2 weeks (depending on a liquor licence and final decorative effects) . It certainly helps that he is Italian himself. It may be good.

I checked on the nursery while Janice rustled up some delicious dinner and we've had a lazy evening too.

Work

Nothing to report

Other

Nothing to report

And now - The diary Format

This is the new diary format, the latest ruse to get me into the blog again.

Nursery

This week we’ve been concentrating on setting up some trials under lights to see how our varieties respond to night-break lighting over winter. We have a number of good cut flower varieties and also some promising pot plant varieties that we want to evaluate. Our background in growing chrysanthemums many years ago means we still have the equipment to do this and some experience to draw on. We’ll also be conducting a small trial under lights with a heating regime.

The week has also seen the start of some major planning for next season.

Garden

Nothing much has happened this week as we’ve been busy on the nursery front. Janice has however completed her “French Rooster” quilt and the cleaning up work I did in the garden last week still looks good. I’ve still not pruned the Wedding Day rose. The grapes and apples are ready but the tomatoes won’t last long as they have the start of blight and I don’t want to spray them.

Family

Janice is well and very beautiful. I am well and as handsome as ever. Sarah is back into running, Emma had a hard week but is on the up and John is somewhere in Auckland.

Other

It looks like the barbeque I was planning for Sunday will be an indoor job as it may be cool and rainy with a breeze blowing in our faces – not a good look.

Images

I'm having problems moving images so I'll work on that next time

Christmas

Christmas has come and gone and so have our family.

We had a tremendous time. Emma came on Friday 18th and left two days later. Sarah, Chris, Aimee and Jessica arrived on Saturday 19th so had some time with Emma (who spent Christmas weekend with her partner Colin, and his family. Sarah and family stayed until 27th and so had time too with John who was with us from Christmas Eve until 27th. Both my parents who are in resthome (mum) and hospitalcare (dad) were with us for an extended Christmas Day lunch.

Janice who organises most social occasions did a remarkable job once again. I hung in for the ride and helped where I could and where I was allowed.

Here are a few images:

Bird feeders

The highlight of today was the making of bird seed cones that our grandchildren had seen on a tv programme and asked me to help them make.


Aimee and Jessica organised the whole thing getting us to buy the peanut butter and birdseed and collecting the pine cones which were nicely open after a spell of dry weather.


I tied the string to the cones, with the girl's help and they coated them with peanut butter. They got their hands very sticky and of course had to lick the peanut butter off.


They then rolled the cones in the bird seed.




















After this we hung them up on our trees and from the eaves of the garage.