This Sunday 1 November 2009 10-4pm is the Ohariu Valley Garden Ramble. Visit special gardens in the country but less than half an hour from Wellington. Refreshments available. Native plants and fresh produce for sale. $20 per person.
Now is the perfect time to sow seeds in Wellington. Once it stops snowing. Either outside or in pots. Beans, carrots, leeks, onions, lettuce, beetroot, turnips, radishes, fennel, herbs, silverbeet, spinach, zucchini, squash and cucumbers can all go in now. Make sure you have some protection ready for the wind and birds – it will make a big difference to their success. I sow corn either in the ground or in root trainers to get some long roots started. If you’re finding getting started a struggle despite a shelf full of gardening books, you’ll get the motivation you need on the fresh food garden course. We cover a great deal in a short time so you can apply it as soon as you get home. It’s amazing the difference one afternoon can make. Next course is Sunday 8 November 2009.
Get some defences in place for your strawberries if you want the birds to leave any for you. Mulch up your potatoes with seaweed and plant some more while the soil is still moist.
I was having trouble getting all the chicks back in their house so I could move it to a new area. Just at that moment the helicopter came over to spread lime. Within an instant Mum and her eleven charges had gone inside. Helicopter chick-herding may be an extreme solution but it worked a charm. Tess discovered Mabel’s nest in the garden and dispatched the nine eggs in it this week. Not sure if Mabel will be back to lay in the same place. Tess will certainly be keeping an eye out for her if she does.
We still enjoy our aging three-burner barbecue for outdoor cooking but I wonder whether our cooking would benefit from ‘Your Brick Oven: Building it and Baking in it’ now that summer is coming. I came across the book when I visited Maggie Beer’s property in South Australia. On a slightly different note, I can thoroughly recommend a charming children’s book I was recently introduced to called ‘The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business’. Toilet humour at its best.
