Here comes the sun!

Labour weekend dawned grey and gloomy here in Palmy but fortunately the sun came out by Saturday afternoon.


It's been a fantastic weekend of gardening, although I managed to spend my entire fortnight's 'pocket money' all at the nursery again!  I wish I was a skilled cutting taker and seed sower.  Maybe I'd be able to save some money.  Ah well... maybe with time and practise those skills will develop.  I bought myself some cherry tomatoes, since my own germinated well but then succumbed to my neglect and either shriveled and died or grew lanky and thin and fell over.  I tried planting some of them out anyway but they don't seem to be doing ANYTHING poor things.  I guess it's back to planting lovely healthy seedlings raised at Oderings again.  I also bought baby leaf basil, which I fell in love with last year.  It grows into beautiful round bushes which look almost like topiary balls and make a lovely short hedge around the vegge patch or along the driveway.  It's delicious too with a real classic basil taste.


This afternoon I picked myself a few heads of Elderflower and had my first ever go at making Elderflower champagne.  All the garden magazines are going crazy for it and it seems really easy so why not?  I've got a beautiful pot of gorgeous looking white flowers and lemon chunks sitting decoratively on my kitchen bench waiting to ferment.  Photos to follow when I remember to collect my camera from work :)

A glorious riot of colour

There were a few disasters in the flower garden this year.  After a gorgeous spring display of cherry blossom last year I cheerfully pruned the 'overgrown' trees confident that they would be pretty, pink and compact this year... but it was not to be.  A simple rookie mistake.  I pruned them too late in the season and took off all the flowering wood so the cherry blossom has been minimal at best this year.

Thank goodness for drifts of delightful Forget-me-nots.  They hide a multitude of gardening sins :)

However, other things have made up for it... I planted as many daffodils as I could afford but was thrilled to discover that the previous owner could clearly afford far more than me!  I didn't have a garden full of every imaginable type of daffodil possible but there was plenty of variety that's for sure.

The freesias were lovely, especially the ones I bought on a whim and planted in clumps.  And what a delightful surprise some of them were.  Down our street a neighbour has some of the most beautiful tulips I've ever laid eyes on under a deciduous tree.  I covet them.  I feel an obsession with bulbs building.

I don't remember buying raspberry spotted freesias... but I'm sure glad this beauty turned up!

I thought my poor potted gerbera was a goner just a month ago.  I've recently discovered they're indoor plants... guess it didn't like being left outside over winter then!  I've moved it into the shaded patio area under the golden elms and it seems to like it there so far.

Cerinthe Major (Honeywort).  Just flowering now and its the first plant I've grown from seed all by myself! A proud moment when those petals appeared :)

The first fuschia blooms.  Here's hoping there'll be many more.

I love this lavender!  Yellow and purple is my favourite colour combination and I'm especially proud that I bought it as a throw away second and nursed it back to health.  Do I have green thumbs or what????


Aaaahhhh... spring.  It's completely glorious.

Here come the bugs

Summer is coming.  You can feel it everywhere.  The warm air, the warm rain, the warm ground.  The garden is growing at a rate of knots but life is never all rosy because here come the summer bugs!  My rose buds are about to burst forth and decorate my driveway garden with dazzling colour... if the aphids don't get them first.

And while admiring the fresh, lush new growth on my raspberries I came across the first caterpillar and first 'fluffy bum' of the season.  Grrrr ... I loathe fluffy bums!  My garden is packed full of flax and hydrangeas - both host plants for these annoying little critters (also commonly called Passionfruit hoppers).  I guess in a couple of days I'll have to get out there of an evening with my fly spray.  They absolutely decimated my hydrangea buds last season and stung all the new growth severely.  Not this year!

Fascinating!  I wondered why this Cineraria flower was covered in a writhing mass of ants.  On closer inspection I was able to see the 'aphid farms' that the ants were tending.  The ants 'farm' the aphids so that they can collect the honeydew they excrete - gross!

 A closer look at the aphid 'farms'.

The excitement builds!

Wandering around the gardening this morning got my heart a-fluttering as I noticed the very early beginnings of what will hopefully be a bountiful harvest this year.  The raspberries and blackberries have finally had a permanent home for a year now and have had a chance to set down good strong roots so for the first time they're suckering like mad.  The first flower buds are appearing too.  The strawberries are still flowering like crazy and there are tiny embryonic berries where some of the flowers have come and gone already.  The peas that self-seeded all over the garden last year are putting out a good early crop, which is delicious and just enough to snack on as I garden.  (Sadly, not nearly enough for me to share with Sam - oh well...).

The blueberries are looking sad.  They're supposed to be easy but I never seem to be very successful with them.

The first 2 asparagus pea pods!  I can't wait to have enough to cook with.  They are supposed to be an asparagus substitute (handy for people like me who haven't got a space in the garden to leave undisturbed for years in order to get an asparagus crop).  The red flowers are pretty and the plant fold it's leaves closed at night - fascinating!

Don't you love lettuce?  No fail plant.  Just drop the seed packet and they all sprout :)

The first alpine strawberries ripening... Umm... well, nearly the first.  Sam and I ate the first 2 yesterday.  They  are DELICIOUS!  I've ordered 15 more plants from TradeMe.

Self seeded peas growing happily with the sweet peas and the orange-berries

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The cranberries are fattening up beautifully.  Hope we beat the birds this year :)

An unspecified trailing berry that I picked up as a sick little sprout at a sale years ago.  I wonder if I'll get more than 2 berries off it this year?

My first ever potatoes are sprouting happily!