A pot of daisies at the back door – pretty!

I should go and stand in the naughty corner as I missed my blog post last week, but I have a good excuse .. I have a very good friend staying with me.

Lovely almond blossom

There is so much happening in the garden – easy to see that spring is just around the corner. Some of our peaches and plums are covered in blossom as is the almond tree .. which is a mass of white petals. Plus my insectary was buzzing away merrily the other day, with loads of very happy bees enjoying some tucker from the echium flowers (purple of course).

Black Doris plum …

We still haven’t finished pruning the olives which is a pain, as we have the feijoas to do also. First fine day and I’ll be at them.

I have only a couple more pears to prune which is brilliant. One of my graft pears had a couple of crossed branches, so rather than snip one of them off, I weighted it down with an old pair of tights (that’s recycling for you) and a 2-litre plastic milk bottle full of water. Sounds like madness, but it works!

Garlic growing nicely. I still haven’t hoisted out the calendula

Those alliums are all looking good … Andrew left me another huge pile of azolla from our duck pond which I have used as a mulch again around the garlic & onions. I used this as mulch last year something I hadn’t done before. At the time I was a tad concerned about mulching with it as it is a nitrogen fixer, which will mean that as it decomposes it will add nitrogen to the soil. Not a bad idea really, but you want the garlic bulbs to grow big rather than have loads of greenery. Anyway, that didn’t happen, we had a fab crop of garlic so it is back on that bed again! Thanks Mr Bonner.

Azolla just the best mulch there is.

Garlic sharing the bed with self seeded red sorrel

This week I’m seed sowing at last! All my new seed has arrived. I’m like a kid with a new toy when it does. Opening the parcel and staring at the packets loving that word ‘organic’ which is stamped on the packs. Wonderful … more on that soon.

Yes that is a sheep with a chook hitch hiker. Meet Poppy!

This year I shall be planting the bulk of the beds earlier too … certainly my salad vege bed and my chillies. The rest will have to wait until the garlic is ready to be harvested which will be mid December onwards.

Speaking of chillies .. I made the best Mexican chicken soup last night which was perfect with lashings of sour cream and grated cheddar. Bad me!

Happy gardening.