Garden Photos Jan 2016 - My Starting Point This Year

It's time for a photo tour of my garden! These photos show my starting point for this year, with a few flash backs to how it used to be. Come along as I take you for a wander through my garden as it is today.....

I have felt sooooo behind this summer - last winter I ignored the garden due to being busy with other things, but somehow I never really got caught up in spring, and then it was Christmas, and January has been a month full of visitors end on end. Wonderful to spend time with everyone, but it has meant almost no gardening. However, I reminded myself of one of my "rules" when I started gardening: No beating myself up - learn from any mistakes and move on!

So, I decided to make a post showing all of my garden, warts (weeds) and all! I took some photos a couple of days ago, but the sky was very grey and the light wasn't good, so I decided to wait until the sky cleared to take new photos. Meanwhile I've been puttering a bit - an hour here or there - tidying up my plant pots, clearing a couple of beds, weedeatering a few paths - it's amazing what a difference that little bit has made! Things don't seem half as bad as they did just a few days ago!

This is the entrance to my main vege garden area - the fence and gate were built with mostly recycled or free materials by my daughter and I to keep the dogs out of the garden.

The Banksia rose on the left was a tiny, sick little plant I found at Mitre 10 2 years ago - it looked like it would surely die and I talked the guy into a discount. Clearly, it has recovered. It is thornless, has tiny white, deliciously fragrant flowers in spring. It's so lovely to walk out there and smell the delicate fragrance!

The nasturtiums on the right are all self-sown; I have them everywhere! Flowers are great on a salad.

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Before we go on, let me show you a pic of what this area looked like in late 2012, before I started the vege garden. Yes folks, this garden is only 3 years old! (Info about my first year developing the garden will be put up soon).

Before I started the garden, this was just a rough area reclaimed from the paddock - low lying, wet, covered in dock, buttercup and couch grass. In winter I would literally wade out to the washing lines, and try not to drop clean items in the thick mud underneath them!

None of the garden beds existed - neither did the fence you see above or anything behind it!

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Just inside the garden gate is a row of my most-used herbs growing in a series of squares I made from bricks I got off Freecycle. There are chives, oregano (now blooming and the bees LOVE it), rosemary, and behind the rosemary two kinds of thyme. Behind the herbs is a profusion of laden zucchini plants, with two Marketmore cucumbers growing in rubbish bins up over the arch I made from an old ladder. Behind all those are a lemon tree, a young triple-grafted apple, lemon balm, peas on the fence, zinnias, cosmos, a potted pomegranate, and more nasturtiums. On this side of the nasturtium-covered fence are also some beetroot, just out of the frame. Chaotic but bountiful!

On the other side of the path is a bed of rainbow silverbeet edged with spring onions. Behind them is a small table and chair (free from the dump). Behind the chair is a profusion of self-sown parsley, and lemon and peppermint geraniums. More parsley and some calendula is under a baby Damson plum in the foreground.

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Beyond the zucchini is a bed full of yacon plants - yacon is a South American root vegetable that resemble kumara in appearance, but they grow in a big rosette under ground below the plants, which can reach up to 6 feet tall in ideal conditions. They bear tiny, sunflower like flowers in late autumn, if the frost doesn't kill them first. They are very easy to grow, and come up year after year from the crowns which are replanted after harvesting. Yacon can be eaten raw or cooked, and has a crisp, refreshing texture.

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Behind the yacon is an arched climbing frame I built last year from dump finds - a couple of bed bases, some ends off an old greenhouse, plus some mesh and cable ties, painted with free paint from the dump. There is a choko in a pot starting to climb the side - it will cover it completely eventually, but is slow to get going this season, like may things. You can also see several dahlia plants I grew last year from seed, which have popped back up and are now flowering profusely. There are a number of volunteer potato plants here too - interestingly I've seen no sign of tomato-potato psyllid yet, though it's usually rife by this time of year.

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Opposite the entrance path to the garden is a curved trellis on which boysenberries are growing. There need the spent growth pruning off, and new canes tying in. This bed and trellises was only created in the winter of 2014; the first year's growth has been incredible! Behind the boysenberries are the raspberries; they fruited very well in spring, and new fruit is now forming on the younger canes.

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Next we have an area of container plants. Along one side I have a fig, a mandarin and an orange in pots. The two citrus are underplanted with strawberries and white alpine strawberries respectively. I have two clam-shell paddling pools and a half-drum planted with kumera. There are another mandarin, a gooseberry, and a cork oat in buckets, waiting to be planted out, and I have a tub full of leeks, Egyptian walking onions and garlic chives too. The tall empty drum will hold a liquid manure brew, and the blue rubbish bin will soon be planted with carrots.

I created this area by laying down doubled weed mat (to kill the grass - it will later be removed so I can extend the garden beds) and barking over the top, using whatever I could find lying around for the edging.

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Next to the blueberry patch is my Herb Tree which I created last year and won a prize for, but which I haven't planted this year. I'm intending to take it apart and put it on Trade Me -  have to be realistic about the fact I just don't have the time for something that needs watering by hand every single day in summer. It's a fabulous structure for someone who wants lots of hanging baskets though!

At the end of the raspberry patch is this sweet-leafed fennel which is now well over 8 feet tall! It has regrown from last year's plants. I will save the seed and use it to brew a tea that is soothing to the digestive system and relieves wind.

The net-covered bed next to it is my blueberry and strawberry patch, with a young dwarf pear in front of it.

These 8 garden beds (pictured left), each 3.25 x 1.25 metres, are what I call my "main garden beds" - actually one of them has been replace by two 2x1m beds. The four at the front have been almost totally neglected for some time. Let's take a closer look at them all one by one.......

The closest bed is mostly full of self-sown parsnips. Parsnips are often reputed to be hard to grow, and I've had problems getting them to grow in the past. But last year I had 4 plants in this garden. I let them go to seed. Now I have parsnips EVERYWHERE lol - from one end of the garden to the other, in beds, paths, cracks in bricks - you name it. Well, they do say you need fresh seed for success - can't get much fresher than blown straight off the parent plant! I also have a bag full of saved seed for planting where I actually want it. :-)

The next bed over was carefully planted in rows of red and brown onions. Sadly, only 16 remain - the rest turned up their toes. Oh well, I have more seedlings in the greenhouse, and some other things that can fill the rest o the bed, which I'll plant out in the next week or so. The nets on steel hoops are the easiest way to keep the birds from digging up freshly planted beds!

The next bed with bare hoops was planted in broad beans, which finished a while ago and had just been left, along with all the self-sown parsnips that were growing underneath. I finally cleared the bed a couple of nights ago - interestingly, quite a number of the "dead" broad beans had new stalks sprouting from the base, complete with flowers and some baby beans. But I've had enough of broad beans for now - there are plenty in the freezer still, so I cleared the bed anyway, ready to plant in something else.

The other bed you can see here, with the fork in it, was a huge overgrown jungle of weeds, which has been ignored since I harvested the spaghetti squash, cucumbers, watermelons and parsley that were growing there last summer! I cleared it only this morning - surprisingly it only took me an hour! This is one of the advantages of using woodchip mulch - the soils become so soft and loose, weeds are easy to pull out. WHY did I put this "huge" job off so long?? It's really been bugging me! To the left is what the bed looked like this morning, before I got stuck in while it was still cloudy.

I do, however, still need to spend some time removing the rest of the mass of couch roots that have spread through it during my neglect. I'm actually intending to remove the wooden beds one by one, starting with this one, and go for row planting in heavy woodchip mulch. The bed frames are beginning to break down, and I can't afford to replace them.

In the border garden along the fence next to these beds are some rhubarb, cosmos and zinnia flowers, corn cockles, geraniums, and various types of runner beans growing up the trellis.

I picked up this single bed from the local Sallies - I've placed it over this garden bed which I planted with spaghetti squash, so they can grow up through the mesh of the bed, and sprawl all over the top of it, keeping the fruit off the ground. This morning I added some warratahs and an offcut of steel mesh, to make an "upper bunk" with some strings going from one layer to the other, so the squash can climb up.

Spaghetti squash are a small oval yellow squash that stores really well (I used the last of last season's this past weekend). It is baked in the oven, then stripped out with a fork to yield vegetable spaghetti - naturally gluten free. :-)

This old step ladder has had some mesh added to one side and the back. Buttercup pumpkins are growing up the steps and around the base. Telegraph cucumber seedlings are around the side and back and will climb the mesh. I had to start again with seeds planted between strips of wood after birds dug up all my original seedlings. So they're a bit behind!

The spaghetti squash were also planted very late - hopefully they will have time to produce this season, but if not, oh well - I'll get onto it earlier next year.

This has been quite an odd summer so far - it seems summer has hardly started! Today I saw 5 white butterflies - the first time this season! Normally the garden would be thick with them by November! Also no psyllid yet - usually a major pest by the beginning of January. Many of the plants, even if planted at the regular time, have been slow to get going. The real indication of where the season at is the self-sown plants; most of them have appeared much later than normal for their species. The only question is how late the first frosts will come, and whether there will be time for things to produce first!

This bed is planted in sweetcorn - just about time to remove the nets. More self-sown nasturtium has popped up among the corn. I should probably remove most of it.

Again planted much later than I normally would, though any time up until Christmas is usually ok here - this was sown just before Christmas on Dec 18th.

This bed has 7 watermelon vines in it - Sugar Baby and Crimson Sweet. I had old freezer baskets over each one to keep the birds off, but now they're getting too big I removed those. The dratted birds have been digging close to the roots though, so I used the parsnips and broadbeans I removed from the other bed last night and put them all around the watermelon as rough, large mulch, which should deter the birds, as well as suppress weeds and retain moisture, and give the watermelon plants a bit of extra shelter. The mulch will soon begin to settle and break down, and the vines should take over without trouble, all going well.

This bed was planted in two varieties of garlic plus bunching shallots. A random pumpkin popped up in the middle recently. Since I had failed to get most of my intended pumpkin plants in the ground, I let it grow. The back half has been harvest of one garlic variety, but the rest wasn't ready yet - it is due to come out soon.

I'm pretty happy with the ones I've harvested so far - pictured below. These are now hanging in our shed to dry before I braid them.

Along the southern fence of my garden are a couple of beds - this one has a gala apple planted in the middle, surrounded by herbs. At the moment there is Lovage, Echinacea, Clary Sage which is coming to the end of it's flowering, Feverfew which has finished flowering and is drying off, Common Sage which is making a come-back and some Dwarf Munstead Lavender. There are also white alpine strawberries which are staging a take-over, in hot competition with the weeds I need to pull out! As you can see, I have a rain gauge on the top of the fence post. This is a location not (currently) overhung by any branches that would deflect rain. I empty it once a month and record the monthly rainfall - I always put in a few mms of oil to prevent evaporation. January so far is looking pretty good!

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Skipping conveniently over the two old, overgrown beds between which are (still) waiting for me to pull them out, we come to the other corner of this fence. This bed has a double-grafted dwarf pear in the middle, with a lemon balm and Queensland Blue pumpkin underneath. Rosemary is against the rear fence, and a random dahlia is re-emerging. Along the side fence there is a patch of Novella dwarf peas, as well as some chives. Novella have the most fantastical tendrils! Peas are great for either eating the shoots in a fresh salad, or for picking the peas themselves.

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This north-eastern corner of my garden is a bit of a mess! The grass and weeds were chest high - I've just cut them mostly down with a weedeater. Under it all is a big coil of irrigation hose I need to pull out.

Along the fence are some tyres I planted 3-4 years ago with rhubarb, a gooseberry and a red currant - they all need moving. In the corner is a tractor tyre I foolishly planted with blackberry. I've been meaning to remove it all. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this area - I've considered fencing it and using it as a chickens-make-compost area, or perhaps put the ducks in there; I could then tip out their poo-y pool water and it would seep into the lower-lying garden area through the ground. Hmmmm......

The northern fence is a real jungle - there are lots of blackcurrant bushes along there, but the flowering perpetual spinach, self sown leeks, nasturtium, celery and weeds make it hard to tell! I need to clear all this and plant more leafy greens, which will appreciate the shade at this time of year.

Under the second washing line is another Queensland Blue pumpkin.

This elevated seating area was one of my favourite spots last summer, it looked so pretty. Now it's overgrown and messy. The stauntonia on the right hand trellis is never, I don't think, actually going to produce fruit; I think I'll pull it out and replace it with kiwifruit. There is a grape along the fence behind it, laden with fruit, and baby kiwi fruit vines below the left trellis, but they've been overshadowed by the self-sown sweet peas I keep pulling out. The swing seat as free, recovered by my daughter, but we should have put drain holes in the seat - it tends to collect water and leaves and then get very messy. It's also awkward to weed around/behind, so I'm intending to remove it from there and put in a bench seat instead.

There is a bed of Chilean Guavas along the front of this area, just developing fruit.

The path to the paddock gate (beyond which the chickens free-range). The grape on the left, despite repeated prunings, is completely covering the four compost bins.

On the right are a row of young feijoas.

The wormwood growing in tyres at the end of the compost bins, under the grapevine, needs pruning again. I spread the clippings in the chicken's nesting boxes and house, as it deters lice and mites.

Now we're about to head around the other side of the grapevine to my greenhouse. First we pass the worm farm bath-on-a-stand, and some old shelves from the dump, filled with spare pots, also from the dump.

The greenhouse was made out of recycled windows I found on Trade Me, which my darling husband put together for me to my specifications. I come up with the ideas, and he gets to make them work. :-) Recently he put a spare window up beside it where I needed a new fence - it forms a windbreak/fence for now, and may become part of the future extension of the greenhouse - we'll see.

The shelves I use for seedlings were an old greenhouse frame, minus it's plastic, free from the dump.

This summer I'm mostly growing tomatoes and potatoes in the greenhouse, as the psyllid that plagues them in the garden don't survive the high temperatures of the greenhouse, even though I leave the doors and windows open all summer. It's only got to reach 37C for a couple of hours at a time to kill of the young. I've got potatoes I drums and spud planter bags - three varieties; two are different Maori potato varieties my neighbour gave me, the other is a variety I haven't grown before called......ummmm....something German sounding starting with "A" - will have to find the label. It's an early, but that's all I can remember right now.

I have two big Moneymaker tomatoes growing in the ground  - one on the front wall, one to the left, being trained on bamboo stakes. I also have two Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes in buckets in the foreground, and three Tiny Tims in pots on the shelves.

There is also a Pepino out of frame in another bucket, and a lemongrass in a pot you can just see on the left near the end of the walkway. Should probably move that out into the sun.

Inside the greenhouse, I'm growing a couple of Tigerella tomatoes on the trellis of the side wall, some Kohl Rabi under the shelves (never grown them before, and expected white butterfly to be a major problem out in the garden) which also has chickweed underneath. The cyclamens I had in the house have done very well out here in the ground instead.

Along the back wall is a stainless steel bench and double sink - very handy for potting - which I got from Freecycle. Eventually we will connect the taps/mixer up. A piece of white trailer panel is up on the wall as an effective whiteboard where I list what needs sowing/planting each season. And a pin board also comes in handy.

The freezer baskets mounted as drawers underneath hold punnets and small pots.

Moving to the front yard now, the row of dahlias and other flowers, along with two young Kowhai trees, which I planted a few months ago are starting to do well. They've been netted to keep the birds off - time to remove that now.

Nice to have some bright, easy care flowers just inside the driveway gates to welcome visitors. :-)

I had plans to clear this area off again this summer and grow all my pumpkins here, surrounding black compost bins which I would half-fill with half-done compost and water the pumpkins through the bins, providing them with compost tea. But I just never got there.

My plan for winter is to hopefully have my husband build me a massive walk-in berry cage here, so I can plant currants, gooseberries, raspberries, boysenberries and strawberries under permanent protection from the birds, and access it without the hassle of lifting bird netting every day.

The row of tractor tyres that divides our parking area from the garden, planted last year in carpet roses and alyssum, and suffering from neglect (weeds) Need to tidy these up.

Well, that concludes today's photo tour! I hope you've enjoyed it! And know you know what my garden looks like right now! I'll also be creating posts about what I grow and harvest each month, as well as approximately monthly update photos, though not necessarily of EVERYTHING. :-)