The last few weeks have been insanely busy! Added to everything else, it's lambing time, which has had it's own challenges. I've had very little time to do much in the garden.
As readers will be aware, I've been trying to plant mostly according to the moon calendar. This month, the main planting dates are Aug 9-19, but a combination of weather, visitors, lambing and illness has prevented me doing any planting so far. On Saturday I had planned to plant as much as possible - but an earthquake on Friday caused a leaking drain in our wall which needed urgent attention, we woke to torrential rain, and that morning my youngest ewe gave birth to twins, but had no milk so I spent most of the day getting them feeding (she's now managing to feed the boy twin, but I'm having to bottle feed the girl). The ones pictured above are another set of twins, born on Wednesday morning. They're a boy and girl too - so cute! My last ewe gave birth this morning to a hefty male lamb - that makes 2 singles and 5 sets of twins this year.
Yesterday we had visitors, and so today is planting day, no excuses! I've got 3 Chilean Guavas to plant, along with a bunch of polyanthus. I'm also going to soak some peas and plant them this afternoon, clean out my seed trays and start seeds of everything possible. It's technically still winter here, though very mild, but I have to assume we'll get more hard frosts, so will be starting seeds and keeping them covered for now (except the peas which will go right in the garden). I also have some celery seedlings I've been nursing over winter - I'm going to go ahead and put them out in the garden and see what happens.
In addition, I need to dig and create a new garden bed and then transplant my raspberry canes into it, and also another one for my boysenberries. I also intend to create a bed and transplant the black current plants that have been quietly growing from cuttings I was given last year.
I'm needing to add sides to my impromptu compost bin, and then dig out the main chicken run and refresh it with new sawdust. I treated those hens for worms a couple of days ago, so now is the time to do it. The loose stuff from the top will go in the compost, the old rotted sawdust/manure will go straight into the new garden beds.
So, all in all a full day ahead.
As readers will be aware, I've been trying to plant mostly according to the moon calendar. This month, the main planting dates are Aug 9-19, but a combination of weather, visitors, lambing and illness has prevented me doing any planting so far. On Saturday I had planned to plant as much as possible - but an earthquake on Friday caused a leaking drain in our wall which needed urgent attention, we woke to torrential rain, and that morning my youngest ewe gave birth to twins, but had no milk so I spent most of the day getting them feeding (she's now managing to feed the boy twin, but I'm having to bottle feed the girl). The ones pictured above are another set of twins, born on Wednesday morning. They're a boy and girl too - so cute! My last ewe gave birth this morning to a hefty male lamb - that makes 2 singles and 5 sets of twins this year.
Yesterday we had visitors, and so today is planting day, no excuses! I've got 3 Chilean Guavas to plant, along with a bunch of polyanthus. I'm also going to soak some peas and plant them this afternoon, clean out my seed trays and start seeds of everything possible. It's technically still winter here, though very mild, but I have to assume we'll get more hard frosts, so will be starting seeds and keeping them covered for now (except the peas which will go right in the garden). I also have some celery seedlings I've been nursing over winter - I'm going to go ahead and put them out in the garden and see what happens.
In addition, I need to dig and create a new garden bed and then transplant my raspberry canes into it, and also another one for my boysenberries. I also intend to create a bed and transplant the black current plants that have been quietly growing from cuttings I was given last year.
I'm needing to add sides to my impromptu compost bin, and then dig out the main chicken run and refresh it with new sawdust. I treated those hens for worms a couple of days ago, so now is the time to do it. The loose stuff from the top will go in the compost, the old rotted sawdust/manure will go straight into the new garden beds.
So, all in all a full day ahead.
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