Next project

It's been awhile since I've boasted about my amazing husband. He had a week off from work and was going to tackle the ghetto pathway from a couple of blog posts ago. Here's the photo.



Well, he decided to do it all in a showery weekend. The rain helped soften the clay soil into mud. So he slipped and sloshed his way through this project.



And as if we've not carried our fair share of sand and gravel down to the backyard, we had to bring even more. Sad to say that I only helped with one load of sand for this project. This one is all on Holming.

Here's the finished project!

Isn't it amazing!?!? Now I won't slip while going down to the garden. Thanks Honey!!

I leave you with this photo of Sunny observing my honey while he's working... what a good life!

Roasted Buttercup Pumpkin

Seeing as the cold nights are almost gone, I decided to make one last Winter dish. Started off with a whole buttercup pumpkin. (I love the different varieties we have here.)


Cut the top off and scooped out the yummy bits (that the chooks love to snack on), then roast for 30 minutes.

Filled it with the following:
-knob of butter
-3/4c sweet corn
-1 clove garlic, crushed
-1 tsp chopped rosemary
-1 tsp cumin
1 egg, whisked
1/4c cream
1/8c milk
1 tbsp polenta
1/4c parmesan cheese
2 tbsp chopped parsley
sea salt and ground pepper

Baked for another 45 minutes, and voila!

Of course this wasn't all we ate. We had a small eye fillet steak to accompany this side dish. Yummy!

Start of Spring....

Winter

Spring

Spring has sprung!!!

The relaxing weekend that wasn’t

We were looking forward to our upcoming weekend because we had no plans, nothing scheduled, and no one to see. All we wanted to do was RELAX. Well, last week my neighbour and I had booked a tree arborist to come trim a couple of trees that are on the border of our properties. He was scheduled to come on Monday the 19th. So, while on my usual Friday breakfast date with my friend (who is also my neighbour two doors down the road), I get a text at 8:20 that says “doing your trees this morning at 9”. Now, this is very typical ‘kiwi fashion’- always unscheduled and never on time. Never mind all the things I had planned for the day, I needed to get to the bank for some cash and home to get the chickens out of the area.

The girls loved their new set up because I put them in my other neighbour’s yard, which happens to have a lawn.



Since we are just coming out of Winter and the leaves haven’t grown back on our Liquidambar trees, we thought it would be a good (and hopefully cheap) time to have them trimmed. Here is a before and after picture.




Last time we had one of these trees cut, we had him leave the branches because 1) it knocked $150 off the price, and 2) We had planned to chop them up to use as firewood. So here is the damage.

Our side



Neighbour’s side



Our neighbours only wanted 3 big branches cut off but the arborist put the majority of the branches on their side. So once they left, I got to work until Holming got home. Cut, snap, and stack…

It took 10 hours over Friday and Saturday but we got through it. We now have enough firewood to last next Winter. And, we won’t have to rake up all those leaves this Autumn.

I was very surprised to see that Holming still had enough energy to complete the extension of my raised garden bed.



I stained it the wrong colour as you can see, so I’ll be painting it in the next couple of weeks. Oh joy… all I want to do is play IN the garden but all these other projects keep getting in the way.

Very happy for the stormy Sunday so we can get back to our relaxing weekend.

Dedicated Gardener

I decided that I need more space to garden. For the last 3 Summers, I have used tomato bags to grow tomatoes because the soil here is mostly clay. And every year, I have a hard time keeping them staked up with bamboo sticks and trellises because they get so top heavy; and every year, they get blown over by a windy Summer storm. I don’t just plant 2 or 3 tomato plants, like most normal people do. I have what you call…. tomato greed. I want as many as I can have!!! Of course, it’s so that I can jar them and use them all Winter long.

So, being that gardening season is just around the corner, I put my handy-dandy hubby to work. He designed a raised garden bed just for my tomatoes, with stakes already drilled in to the sides. Its measurements are 3ft x 8ft. Heaps of room!

Now I can grow up to 12 tomato plants! He left the stakes off the two ends because I want to attempt growing cantaloupe (rockmelon) this year, so I will put them there at each end. This means I will only have 10 tomato plants this year. I’m already having issues with this…

Another view from my other raised garden.


Sunny helped too… He supervised!

Now the next mini project is to extend my main raised garden bed. I gave the mix n’ match bits on the right of the photo to a friend that can use them. This new extended garden will measure 10ft x 3ft. Wow..wow..wow! I can hardly wait!!


After this minor wee project, my handy hubby will start his next big project (below).



He’s gonna make proper stairs to replace this wobbly stone path. Big project but at least he’ll be outside with me while I’m playing in the garden.

Updates to follow.....