Week 39

Today I turned over the ground in the vege garden in preparation for planting some vegetables. I've been told not to plant tomatoes until around Labour Weekend in New Zealand (end of October), and have decided to wait until then to plant the other veges as well. Last month was so mild that I wondered if I should have already started planting things. Then this week the temperature dropped and we had a few more frosts, so I know the cold weather isn't quite over yet and it's best to wait a bit longer. Although having said that, we already have lots of potato plants popping out of the ground.

I have the figure "six weeks" in my head as the timeframe for preparing the soil before you plant anything. I don't know where I got that figure from. I may have read it in a book but can't remember which one. Or I may be totally wrong. Anyway, when I last worked on the vege garden at the beginning of winter I spread compost on top of the soil and then lavender clippings on top of that. Today I used the fork and manually turned the soil over (rather than using the tractor) to dig the compost into the ground. It was a lot easier than I expected and only took an hour or so. Then I spread a little bit of grass mulch over the top (but didn't have enough to cover the whole garden).

Mowed the lawn in the lavender field for the first time in months. Must be getting better at handling the tractor as it took less than an hour. Still don't have a ride on mower with a catcher so I do worry about all the clippings blowing into and under the lavender. Still a lot of work to do there. The lavender itself is slowly starting to grow again.

Speaking of grass, it seems everywhere you look around the region the fields are all very green looking.

At the bottom of our property is a very wet, waterlogged area. I'm not sure if we should dig out a culvert/stream, or turn it into a proper wetland with native grasses, or just leave it as it is. I often see pukekos around there. I love pukekos. Occassionally we see ducks too. This week we've seen a mother duck leading her baby ducklings around. It is so cute.

-M