Today after the rain stopped.

Well I had a lovely day in the garden today.
The compost heap (or weed mountain as we call it) has reached nearly 6ft over summer, and it's really just a heap where I throw all the weeds and dead stalks when I pull them out. I started pulling down some of the dry stuff to put at the bottom of a new heap, and it was dry for a fair way in. As I got closer to what one might start to call compost, I collected that stuff up for my no dig garden. I have made a bed using 9 solid bales of peastraw, and in the bottom of that I emptied as many old pots and tubs of spent potting soil as I could find. On that I put my "nearly compost" and on top of that I will put some of the diggings out of the bottom of the chook shed. Then a bit of lime some more compost and some loose straw on the top, and let it sit and meld together. I think this will make a nice bed for the pumpkins this year. I have enough stuff to make a couple more of these beds, so will designate them for tomatoes in one and maybe zucchinis and eggplants in the other. They are close enough to the tanks down the back to set up a dripper system next summer.
So after pulling off some of that "nearly compost" what lies beneath? Yum! Lovely rich black stuff. I haven't decided where it will go yet, but there is lots and lots of it there. Maybe give all my fruit trees a special treat? Enough to put some along side the arbour, where I plan to plant hellebores, plus hostas and crested irises divided off the ones growing in the fernery.

I stripped the netting off the 3 apple trees, and picked about 50 pink lady apples. They should keep the doctor away for a few weeks, then it's back to bought apples :-((
I intended to prune the apple trees, but ended up digging the last of the irises out of a large bed destined to be a pacific coast iris bed in a few weeks. I need to dig out a few weeds, and add a few barrow loads of pine peat to this bed, rotary hoe it and rake it all out in readiness.
I checked out the tank that my fence building man said the water wasn't going into. Lo and behold - it is nearly 1/3 full.

Raked over the top of a couple of new raised beds, and it is still quite dry down about 5cm so we need more of the good stuff. I would be perfectly content if it would just rain all night, and let me out tomorrow for another fruitful day in the garden.

What did you do today?
Cheers, Jan

Well I moved lots of pots form here to there, cleaned , swept, pruned, preened and got a lot done, most pleasing

This is what I have now called my citrus orchid, well potted palace, all in the one area now Now where to fit my 2 cumquat pots





maybe I'd better help you out jan to fil the block next door