Child of the Planet

My winter garden is on the north side of the property, and is shaded by trees on my neighbours side, and their garage. I installed a windbreak and decided to clad it with plastic sheeting to see if I could reflect some sunlight onto the veg. I’ve had pallet windbreaks around the lemon hedge for several years ( read about it here ). I’ve slowly been removing the pallets and this year, the last of the wind breaks are gone.     

Looks like the Creole is the first to poke it’s head up

I’ve had a pomegranate tree in the soil for about four years ( click here to read ) and not had a lot of movement on the fruit side, until just the other day when I discovered this…

Last year's garlic crop was pretty disastrous, and I almost didn’t want to give it another try…. But here we are. I bought some new seed from Te Mata garlic. Three different varieties. Kept the seed in the fridge for a couple of weeks and waited for a string of sunny days to appear. Planted it all out, and covered it with a layer of mulch. A couple of days later, I planted out some of the best of the garlic that was left over from last year's debacle.

Big haircuts to the powhutakawa on drive. The line of Banksia out the back are there to break the westerly so I flattened them out so they don't cast a heap of shade in the winter.     Everything went through the chipper

 Autumn air is still warm but the atmosphere is rapidly cooling off, and it's time for another 360° video tour of my garden. Previous video is here if you're into playing the 'spot the difference'.

This video details my adventures with seed saving this year… click here if you don't see the video above Chinese cabbage seeds Mustard seed Celery seed Have been letting the capsicum and tomatoes ferment in their pulp. Cleaning the seed with my mouli Extended version of video for people who have too much time on hands... click here if you don't see the video above