Here is a new arrival, a bluetongue lizard at the front door, they are great to have around as they eat snails. I used to have another bluetongue living under the hot water system a few years ago.
It just stayed there as I walked around and opened the door and wasn’t perturbed by any of my activities.
The Spring (Vernal) equinox is approaching and the life in all things is especially active. In the southern hemisphere it is the time of the festival of Ostara which is connected to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre. I haven’t actually seen anything like what is in the drawing going on in the garden but the effects are there, the beans have a few leaves and the sweet corn is just above the mulch.
As a result of all this my garden beds are rapidly becoming full. I planted some beetroot today after soaking the seeds overnight in a solution of epsom salts, this helps the germination no end, according to those who know such things:
This is a nice creeper hanging down over a wall, when it covers all the wall it will be quite colourful when there is a full cover |  |
These are a couple of Shirley roses taken from cuttings at Hely’s a few years ago. I was wondering where to put them and noticed a big blank spot on the back wall of the house so I will train them across the bricks.
Having planted most of the first three gardens it was obvious that another one was needed for crops like lettuce, beetroot, etc. so half an hour with the sharp spade and I have the makings of the next (and last) garden. There isn’t any more room in the full sun.
The soil was moist and easy to dig, the radial from the trap vertical HF antenna will have to be re-located along a path, you can see where it was at the bottom of the picture in the middle.
Just after I planted the first seeds in the new vege gardens there has ben very heavy rain, the timing is perfect. I planted two varieties of beans, silver beet and red pac choy in one bed and two rows of sweet corn in the other, the variety is called ‘honey cream’ I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the cobs. Sweet corn is fantastic when eaten raw within ten minutes of picking, before the sugars turn into starches.
See the name tags? Just after I placed them at the end of the rows, the two singing magpies, Pavarotti and Caruso arrived and decided that the tags shouldn’t be there and pulled them all out.
The front of the house looks bright with the petunias and erigeron in full flower:
The front driveway looks like a stony desert so I decided to add some life and color by planting some flowering shrubs. A visit to the nursery provided the necessary plants and I dug eight holes thru the hard road-base. It took a crowbar and lots of work but in the end I had an arc of five Callistemon var. Captain Cook bottle brushes planted. They will produce an abundance of bright red bottle brushes in the spring and summer. I need three shrubs to plant behind them to provide color in the autumn and winter.
It sure looks hard and dry.
On the southern side of the house the clivea are in full flower, they really like the spot along the rock wall:
