We've moved!

In cyberspace, that is.
Down the Garden Path is now Up the Garden Path and you'll find us over at Wordpress.
Make sure you change your blog feeds (heehee - that's a private joke to myself - seeing as noone has this blog on a feed - I've got to do something to take my mind off the endlessly-falling rain!!)

Do come and check out the new look (only if you want to, of course).
Oh, and if you do, please please plesae, don't go clicking on the link to the new intricateSIMPLICITY. It's more of a basicMONSTROSITY right now. I haven't quite got to grips with all the bits and bobs Wordpress will do for me if only I could work out how to tell it to!
It's all so simplyCOMPLEX right now.....but I will learn.....and will eventually settle on a format that works (I've tried about seventeen different ones so far!)

bird bonanza

Newest addition to the garden is a birdfeeder made by J12. Click here for details. No extra charge!



It certainly seems to be working - there were so many silvereyes out there at the weekend we couldn't count them all. And noisy! Boy were they noisy!

paver path

Father Bear is seriously looking at properties with more land at the moment and so there was not too much enthusiasm to do the chook thing if we are about to move on. Instead, Saturday afternoon saw everyone doing a general tidy-up: pulling weeds, dragging branches, roughly placing pavers and planting out seedlings. The vege patch is the only place that you notice any of that hard work. I took the opportunity to break out of my straight lines and just throw down pavers in a random design.

Garden Moving

Do you remember what the garden used to look like? Well that was before anything was growing in it! It did look very luscious on occasion....


But then we made a discovery....the neighbours wanted screens up between our houses and when we measured out the boundary *exactly* we discovered *our veges* were encroaching on *their space*. So the garden had to move. In preparation for losing my climbing frame in the Big Shift, I had constracted a teepee for the winter peas to grow up....they were planted weeks ago....so all work yesterday had to proceed very carefully around it! We even managed to save our patch of self-seeded lettuces too....and some spring onions that came from I-don't-know-where. Here we are mid morning when the Boundary Line has been tied up and the kids have dismantled the paver path.


Last week I was doom-and-glooming about losing Half The Garden. But as we started working yesterday it occurred to me that we could reclaim the patch of grass that is used for absolutely nothing except mowing. So we ended up with this:


Spurred on by new inspirations, I revisited Linda Woodrow's "The Home Permaculture Garden", and decided to just see if we could fit a half-size chook dome into this space. We needed six 2metre circles....and we did it. Look:


So the rest of the week will be dedicated to measuring circles, laying out paths, scrounging around for something to make a worm farm in, using yesterday's prunings to construct a seed-raising bench.....we're going to do The Whole Thing!!!! (oh and we've still got to drag over our strawberry and swan plants from the neighbour's - unless they want to keep them of course!)

they keep growing

I'm meant to pot these into little pots now, aren't I?!!

I'm sorely tempted to put them straight in the garden, but I just know they'll get eaten.

This gardening lark would be quite good without the work

sigh

our neighbours decided they wanted a fence between our properties.....not a big fence, just some screens so their kids feel a bit private in their bedrooms (fair enough!)......so the lads went out to put the posts in the ground at the weekend....and we discovered.......a very good portion of our vege garden is on their section....right now it doesn't matter coz it's the back of their place, a little bit they do nothing with......but one day they want to plant nice trees there (to shade my veges - sad face)....so we are going to have to move it all......this afternoon I wanted to just throw it all in and not even bother....but then I went out to the patch this evening to pick some carrots and celery and thyme and chillies and tomatoes to go in tomorrow's split pea and ham soup, and I saw the potatoes doing their thing, and noticed there are still a few ears of corn and a couple more pumpkins, and I spied a red cabbage I'd forgotten about....and I came back planning how to rearrange the garden to fit the space that's going to be there.....it doesn't seem such a problem after all!

Impatient

Popped into the organic shop to buy a punnet of rainbow silverbeet and lettuces. Just can't wait for my little seedlings to become big enough seedlings to plant out! As the summer produce slows, I want to fill in the gaps....NOW!