they grew!

Look at that! My first ever Grown In A Seed Tray seeds. They've only been in for five days and some of them are sprouting wildly. OK, maybe *wild* is a bit of an exxageration...but if you click on the picture, you WILL see little green shoots.

There is something about planting some seeds and waiting

that makes me remember

it's me-n-God together.

I'm on His team.

I do my bit and He does His.

Without Him, there is nothing I can do to make that life grow.

And look what else He does:


I love finding the first one...and in a matter of days there will be a veritable little forest of them.

beaut-erfly

J12, with her interest in all things beautiful, planted flower seeds....her sense of order compelled her to make little lines in the tray and add name cards. A *scarecrow* to keep the birds away may end up attracting them as it is, in reality, a beautiful butterfly.



PS This was the inspiration I needed to get my seeds in a tray too.....in lines, but sans identifying markers!!

there'll be carrots for dinner tonight

overwhelmed

the teepee structure fell down in the big storm
(I was intending asking Father Bear to help me tie it down at the weekend, but the wind beat me to it)

it squashed a lettuce

never mind

I had an industrious urge and picked up The Permaculture Home Garden
the intention was to find the next thing to make a start on
but I just couldn't decide
there's so much
worm farm
making compost properly
making a pond
raising seeds
seaweed brew

ah well
one thing at a time
maybe I should just stand the teepee up today
and tie it down

*sigh*

Those seeds that were just waiting to be planted......are still waiting. They're not going to germinate in their packets now are they? Better get them into some nice seed-raising mix!

Am I the only blogging gardener who is Full of Good Intentions?

WOOHOO!!!!

Yesterday my good friend (who thankfully taught me how to do hyperlinks!!!!) emailed me...and even rang me IRL....to party about the Ultimate Blog Party.....she had the FANTASTIC news I had won a PriZe!!! YIPPEE. This little blog that only started a couple of weeks ago.....by a blogger who has only been blogging for not even a couple of months!

So a big huge gigantic THANK YOU to Heather of Swank Web Style - for donating a prize that a wee blog in far-off New Zealand could win! It's so exciting.

I spent last night browsing blogs to get ideas (yeah, I went back over lots of the ultimate blog party ones but didn't have time to leave so much as a HI! - sorry).......suddenly blogger's 38 templates (or however many it is) didn't look quite so flash!!!!!!

And I spent a long time at "Heather's place" too - have you been there? Make sure you do. She is one amazing lady who shares her heart openly and we can all learn alot from her and her delightful family. Thanks Heather.

Work Done #1

Well things didn't pan out quite as planned...so I've learnt my lesson to just post an entry *after* the work is done!



The potatoes are hiding underneath those poking-out-of-the-ground-sticks, which you can see if you click on the photo. The teepee (which ended up being made out of ti-tree, including one branch a neighbour cut down just as we were looking for some, coz the bamboo had disappeared) will be home to peas and not beans, which apparently don't need a support. The beans got plonked in between the potatoes instead.
There are also half a dozen each of buttercrunch lettuce, sprouting broccoli and dill. Plus an impulse buy (to make up for the absentee-tomatoes) - a cape gooseberry. That, along with the plum, J12's blueberry bushes, the grapevine and round the corner, K8's mandarin, L6's lime, K9's lemon and a passionfruit vine are making this side of the house a real fruit bowl! And at the front is another plum tree and J11's feijoas too.
(not to mention the strawberries in the vege patch and the wild blackberry which is trying to encroach on said patch - although after falling over this morning and ending up with a butt impaled by blackberry barbs, I think I might make more of an effort to convince it to go elsewhere!!)

But right now I've got seeds to plant. Here they are, waiting to be planted into the tray. When they sprout, they'll go and meet the other plants in the garden - I might even be able to follow Woodrow's lunar planting scheme! Right now I'm just lunatic-trying-to-get-seeds-growing-as-fast-as-possible.




PLUS: one exciting discovery. Grass clippings might not be the *best* thing to dump on a patch of bare earth.....but they are better than nothing. The patch in the middle had had more than its fair share of the crop over the year, with diminishing allocations being made the further out one was to go. Underneath the fresh clippings from yesterday, I discovered.....at the outside - rock hard clay that was so dry you couldn't even break into it......and right in the middle - first of a layer of older clippings and then a layer of thick black crumbly compost-imposter. It truly looked just like the compost coming out of the purchased bag! But underneath that was the real treat. The soil was damp, you could dig it, it was crumbly and best of all it was teeming with worms.
Woodrow will be proud of me - I am converted - I believe in mulching.

This gardening thing is almost a spiritual experience huh!