Spring has sprung

We have been having the most beautiful weather here these last few days. On Sunday we met some friends and had breakfast at Ceres (Ceres Community Environmental Park) and afterwards we wandered around and admired the community veggie gardens and then bought a few bits and pieces in their nursery. With Ceres as an inspiration and while the sun shines down, all I want to do is potter around in the garden and start great beds of lush healthy plants. There is a huge amount to be done in our not-so-big back yard. HUGE amounts, but even after just a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon things started to come together. Dad fixed our watering system so that it’s now much more efficient, Big-P knocked down the old brick barbeque to make way for a future shrub or veggie patch and mum threw armfuls of prunings into the big dangerous hole that is still waiting to be filled with soil and miraculously turned into a garden bed. I planted some more herbs and after snails ate two of my basil plants right down to the ground last night, I am going to have to make a pavlova so that I can use the egg shells to sprinkle around the remaining plants to protect them (thanks for the tips in my comments the other day.) Interestingly enough, it’s the herbs from Ceres that have been decimated, and the others have all been left alone. Perhaps it’s true that organic tastes better, even to snails.

Here’s a snap of the bear trap – filled with prunings. In a couple of weekends time we are going to fill it with soil and then plant some trees to add a little shade to our otherwise sun-baked yard.

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9 Responses

  1. I love your stuff. and your blog is just too cute and highly entertaining. 🙂 I found your site through my yahoo and it’s been really inspiring to see all the crafters out there. 🙂 Thanks!!
    Meg

  2. We’re about to embark on major garden works at my home too- definitely the season for it, with the lovely weather in Melbourne this week!

  3. leigh.kristesen@energywatch.org.uk says:

    Snails are also partial to grapefruit.

  4. Ahh, spring. It’s slowly turning to winter here.

  5. For the first time this summer I discovered the joy of clothes on a line when our dryer broke down. It’s not that the clothes dry nicer, but the act of pinning the clothes up itself, in the breeze and sunshine. I had no idea what a satisfying activity that would be.

  6. Wow! That CERES Park looks fantastic. I am trying to get my local city council interested in allowing our street to set up a community garden in some open space we have … it’s certainly a challenging experience, but your link to CERES gave me new fire 🙂 Thanks. And good luck with the garden – a beautiful garden is one of the most wonderful things in life. BTW – my daughter LOVES playing with snails … I think of it as a humane way of killing the buggers. They get loved to death and then they get thrown onto the road.

  7. rgreenr@yahoo.com says:

    here’s an old trick for ridding your garden of snails: pour beer into little containers and place around the garden. the snails crawl in after the beer, get drunk and can’t get back out. i’m serious!!

  8. I love drawings of snails and we always stop (the kids and I) to follow a shiny trail when we find one. However, I’ve seen green caterpillars eating my mint. Aggh! The are the same green color as the plant and you can’t see them to take them out! With all the advice you are getting, I’m sure your garden will turn out great.

  9. maristar2000@yahoo.com says:

    you have to check out my cousin’s scarecrow goddess witch that she made last week for her garden: http://www.cherrybean.blogspot.comit is SO fun!!