A pile of green waste

Here is our council-provided green waste bin:

And here it is next to one of our two piles of green waste:

Hmmm. I guess we'll take it one week at a time.

Those rascally rabbits

I planted some raspberry canes this week. Here's two of them. Can you spot the difference?

Yes, the one on the left is half the height of the one on the right and this is not due to some tricky perspective/depth influence in the taking of the photo. It is due to rabbits. Nasty, pesky, rascally, introduced rabbits. 2 nights had the canes been in before one was snapped in half. 2 days! I had been hopeful that the lack of green on the cane and the abundance of green in the surrounding grass would stop them from attracting rabbit notice. But then, I did read at the National Wool Museum today that one pair of rabbits (that would be one male and one female) could be responsible for a population of 62 000 rabbits in 3 years. So clearly, there is a metropolis of rabbits gathering out there every night and one of them probably just fell over it.

And ironically we have a fluffy black rabbit for a pet. I have to take care of it. And it is outliving all reasonable predictions of a basically attended to, outdoors living domestic rabbit lifespan.

As a result construction of our very own rabbit-proof fence around the orchard and vegetable garden has leap-frogged up the projects list. I just hope the rest of the raspberries survive until it is finished.

Berry ready for planting

Also nearly ready for the addition of plants are the raspberry and blueberry beds. Readying them included diggingout a total of 27 square metres of turf and bringing in 3 cubic metres of garden soil so the beds would be weed-free, well drained and friable. The raspberries (mmmmm, yummmm) are ready to go in but the blueberry bed still needs some acidifying so I'll leave them for another few weeks.

Blueberry bed

Raspberries are go

Whilst shifting the soil was kind of hard work it was also very satisfying and I did have some great help. And why not wear orange tights and a floral ra-ra skirt for working in the garden?

Straining for apples

It is very useful to have married a farmer's son. Although initially, even he had forgotten he knew how to strain a fence wire. But put together a strainer from his father-in-law and some reminders from his father and the muscle memory kicked in. The bottom wire is in place for the planting and espaliering of the apples & pears. I can go shopping!

Bare-rooted potential

One bag of sticks + one wheelbarrow of gardening gear = the beginning of an orchard.

I planted Moorpark and Divinity Apricots, an Anzac Peach, a Goldmine Nectarine and Satsuma and Santa Rosa Plums. Happy days! And more still to come!