After a trip to the gym and then onto the farmers market, it was time to get out into the garden. Although the sun had been shining and the sky blue all morning, as soon as I opened the back door the wind picked up and the clouds rushed across the sky. It was still warm though, and the rain that kept threatening me stayed away until I came inside.
I had a fairly large garden clean-up due after months of neglect over winter. Everything was overgrown and my pots were filled with all sorts of unidentified plants. There were self seeded parsley and unidentifiable weeds growing everywhere, and so much clover!
First step was to attack the morning glory and ivy that has grown over, under and through the fence. This is one job I kept up over winter, as unless it is tackled on an almost weekly basis it gets completely out of control. I do like the look of morning glory, and it adds a bit of privacy by extending the fence hight, but it grow several meters in a week choking everything in its path. The ivy likes to squeeze between the fence posts and is quite successfully pulling the fence apart. As there wasn't too much growth this week, I cut it back a little and attached all the dead vines underneath this months new growth.
Before:
After (slightly less messy):
And finally - the massive bag of vines that came off:
Next I moved onto the garden beds.
Before:
These silvery grey plants were looking really tatty and had not only taken over the whole garden bed, but had self seeded in every pot and every bit of space in the garden. They were even appearing between the pavers:
After:
I pulled up most of them, but left a few baby ones, and added a few from pots in a small patch. I was tempted to get rid of them entirely but they do have a lovely purple/pink flower in summer. I also planted a lavender and some other flowers that had grown too big for their pots, then added the broccolini and spring onions from last weeks farmers market trip.
Before:
This patch of marjoram and mint has seen better days.
After:
Although the photos don't look all that different, in a few weeks this area should pick up. I cut back all the dead growth and pruned it right back. There was actually a lot of new growth under all those sticks, and if anything like last year, this will take off now it has been cleaned up. I've taken the mint out of the plastic pot, and added in some pieces that were growing between the pavers. I was a little hesitant to do this as I'm concerned it will take over the garden so I'll need to keep an eye on it.
I then moved onto some of the pots...
Before:
These pots were filled with just about everything you could imagine. Strawberries, sage, mint, clover, parsley and all sorts of unidentifiable greens. I have a tendency to leave unknown plants alone to see if they become anything recognisable as they grow, and this has lead to some interesting discoveries (ugly plants that suddenly bloom amazing flowers) and also a spread of weeds. So while the plant in the bottom right corner looked healthy and potentially could be something beautiful - I decided to pull it up anyway.
After:
The end result here looks a bit bare, but I'm going to work on these pots. I removed everything but the strawberries from the top pot, and plan to add a few more runners when I get to that garden bed. The bottom pot has just the sage remaining. If this doesn't pick up soon I might need to add some more, or change it to something new. The other two pots are now empty waiting on some spring seedling.
Before:
These pots were a mess of everything!
After:
I removed almost everything, just keeping the self-seeded parsley and transferring it all into one pot. I've planted the purple silverbeet and red russian kale, and moved a pot of the garlic over here. The lettuce has been dug up and I'll use the last few leaves for a salad with dinner tonight.
Before:
After:
I've not done too much here, just removed some weeds from the thyme and succulent pots, and pulled out the dead basil.
Before:
After:
I discovered under all that mess there were a few strong silverbeet plants that had either self seeded or were hanging on from last spring. The lettuce and parsley have gone to tonights dinner and all the weeds have been removed.
I'll leave the wider garden shot for another post as this one is getting rather long!
PS - If it isn't yet obvious I'm new to blogging and trying to get my head around these templates. Does anyone know how to arrange photos better so they aren't all in a big long list? Is it possible (using blogger) to put them next to each other or create a box of images?
