I'm still here, but so are the earthquakes

You may be thinking that I have abandoned this blog, but the sorry truth is that our garden itself has been abandoned. There has been too much going on in the rest of our lives with the repeated hammering that our poor city of Christchurch has been getting from these earthquakes. Nothing is normal in our lives right now - we have no office (although we do still have work), no shops, no cafes or bars or restaurants to go to in the city centre. The heart has been ripped out of Christchurch, and my desire to take part in activities like gardening has gone with it for the time being.
Our garden is still there but it is mostly empty beds right now. I don't plan on doing much with it until Spring rolls around again in a few months, by which time I hope things have settled down. We're still getting aftershocks every few hours at the moment following quakes of 5.7 and 6.3 on June 13th, and until those aren't such a major part of my life I'm not going to beat myself up over not doing enough around the house and garden.

Strawberry time!

I just gathered the first strawberries of the season from our one-metre-square strawberry patch. Hope it's the first bowl of many!

Giving up on growing from seed

Almost none of the dozens of seeds I planted a few weeks ago have germinated. Our conservatory is just too hot on the hot days, and I think they baked rather than thriving, but if we put them outdoors the birds get them. So I officially give up on growing from seed, for this year anyway.

Pride put aside, I went down to the garden centre today and spent $30 on:

• nine green beans (bush, not climbing)
• six Early Girl tomatoes
• more red onions, white onions, and spring onions than I can count
• six Drunken Woman lettuce
• six Tom Thumb lettuce
• six dill
• six celery

I think I got my money's worth anyway! Let's hope they all grow and thrive in our garden.

Six tiny Early Girl tomato plants

There are reasons for my selection of green beans (which I dislike) and dill (a herb I've never knowingly used). The beans are to go in the bed between the potatoes and the cucumbers -- apparently those two plants do not like each other, but they both like beans, so I'm hoping the beans will act as a buffer zone. And the dill is also a companion plant to encourage our sweetcorn to thrive. I'm also planting climbing beans in among the sweetcorn plants, to take advantage of the natural climbing frame provided by the cornstalks, and to add nitrogen to the soil.

Green beans planted between the cucumbers and the potatoes

The onions are also companion plants, but at least I know I'll eat those! Onions benefit strawberries and make them taste more strawberry-y. Our strawberries last year were absolutely delicious, so I think onions are definitely good for them. Let's hope the trend continues.

Strawberries and tiny onions

Ho hum

The garden is ticking over. There definitely isn't the same level of activity as last year -- part of this is because we are doing other things, but it's mostly because the whole thing is already set up for us. The hard work of clearing the ground, then building and filling the beds, has all been done. All we have to do this year is add some compost and dig things over with a hand trowel. Square Foot Gardening is a great timesaver!

I've got some tomato seedlings on the go, but I've restrained myself this year and am only planting a few varieties:

• Aunt Ruby's German Green
• Sungold
• Moneymaker
• Black from Tula
• and one random bargain-rack Dad's Delight (I think it's called) from the Warehouse

I'm most excited about those and the cucumbers which are also sprouting nicely. The cukes can go outside in another week or so, and the tomatoes a couple of weeks after that.

We still haven't decided what to do with the far corner of the veggie garden. I want to make it into a bee-attracting flower patch, but I'm very unlucky when it comes to growing flowers and haven't managed to produce anything that will stay alive. Right now it contains a huge thistle, which isn't much good to anybody, some self-seeded potatoes, and a brick.

Please excuse the missing month

I was all set to get back into gardening at the start of September, which is also the start of Spring. But before I could do anything else we got hammered by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake on September 4th 2010.

I'm not going to discuss the earthquake at length here, except to say that it was very traumatic, it put all thoughts of gardening out of my head, and a month later we are still getting powerful aftershocks.

The garden is now edging back into the picture and I did a little bit of cleanup at the weekend.

The strawberries are in bloom!

I dug compost into two of the beds in preparation for growing things. The tall bed will have potatoes and cucumbers just like it did last year, with some carrots in between (assuming they will grow well together -- I need to check my companion planting guide).

The low bed will have tomatoes and other salady things as yet undetermined. It already has pansies and another flower that didn't actually bloom last year, so I've forgotten what it is. Guess we'll find out later this season!

Spring is in the air

It has been a long, wet winter, but things are starting to look up at last. The mountains are still covered in snow and we are forecast some icy wind and rain for the next few days, but at least today was warm and sunny. The daffodils are showing themselves, the cherry trees are in full bloom, and the weeds are growing like crazy.

We have what I believe is a greengage tree in our garden. It is attracting bees at the moment, which I love to see. Bees are great.

We also have some variation of box tree which smells like cocoa butter when it's in bloom. Yum.

This chocolate-smelling-tree (as I call it in my head) is a real indication for me that summer isn't too far away, and if I get the chance to sit out on our deck in the sunshine and smell it wafting over me then I'm going to do just that. I've managed it for the last two years so let's hope I manage it this year as well. I can hardly wait!

Ugh

It has literally not stopped raining since last weekend, meaning we have had six days straight of rain of varying degrees of heaviness. Most of the week was made up of heavy downpours, but today we have upgraded to light drizzle interspersed with showers. I suppose that's an improvement.

Since it's too miserable to go outside, the garden has officially gone to rack and ruin. There are orange and green tomatoes still on the plants, and the last of the apples still on the tree, but I can't face going out there to rescue them. The birds are having a great time of it though! They will keep coming to the apple tree all winter, and I like to think that my laziness will play a part in keeping many birds alive through the tough times.

Regular visitors to our garden include:
Silvereyes:

Blackbirds:

Greenfinches:

Thrushes:

Goldfinches:

I did see a tui recently but can't remember if that was in our garden or in the park nearby. Probably can't claim it as a regular visitor!