Please send pictures of the hothouse, too. And all your plants. And of you and your slave. *grins*

helen

It sounds pretty exciting to me! But what's the house like? I need to know if it's time to throw a few things in the car and drive over yet?!

PP

Adam's working hard creating his flowering paradise out the front. Me, I just grow veggies.
Loving the climate here - very cold nights but beautiful days for the most part. There's a little town about 30 km east of here called Hillgrove where I might go searching for my country residence (read shack on an acre or two). While waiting for that to materialise though I'm happy as a pig in the proverbial helping Adam get his piece of dirt in growing order.
Ray

The yard looking west from the back porch.
Note all the garden beds. There were none just weeks before. Right up the back in the top left corner is the compost bin. Just down from it are the remnants of a cotoneaster - horrid thing which had to go! There is now a hothouse next to the compost bin.

This is the south side of the yard taken from the back of the yard. The beds are all no dig - just newspaper/cardboard, edged (wood or cement blocks), filled with straw, manure and soil. The ex-cotoneaster is just out of the picture on the right.

And now the hothouse!

A view from outside.

A view to the inside. The dark stuff on the floor is red cedar mulch over weed mat. I've only lashed it for now as I'll be moving it when I find my own place. The door will be in place tomorrow.

Sown in various beds we have:
Peas - Blue-podded Capuciner (soup), Delta Matilda (snow), Telephone (garden), Oregon Sugar Pod (snow) and Sugar Bon (snap)
parsnips, broadbeans, caulies (Romanesco and Phenomenal Early), carrots (Red-cored Chantenay), kale (Russian Red, Nero di Toscana), chinese cabbage, broccoli (Northern Spring), garlic, rocket, daikon, lettuce (Great Lakes, Winter Triumph, Sucrine), potato onions, asparagus, leeks, erba stella, potatoes (Sebago, Viking, Toolangi Delight, Kipfler, Dutch Cream, Nicola and a purple one whose name escapes me), various green manure crops (soup peas, barley, mixed birdseed, fenugreek etc), youngberry, raspberry and peach.
Next few projects - more beds for tomatoes, caps, chillies, eggplants, strawberries etc etc. Plant out the artichokes currently in pots. Make spots for mandarin, lemon, apple and other fruit trees.
And Spatz, those red currant cuttings are already sprouting!
Ya just gotta love it!

PP, back in her pokey yard, green with envy.

Well done and your hard work has paid off. (Pepino off to find an easier way to shed a few kilos)

Glad to hear the red currants are sprouting.
My bushes are already flowering. Madness!

Must dash, another garden bed to set up and fertilize and mulch and..... It's a fantastic spring day out there, nothing can keep me inside. :)

PP

Thanks for bringing back almost lost memories Ray, (don't take long for things to fall out of the brain these days), I might just try a small bed like this , this year, why the hell not eh.

Cheers Mantis

Mrs f x x