Monday, August 11, 2008

winter daze

Things have got away from me this week and I haven't caught up on this blog as a result. I'm still hard at it with that piece of patchwork and it is starting to look like it may come to something.

Apart from that I've been trying to figure out how to lower my mileage somewhat without it costing a fortune in bus fares (which are very expensive comparatively). I think I can pick up a couple of secondhand bikes cheaper than a weeks bus fare x3 but will have to be on the look out until suitable ones turn up. Then there will only be one set of bus cards to get instead of two. I think it is still a bit far to ask my 10 year old to cycle 8 kilometers with very steep hills at each end. (one hill is Baldwin st aka world's steepest and the other is Jesse street which is in the world's top 10 steepest!) When they want to do the whole thing, they can. Its all bike path now too which doesn't go near the very unsafe highway down to the port. Even an expert would hesitate to use that road - its full of logging trucks and container trucks etc.

The garden is too frosty to dig yet but it shouldn't be long before its time to plant now. There are already a few blossom trees out and a few spring flowers as well. We hope to put in a glasshouse this year for tomatoes and cucumbers and possibly a bell pepper or two. We also need to put the berry fruit under netting - the birds got nearly all my red currants last year and I was miffed. I had been looking forward to those as they would have been the first real crop off the bushes (admittedly only about a bowl full but still...). I'm also hoping to get some fruit trees for the area along the fenceline. We are lucky enough to border a paper (unformed) road so there are no neighbours near for a few meters. And even then our nearest neighbour is my mother! (We didn't plan that, it just happened and it helps with the shop as she makes a lot of our stuff).

Well washing calls - it needs to be hung out.

viv in nz

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Let me know about your glasshouse! We wanted to put in a greenhouse this year but decided to try just planting in the field. Our beans have taken a big hit from japanese beetles and the spring floods have really hurt our harvest. May have to reconsider the greenhouse for next year!

knutty knitter said...

We have been growing a few tomatoes outside too but it really isn't quite warm enough and I tend to get lots of green tomato relish which is ok but you can only use so much :)

viv in nz