December Day Fourteen

(Warning, photo heavy.)

I hinted a few days ago that there was a story behind our dahlia patch.

At the end of last year we started felling the pine trees on a hillside paddock. They were 40 years old and at the age where they would start dying and falling. Although the wood price wasn't too flash, we decided it was now or never. And we found someone who was happy to harvest small blocks like ours.

It was pretty exciting, seeing the piles of logs heap up —

And to see the logging trucks taking them away.

Of course we were left with a huge mess. The contractors had made piles of the scraps/rubbish which our men burnt but there is still debris everywhere. Logs, stumps, pinecones, branches. It didn't look too bad initially - 

But of course by now there are weeds everywhere.

Over the years, waste silage bales were put under the trees (if the plastic wrap around the silage bale gets a hole in it, water gets in and they rot, and are no good for stock feed). A lot of them have rotted down, and combined with the ash, we have ended up with some nice areas of soil, despite the fact that pine tree areas can be very acidic.

YD and I decided early on that we were going to re-plant this area how WE wanted it. Fruit trees and gardens, a nice hedgerow, a native area, specimen trees and so on. And anything that we felt we could get to grow.

We've been growing seedlings for a while, or potting up plants that sprout up, and buying cheap plants from the 'rescue me' areas in plant shops.

Our first planting, in March, was a banana sucker that had come up in the wrong place. We decided it warranted a selfie moment  —

We've been gradually planting this spring. There's a lot of work clearing an area of logs and weeds. We mostly just throw it all down hill, and figure that by the time we plant down there, some of it will be rotted or we'll just face those challenges when we get to them. 

We planted the dahlia patch early on as YD had dug up all her favourite bulbs (she will be moving house soon) and they needed a home. 

(My daughters are the dahlia experts, they know all the varieties. I just go along with them!)

This is an apple tree she grew from seed. Two ways of looking at it. It's sheltered by the weeds, or in danger of being overgrown (!) —

We've planted plums, peach, loquat, avocado, passionfruit, pohutakawa. 

This is our 'hedgerow along the fenceline; odds and sods of shrubs and bushes —

Sweetcorn —

Kumara —

Pumpkin —
(We're also growing some Giant Pumpkins for a local giant pumpkin competition!)

On a good day, when Odie is happy to 'help', we get a lot done. Sometimes we don't get very much done!

We're probably done with planting now and will spend the summer watering and pulling those weeds back from our plants.

Lots of fun planning and seeing what we can get away with. It's not very vehicle friendly so there's a lot of carting and carrying. We need to get a water system set up, bucketing from the nearby trough is a bit of a pain.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn.