New beginnings

..............in the garden

I've been absent from here, mainly due to illness,but also spending a lot of time reclaiming my garden.  The flood waters left soil behind that's contaminated very badly with e coli, heavy metals and chemicals, and although I've been scrupulously careful, I've ended up with nasty bugs and infections that linger on for ages.  It's taken me ages to write this post, it was harder than I realised to go back and look at the photos from the flood.

So, there's lots of *then* and *now* pics, and they pretty much speak for themselves.

This is what greeted me the next day when the water had started to go down .....fences gone, debris and mud piled up everywhere...... 

That black and white splodge is a magpie, flying low, not stuck there.  My roses are under there somewhere!

They haven't suffered from being drowned under water, mud and debris though and are looking beautiful.

And now,  with the debris and mud cleared away, new fences up and the beginnings of a garden it's looking much better .... 

Still a way to go replacing all the garden but bit by bit it's happening

***

The side of the house has gone from looking like this

To this 

Looking a lot better

New paving put down, using bricks that surfaced all over the yard when the water was gone.  No idea if they were already  buried in the yard, or were washed in from elsewhere.

I've put woodchips right along here, not wanting to do a lot of in-ground planting, but also to give Mirrhi her own place to sleep in the garden, and so she can see what's going on through the fence and talk to passers-by, without getting into trouble for being on the garden

A work in progress......photo is dark, I took it at 5.30 this morning

This is looking back towards the new courtyard, it ended up looking worse than this, as it's where all the mud that was cleared from the paths and under the house was shovelled to.  That tangled mess of green to the left was my greenhouse, full of seed trays and seedlings ready to be planted. 

 

The mud set like cement and was impossible to dig and 60cm to1 mtr (2-3ft) deep in places

A man driving past one day saw me struggling to move it, went home and got his shovel and pick, and came back and dug it all out for me.  

He came back the next day with these snapdragons his wife had bought for me.  The generosity of strangers after the flood was heartwarming and their acts of kindness just wonderful.

A strangers kindness brought the beginnings of colour and life back to my garden

And here's that 'mud heap" today

So that's it, the beginnings of the tale of reclamation and growth.

I'll be back tomorrow to join  Kate and others for ScrapHappy Day.

See you then.........

In the winter garden and a chicken bower

Winter, that's a bit of a joke.  Although there's a cool breeze today, outside it's quite warm enough for a t-shirt.  It's good growing weather, warm days and cool nights.

This is the bed I had prepared last week and is now planted with broad beans, Asian cabbage, spinach, collards, and too hard to see, calendulas and heartsease.  Radish seeds in the middle space.

 

This is a new bed I finished a couple of days ago, after breaking my back removing weeds and hauling soil.  It's now home to snow peas, a couple more broad bean plants, some bok choy and marigolds.  Radish seeds in the "holes" in the mulch.

Homemade climbing trellis for the peas, using long branches picked up on my doggy walks.

 

When the sun gets too hot for the tender seedlings, the trellis supports shade cloth. This area used to be in shade in the afternoon, but is now in full sun since the jacaranda tree fell.

Potatoes doing well, they've been hilled up twice since I took this picture, and I've nearly unrolled all the way to the top of the bags, they quite like being in the sun all day .

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The chickens have been noticing the absence of the jacaranda as well.......not only had their run become very hot without it, but they had lost their "jungle" overhead, which made them feel safe, and so they wouldn't venture out into the open space.  So I made them a shady jungle bower from the broken branches that had to be trimmed off the mulberry tree. Not pretty but it works.

 

 Spangly Lola, golden Juno and a black blob which is Brenna, happily hidden away....I think they like it.

 

 Today, I need to check on the newest seedlings of bok choy and kale and see if they're ready to plant out, start some more seeds and I know there are tomatoes ready to be potted on.....all that and some sewing to hopefully finish off the Seed Packet quilt will fill the day quite nicely.

...............until next time