Extreme gardening

I think I've over watered the chives (pictured).  It's going to be an usually hot week here in Tas and was getting a little ahead of myself.  Having limited ability in the skilled gardener category I tend to over do things.  This can be a good thing.  When I'm on a weed pulling mission there's no stopping me.  The chooks think it's marvellous.  They stand beside me cheering me on as I launch myself under overgrown rose bushes, with my weeding weapons of mass dislodging.  I recently met my match with a lone box thorn branch sneakily siding up beside an English box hedge hoping to go unnoticed.  I thought it looked a bit unusual.  I put on my chainmail gloves and went to it.  I pulled it and pulled it.  The chicken crowds gathered.  It wouldn't budge.  I pulled it with all my weight and it didn't even move, not even slightly.  It's long rope of a stem held firm as its roots had securely lodged themselves under the old concrete border for protection.  I contemplated wrapping it around myself and hurling myself across the courtyard but decided the audience had been entertained enough for one day.  I'm later told that the only way to deal with this pest is to cut it down and poison the roots.  I hate the idea of putting any poison anywhere near plants given particularly if left in my care they need all the support they can get.  But this will be added to the list of jobs.  As for the chives.  Well I'll just step away from them for a while.

Raining scones and jam

It's raining today.  About time too.  There is a heavy cloud all around us that's a bit like fog but we don't mind at all as it's bringing some steady falls.  The garden was staring to look a little deep fried.  It's not the heat, but the wind. The hydrangeas faint and the fruit trees start to look like satay sticks.  It's like taking your hair dryer out into the garden, plugging it in and blowing hot air on your veggie patch, for a couple of days.  So hooray for rain.  Being a Friday there's not much happening on the gardening front but we could always take shelter in the glasshouse.  We've been known to muster up a decent mug of tea and scones with some homemade jam to discuss new plantings, or in some cases post mortems.  Of course being jam makers now (note the tone of righteousness) we must have scones to showcase the jam, in the words of Scone Master Sally Wise.  And the beauty of the scone making exercise is that the leftovers go in the freezer to be reincarnated as breadcrumbs for tonight's Flathead.  Gotta love a bit of frugal every now and then.