Indoor gardening

1.5.2020

It is May day, but that brings no joy here. It is pleasantly warm in our glass fronted cave but looking out of the glass front the view is of grey skies, sodden paddocks making me feel that I need to leave the house to do the mornings chores as late as possible.  Earlier this week it was warm and sunny and the wood ducks on the dam sat in the sun with their new babies.

I took advantage of the warm weather and began a massive clean-up in my sunroom jungle. This involved taking my plants outside for cleaning and repotting and then scrubbing and resealing the floor before putting everything back.  This is a big task, so I have done one section. at a time.  I started at the door end, but this was a bit silly because I had to walk through this section to do all the rest and my plan had to be rethought.  I then worked from the far end forward and have one stage to go before I meet the first bit I did. 

Some of the plants have grown huge and put up quite a fight.  The bromeliads have prickles down the sides of their leaves and my hands are in a bad way.  The fiddle leaf fig has now grown right up to the ceiling and I decided just to work round it, discression being the better course than valour at this point.  Edd has helped me by cleaning the windows, so even the view outside to the hills looks sharper.

The problem with repotting is that you end up with many more plants than one started with. There just is not room to get everything back indoors. Some will be OK outside, so I now have a front patio that is rapidly changing into an entrance garden.  Other plants have died back for winter. I have harvested a good amount of ginger and should probably harvest the turmeric too. The chilli peppers must come in to keep them producing in the cold weather and last year I brought in my capsicum plant too.  I put bis back into the vegetable garden in spring and it has given us a great crop this year. 

Edd has spent the week moving water between tanks to make room for all the rain.  The tank by the sheds was overflowing and flooding the area. He is gathering up materials to build a fence at the top of the vegetable garden so that we have defences against deer. The new chooks we brought are now enjoying the freedom of outdoor space and after one day have learnt how to go to roost in the shed at night. They have not started to lay yet and we still depend on the older birds for eggs.

We sold Gwen and then put all the young goats in with the main herd and the two oldest goats into a separate croft so that they do not have to compete with the younger animals for food. They look OK but they are 15 years old now and surely are getting to the end of their lives.  The kids now have new turquoise collars and have all learnt to jump onto the bale at feeding time. We now have to dry off some of the milkers who are pregnant, and the herd is all set for winter.