Here’s Tess waiting for Christmas in the back of my car. Hoping for more squeaky balls in her stocking. Not long to go now.
Vouchers for the fresh food garden course have been popular Christmas gifts. There are now two dates – Saturday 17 January 2009 and Saturday 31 January 2009. Although they are suitable for beginners, some participants have had quite extensive gardening experience and still come away having learned a great deal and full of renewed enthusiasm.
Fresh food garden will feature on Radio New Zealand National on Boxing Day in their ‘Summer Report’ programme between 9 and 9.30am. You’ll here from me and some of the people who’ve been on the course. It will be available as a podcast if you miss it first time around.
If you’ve got some extra time over summer, you still can’t go far wrong with a good book. Here are the gardening books I find the most useful.
The apple tree bandit met a swift end in a Timms trap. Many of the apples on my espaliered trees had been nibbled by a possum. I recommend you keep a trap or two baited with apple permanently. You may be surprised how many you catch. You’ll be doing New Zealand’s native flora and fauna a favour. If you want to keep other pests off your vegetable garden (rabbits, hares, cats and birds) try some of these crop protection ideas.
We’ve planted more native trees this week including some very healthy young totara (podocarpus totara). It will be a while before they achieve their mature 20 metre height. We buy our plants from Taupo Native Plant Nursery which has provided us a consistently high standard of trees at a very reasonable price.
Wishing you a relaxing and enjoyable summer break.