Growing Taller

The peas along the front fence are dying off in the heat. I did get a few tastes of peas from them, but not much. I don't usually bother saving seeds from peas, I'd much rather be eating them, but these few got beyond good eating age while I was away visiting my mum, so I left them on until they dried out, and have put them away for next year's crop. I really like the sugarsnap climbing peas, they taste oh so yum, and the vines seem to produce far more prolifically than the bush types.

I've been working steadily on mulching the trees in the orchard. This is the second bale of lucerne that has gone up there, and I will probably need one more to get them all done. Before I mulched each tree, I gave it a drink of diluted juice from my sister's new bokashi bucket. It's been raining here, so DH asked why I was bothering to water them, but I explained that I was fertilising them, and apparently it's best to fertilise after the plants have had a good water, so that they don't overdose on the fertiliser by trying to take up the water. So perfect timing.

I was a little disappointed initially when my fruit trees just didn't seem to be growing. Of course, it was winter, but I guess I still expected something. I was actually feeling pretty downhearted by the time spring hit, but not anymore. They've just taken off. This mulberry tree was tiny when it was planted back in July, and just look at it now! It's taller and skinnier than my black mulberry, which is how I actually remember white mulberry trees being. I just hope I can reach the fruit when it fruits next year!

This apricot was planted not long after the mulberry, and at the time was a bare rooted, bare stemmed branch about up to my waist! I'm thrilled that it's growing so well, although I have heard that it's too cold around here for apricots to set fruit. I'm still hopeful though.

We've spent today clearing up around the garage, taking an entire load of rubbish to the tip. Another one to cross off my 100 things to declutter. Up to 21 now. We also found lots of things we will donate, but since we haven't done that yet, I cant add them to the total!

I'll probably be a bit quiet over the next few days. I'm a day behind on NaNo, and since nighttime is the only time I can write while DH is at work, my evenings will be spent doing that rather than typing blog posts. I'm sure I'll catch up, I've missed days before, but I just need to spend a little more time on it until I do.