Sunday 8 December 2019

8 December 2019

Today it was raining most of the day. There was flooding in parts of Wellington. We're up in the hills so it's mainly surface water for us. The rain meant I wasn't able to do what I had planned. I knew the greenhouse needed some attention though so this afternoon I decided to do some work in there.


This was what greeted me when I opened the greenhouse door yesterday, except for the two buckets full of the fennel I cut yesterday. Boar helpfully put them inside which was good or they would have been full of water with all the rain.

Of course if I had been in the greenhouse recently the day of the triffids wouldn't have happened!


So much rain that the water tank is overflowing. The outlet hole is in the side and I keep thinking I should put a pipe in so that when it rains like this we can collect the overflow as well.


The other day I decided to de-head all the arum maculatum, or Lords-and-Ladies as one of it's common names is and how I shall refer to it from now on. I went to find my basket and the watering can. Usually they're sitting in plain view but no, totally covered. Extricating them was fun 😁


It's a pretty clever plant convolvulus! No discrimination, it'll wrap itself around anything it can. I couldn't resist this photo of the rake. Just standing there innocently minding it's own business then it gets wrapped. On the framing is my all important cuppa in a thermal mug to keep it warm for a wee while.


In the two back pots are a couple of lavender I got a few months back. I need to plant them out. They've been in the greenhouse so I put them out in the rain for a bit of a wash. The development next door has created so much dust they get coated in it. In the front icecream carton is a Chatham Island forget-me-not. I'm hoping it will take off.


This is a close up of the seed-head of one of the Lords-and-Ladies. Those berries turn orange and drop to the ground. Yes, they're even in the greenhouse.


Another view. They're quite pretty really. I wondered how many seeds or little green berries there were and estimated around sixty. So then I decided to count them . . . Ninety-two! And each one has the potential to become a new plant. Even if only one germinates from each seed-head it's more than I want.


Ta-da! After a couple of hours this was the result. So much better. I don't hurry or I get tired more quickly.


There are two and a half bags of weeds at the back, as well as rubbish in the teal bucket, a bit of fern I'm going transplant in the white bucket. There is also a fern I chopped back which I'll dig up and try to transplant. It's too large for the greenhouse.

It was nice being in the greenhouse getting some work done while the rain was beating on the roof. By the time I finished it had stopped raining. Now to plant some seeds. Tomatoes I think. Probably a bit late but better late than not at all. I'll probably start them off in pots first and I have some newspaper ones ready so will use them.


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