Plans For August and September

Now, I'm coming to the pointy end of my Little Garden Facelift and this has worked out so well! I've recycled pots and made the garden look great! New plants are starting to flourish, the backfilled ones are looking good and then the ones which have been upgraded into other pots have begun to take on a new lease on life too.

The greenhouse is going so well too! The tomatoes are growing fast and the herbs are looking and tasting wonderful! However, the possums have tried getting into it, very unsuccessfully I must say! 

Anyway, I've got to work on the lawn as the days become longer and warmer and Spring is about to show its lovely warm face to Australia. And seeing we haven't had much rain, but it's been cold, it'll be up to me to get in and water the lawn more as the weeks go by.

First though, I'll be looking into buying some good quality lawn seed, Feed'n'Weed and lawn food as well. Before any of that goes down, I'll have to spread out some potting mix (cheap stuff) to level out the surface of my lawn first and make it look the way I want it to. This will be the first thing I'll be doing next week - buying the $2.95 potting mix to put out on the the shallow parts of my lawn and then putting out the lawn seed. 

After that, I'll get in and get some 2nd-hand pavers and pave the garden bed and a bag of white stones. The white stones will be for the front garden (to cover up the roots of the trees out there and make it look better). And then, I'll get in and put in some lawn food over the lawn seed and water that in - otherwise that'll burn the seed. 

By the beginning of September, I'll hopefully have a nice level lawn and a pretty garden to walk out into for the rest of the year... and lawn should be nice and lush and strong for the hotter days to come. Then, once it's established, I might get in and lay larger pavers into the ground leading out to the greenhouse. Those pavers will be right at ground level so that when I mow, the blades won't be grazing the paver.

It sounds like a lot of work, but all the hard work is done. This is the easy part... the touching-up part of the garden. Well, let's hope it is. Until my next post, happy gardening!

Been Busily Gardening

It's been a fortnight and the Little Garden Facelift has been chugging along really well. So far, I've installed a lovely little greenhouse to protect not only my most delicate of plants, but to get in and grow other plants too! 

Yep! I'm back into growing herbs and tomatoes again - isn't that great? I'm so pleased to be able to close it up in that afternoons and know nothing will get into it at night.

In the past two months, the large Sun-Loving Broms were removed and thrown out - and nope, not even my family wanted them, so I couldn't give them away. And then I had 2 pots which were useful to me as well. I potted up some lovely plants, repotted others into larger pots and tossed out ones which had lost their bloom and use around the place; reusing their pots for other plants which will be for the garden soon.

I bought a Camellia and a large pot for it, and recently planted that up for next Summer... it's looking great! I can't wait to see it in full bloom next Summer! And I'm planning on getting some pavers as well to put down, as I've made a pathway into the back of the yard to the fence... and because it'll get really muddy, I want to be able to make it a lovely little path through my garden. 

Last night, I pulled apart the solar light strings and pulled out the flat batteries for them and looked at what kind of batteries they were. You see, as the lights are okay, I'll just replace the batteries and get them charged up as the days become longer and the sun moves around. It'll look great again and light up my garden again for the next 6 months - and besides, the batteries only cost around $5.95 per pair. So, that's a saving for me in the longrun.

I still have a few things to get in and do for the garden. There's still a plant to put in, pots to put away and other things to clean up around the place. I want to add in some succulents for the frame next to the back door and re-do the stones in the front garden area (as they're not looking great and need refreshing) so the townhouse looks nice and clean for Summer. 
All of this will come in the next month; and by Spring, the gardens - front and back - will be all ready for the warmer month; and all I'll have to do is watch it grow and enjoy it all. Then, there's the lawn to care for too - as it hasn't gotten out of this without some damage. My yard gets no sun over Winter and so it's now a little muddy... and so I'll be getting in and working over it with some Feed'n'Weed and lawn food as well as September comes through.

So, there's what I've been up to over not only the past two months, but what's going to happen over the next two. Yeah, there's still some things to get into, and other maintenance to get into before Summer hits us again. Until my next post, keep gardening!

Gardening Journals

I keep a gardening journal - not only online, but also offline - to keep my actions around my garden in print. 

I know this may sound like a finicky thing to do, but if I keep up-to-date what I do with my garden, what I spend on it, how much money goes into it, which plants I buy, how much potting mix is bought and what lives and what doesn't in my garden, I have an idea what I can do with it - and also what I can't do with the garden I have. 

I started my gardening journal I have now in 2013 and it's been going on since. Once in a while, I don't write but then it's when I don't do anything to change the garden; for example this year! 

This year, I've bought a new greenhouse, plants and potting mix, moved a whole lot of plants around, gotten rid of plants I no long need/want in the garden, back-filled other plants and repotted others still which really needed it. But then, I'm looking at buying a few other plants to fill out some gaps which have been created around the garden from the tossed out plants and a lot of herbs to grow for my kitchen.

All of this has been going into my gardening journal; and this is a good thing. I've also written in the aim for my next pay packet - how many bags of potting mix I'll be needing, the big pot I'll be needing next week and another plant I want to buy for the garden... it all goes in there... as aims for my garden. It's all there for a reason and it's so when I look at it next, I know what I want for my garden is for it to flourish next Summer.

Do you keep a gardening journal? Is yours online and offline? Have you got a Facebook group or photo journal to keep yourself on track? I have all of these and the people in the group on Facebook are few, but they get inspiration from what I do in my small garden - they know I don't have a lot of money, nor a lot of space, and yet I make the most of it all. So, do you make the most of your garden and your space? Until my next post, happy gardening.