And so that brings me to the current gardening lessons learned!

Being a southern gardener is quite a steep learning curve for me – and I have learned some good lessons these past few colder months (that I didn’t encounter last year). 

No1.  Don’t plant your potatoes in only half a bed ya dill!!  This is what it will get you – having to mound up half a bed, whilst trying to keep the other half low for the potatoes you put in a month later!!

 



 










It possibly doesn’t look that bad in this photo – but imagine how it looked last weekend, when the right hand side was only just above the tank edge and the left side was as high as it is now…

So it was just me and 4 wheelbarrow loads of mulch (straw, sifted sand and mumby magic) to mound up those right hand ones = hard work!!  And if anyone knows why these potatoes have grown this high let me know – they are about double the height of last year’s ones (yes, different variety this year and planted earlier – is that all it is?).

Lesson No2.  Don’t plant late tomatoes – as much as you have absolutely loved the summer-ripe, just-off-the-bush ones in your salads!!  These late ones have got to this stage as mostly bird food – the parrots just get in there and snack away – which is kinda ok with me, but I was looking forward to some toms myself…so I have now picked what I can (mostly green as most have fallen off the bush). 

 











And worst of all, these tomatoes seem to have gotten themselves blight – due to the humidity of rain I suspect – but not good as it is now in our soil for years to come…I have done something I have never done before and that is actually rip plants out and put them in the bin!  I am a compulsive composter so this was a form of torture to me but it needed to be done for the greater good!   And now I am praying that next summer’s tomatoes – when I will sensibly plant them nicely spaced out (to lower humidity) and as far from the affected area as possible – will survive the blight!!!

Now these might be obvious lessons to some, but I seemed to need to learn them the hard way ;-)