Establishing new gardening area

Dear Family & Friends

Hope you had a good weekend. Mine was packed with muscle pains but altogether very rewarding and enjoyable as we worked on establishing our garden.

The south facing gardening area was once seeded with grass seeds...it was a bad move. I'm not a fan of grass lawn and it just doesn't work well here either. High maintenance and not very productive. So, I'm slowly reclaiming the area.

Part of it is planned for berries. There's raspberries growing and I'm hoping it will spread itself because when I try my best to plant them on purpose, they just won't take on! Since I've given up, they are now spreading, along with few strawberries, goji berries and blue berries all thrown in together.

using part of the berri allotment to plant more tomatoes on temporary basis

As the berry patch is taking it's time, I decided that this year I still have the opportunity to use the area and put some of my extra tomato plants...so up goes the stakes. I need to plant a lot of tomato this year because my fifteen year old girl wants to sell tomatoes, so I offered to be her supplier:)

understory planting of gooseberries in between trees in orchard

The main grass lawn area is now turned into fruit orchard with about 12 different fruit and nut trees planted last autumn. We dug trenches to catch rain water to the area. In between fruit trees, I also planted under story plants of goji berries, gooseberries, sage, and rosemary. These will act as ground cover. All these are mere cuttings from our existing plants and if you notice, they are all perennial plants too. For the moment, the dug out grasses serve as mulch.

my stakes are sprouting!

Since I received lots of long straight wood stake gift from my beloved husband, I treasured them and had them scattered in the garden proudly. No more plants to crawl on the ground! The stake looks like bamboos - straight, light and thin...but it's not bamboo and we don't know what plant it is (he harvested them from the village forest)...the interesting thing is that it is sprouting!!

peaches on peach tree

Our garden is an interesting place that's full of surprises and challenges. We love peaches and got two trees planted. The past years it struggles with us, attacked by pest and curled leaves. I concluded it need extra loving care of comfry tea to make it strong. This year my big girl even took a broom and literally swept the aphids off the tree. It's promising us with lots of fruit buds for the first time and we will keep vigilant and give it all our support. 

As with life, there's always something to learn and go for each day. ...When in doubt, just take the next small step forward with a grateful heart - always. Hope you have a great week ahead:)

Yours