Tangelos are ripening.
Climate change seems to be here...I had a break from the garden for a while and now things have caught up. Dad had arranged some tree chopping behind the house and I felt discouraged from posting again - I am not used to change. He cut the bottlebrush I planted without warning. We've had feijoa (small again) otherwise..Cyclone Gabrielle's was Auckland's watershed a year on. While we were not flooded last year, thankfully, the house is still standing..I just don't know the knock on effects of that much rain meaning for the rest of Auckland - we have a lot of wooden houses (and more density since the Unitary plan) and now less trees to soak up the water... and while most of the soil out west is clay, which may be good to build houses on (or rock) that means its much less space for gardens especially trying to garden veges productively.
Though it has ever been thus. I think of my rusty arch which did not last a season, and all the wooden fences and decks that were unpainted and had started to rot again, and the roofs plus all the blocked drains. Perhaps Auckland should revert back to swamp and silt because our poor harbour has absorbed the dregs.
This time of year the autumn leaves are falling. Garden Club had orchid repotting demos and I scored an alstromeria and a curly leaved succulent. I found my moon calendar again after it had been left as had other things on my mind ... with daylight savings I seem to have had a bout of SAD seasonal affective disorder. Being the daughter of a weatherman and named after the moon I can't seem to escape its influence.
Change is never easy. I have spring onions and spinach in buckets as most of the gardening I can muster at the moment which should tide us over for winter. I don't want to make Dad angry again by gardening. Or being a 'messy'. Things grow...
On positive side, Dusty has made herself at home and catches the mice. Not sure why we have more mice now - never had any when we had chickens. I miss them.
I need an elixir of some sort, and for the garden to grow again ---
