Fencing, Lawns, Weed Spraying, Christmas Cake

We arrived home on Tuesday night and first thing Wednesday morning got straight back into "life at home". Pete and I both went into Moffat Beach at 5am - me to do a double class of Animal Flow and Move and Pete to go and have a cup of coffee with a friend. We then, all had breakfast together before heading home. I spent time with the grand daughters until Ross got home from work and then went to acupuncture, before picking Annika up and bringing her home with me for a couple of hours.

Pete, meanwhile got stuck right in to replacing rotten fence posts - the wooden boundary fence has been held up up Star Pickets or Warratah's as we call them. One of the posts had completely rotted off and the other two are only just holding on to the ground. Pete is replacing them with treated posts this time and is going to concrete them to above ground level. It was hard, hot work for him, digging out the posts that had been concreted in. He got two or the three dug out, one replaced and concreted back in and the other one ready to finish tomorrow. Pete is not 100% at the moment, as he is fighting off another cold.

We both went for a walk in the evening and noticed how much the stream a few 100 metres from us has risen with all the rain that has fallen here and how dirty it is. Apparently it completed covered the little bridge in the peak of the rain.

Last night, back in NZ, my eldest granddaughter had her Yr 8 graduation, she is off to High School next year. I think she looked gorgeous.

Today I weed sprayed both at home and at Ross's - it took me 30 litres of spray at Ross's place! I also mowed our lawns on a high setting to take all the seed heads off the paspalum and other seeding grasses. 

Then this afternoon, I decided to make the same very nutty/fruity Xmas cake that I made last year that we loved. It takes me a good hour to cut up all the nuts and dried fruit that goes into it.  I will have to make another one tomorrow to take to NZ with us. I have contacted the NZ Customs Dept and they say as long as there is no uncooked fruit or nuts on top of the cake, I can take it to NZ with us.

Cut up nuts - brazil, almonds and walnuts

Dried fruit cut up and added

Ready to go in the oven.

Leave a Comment Baking, Fitness, garden, leisure

First tomato truss of the season

I picked the first truss of tomatoes the other day. Only the bottom tomato of the truss was showing good colour, the other three had some colour and the fifth none, but the truss was so heavy, it had pulled the whole plant down the stake and was resting on the ground. There are another 8 trusses on that plant, 5 already bagged to protect them from insect attack and 3 more still setting tomatoes. I'll bag them soon. Unfortunately I have lost the tag on that bush, but I'm pretty sure it's called Mortgage Lifter, a heritage tomato. The truss weighs 1026 gm and the largest tomato, the one in my hand is 260 gm. I'm very happy with them. I think feeding them weekly with the worm "wee" from my worm farm is the secret to growing good strong plants that are then able to bear good large flavorsome tomatoes.

I picked another single tomato off another plant tonight and have two more trusses colouring up on another bush. Soon I'll be swimming in tomatoes. I'll half and freeze a number of them, make a batch of sauce as soon as I have three kilo's ready to go and give some away.  in total I have 10 plants, a lot less than I used to grown in New Zealand. My record was 21, mostly heritage types, including, white, yellow, black, pink, green, striped and red. Next year, I'll grow a bigger selection.

3 comments garden, Tomatoes, vegetable