Against my better judgement the girls and I are trying our hands at growing things again. Last year's science project of growing radishes was a complete failure, and I thought radishes were pretty foolproof. However, we were still thinking North American seasons at the time and were planting them in the dead of winter and the poor things could barely get warm enough to sprout, let alone flourish. So here we are again - this time planting as we head into Spring and hopeful for better results!
We chose to give growing potatoes, strawberries and herbs a go this time around, but before we could even begin we needed some rocks for drainage so we headed to Makara Beach which is chock full of them. The drive to the beach was stunning, as it seems almost all New Zealand drives are, and we saw newborn lambs, horses on hills, goats by the roadway as well as windmills on the horizon.
Before collecting stones the girls decided to see how far they could throw them.
Then we took a little jaunt out to the corner to have a look at the South Island.
There it is!
More playing around on the rocks, a good time was had by all!
Ellie with her rocks and treasures:
Today we used those rocks to help with drainage on the bottom of our strawberry and herbs bag, but first we did the potatoes. My friend Alison told me about this - you get a bag, lay down a layer of compost and put in the potatoes, then cover them with more compost. As they sprout and push through you add more compost until finally you are near the top of the bag and they begin to flower at which point you dig around for your potatoes. Here's hoping!
Both girls have a bag and we're trying out two different types of potatoes. We're planning to make a chart to see how long it takes them to sprout and so forth and so on.
In the pink bag we planted strawberries, cilantro (they call it coriander here), dill, chives, mint and basil. That's all from here - hope everyone in America had a good Labor Day! xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment