It’s been a minute, dear readers and August was the choc-o-bloc month we’d anticipated……but for entirely different reasons. The last month of winter got us good with endless toddler lurgies, some of them vicious, on our little one and on us, two seasons now whereby the doctor’s tell us they’ve never seen anything like it. A hangover from lockdowns, they think and a lack of exposure to the usual run of early childhood illnesses while the immune system learns to fortify and then suddenly, when back in the mix, the flood gates have opened. After two years of it, we are altogether entirely fed up with our household always being sick.
It was an elixir, the spring like sun, arriving earlier by a couple of weeks and winter’s final throws were rather meek. I told our readers over in instagram land about the state of a knee injury that grounded our overseas holiday and me from most garden work, thankfully Hugo stepped in while being extremely busy in his actual job. I have limped my way back into action and after spending some time with a specialist, have a way forward that is not as catastrophic as my doctor, and an MRI, at first thought. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief for this.
So yes, life would appear to have stepped in on all of our plans for August from when I spoke to you last in July, as it so often does for many of us but really, one a whole, when I look back, it did not slow us down as much as we’d expected it to, big milestones were met and progress made despite. We hope you enjoy this rather tardy overview of the last month of our second winter here at Moorfield.
MUM’S HOUSE
MUM MOVED IN!!! After what felt like the longest 18 months of all our lives (we’ve all agreed that multi-generational living for any real length of time under one roof, is not for us, regardless of how much everyone loves eachother), mum’s house was at last handed over and Moorfield has felt like a different place, well, it has felt like it did when we first found her, full of promise and excitement for the future! The house has turned out beautifully, our choices for cathedral ceilings, walk-in pantry, verandah and orientation toward the best views on the property have all paid off. Mum is thrilled with her space and having been in it and getting to find her feet, since the second week of August, it has been a dream, dinners back and forth and time and energy, now the build is over and the seemingly endless setbacks so typical with builds now in the past, to just spend time in the garden together. It is now, what we’d always envisioned.
THE MALUS AND MEADOW GARDEN
All the Malus floribunda, all 15 of them are in as we discussed in July and August saw it just sit there precariously while excavators dug around them completing some last minute plumbing work between the homestead and mum’s build. We did manage, once the work was complete, to get around and weed the mulch rings clear of grasses of the Malus that went in last winter, and liquid feed with seaweed solution and mulch all of them with peastraw. I do plan on going back in and putting down an organic slow realease pellet.
THE ORCHARD
By the end of this, our second winter, the entire orchard we’d had planned since we arrived almost two years ago has now gone in, except for three trees we were waiting on from different suppliers and one, the much loved and seemingly elusive this season, ‘Green Gage’ Plum that we’d grown at Little Oak, finally sourced from a local nursery. The growth in August as the sun showed up a little early and began warming their feet, has been unebelievable and I felt so anxious, hold up with a bung knee, to get the original trees mulch rings weeded, fed and re-mulched but life was having none of it and now, into spring, we are only just starting to work through this process but the delay has made little difference. The exponential rate of growth continues in the area we learnt after we’d planned and begun planting here was in fact the site of the original orchard, removed by the time we found Moorfield.
We also created a large composting bay for use in the orchard, so we didn’t have to cart it long distances over uneven terrain.
The methods we used for planting out our bareroot fruit trees is in The Garden at Moorfield Journal: 31 and for the method used for compost bay The Garden at Moorfield Journal: 29
THE DRY POOL GARDEN
In July, we showed you the pool garden mostly laid out with pea straw and since then we have begun filling the composting paths with mulch, to suppress the cut back Cape Weed. This will one day become gravel. The plants that we got into this winter had begun to take root by the mild end to August and we could see new growth starting to come through. I have several more plants to get into this area, Phlomis ‘Pygmy’ and Euphorbia ‘Rigida’ and a number of other ornamental grasses. It is a huge space to fill but I don’t want too many different plants in here, I don’t want it to be too busy so I will choose wisely and repeat much of what we’ve already planted.
THE ROSE GARDEN
So excited to get all the bareroot roses for 2023 in, in August. And we also begun pruning the roses established last year. We have now created videos on our process for this over on Moorfield TV. You can also visit our Garden Guides on the top navigation of our homepage will take you to two very comprehensive Rose Guides Part 1 and 2.
THE VEGETABLE GARDEN
The vegetable garden has had most of it’s paths laid with composting woodchip now and the lasagne beds are busy breaking down but we did get in the raspberry canes, two varieties to ensure we get raspberries from summer through to Autumn, to go with our four other berry types. We also bought the steel to create the teepee trellises to up around the berries, the raspberries will have a different training structure. By the end of August, all the canes are shooting!
In other news..
READING:
Honestly, not a lot, we are either collapsing into bed of a night time, buggered and up and out of bed at sunrise to keep up with life and the garden but when we do read we are mostly reading instruction manuals on the glasshouse construction and how-to guides on various bases for said glasshouse, trellis designs and retaining wall designs.
WRITING:
Chapter 3 of Life at Little Oak Farm and working on a new format for delivering our fortnightly journals and monthly newsletter that make them more interesting and interactive with you all.
BUYING:
More drought tolerant plants for the Dry Pool Garden, the base for the glasshouse, the last ‘Minister’ Clematis for the rose garden, timber for retaining walls to allow us to finish the Long Border and more woodchip mulch.
PLANTING:
Potted trees, waiting since last year, while the ground is still soft and easy to dig, as well as pots of Portuguese Laurel to start forming the green walls around garden rooms.
JOBS FOR SEPTEMBER:
Feed and mulch the rose garden and create the video that goes a long with that task.
Weed, feed and mulch the long border and it’s Portuguese Laurel hedge.
Finishing feeding the Malus floribunda
Plant up remaining plants in the pool garden and feed all.
Finish excavating the sunken garden area in the pool dry garden.
Begin base for the glasshouse in the vegetable garden.
Finish mulching the floor of the rose garden and vegetable garden.
Finish weeding, feeding and mulching the orchard.
Endless brushcutting because it is Spring and the grass grows like the clappers and snakes are on the move!
Finish plans for changes to how we deliver our journals and newsletters, we want to make them easier for you guys to follow and engage with and more streamlined for us to produce. Hugo is also getting more involved in this end of thinga too which we are both enjoying, helping me to create new content like how-to video guides and garden talks etc…..STAY TUNED!!
And that’s a wrap on the August newsletter! Thank you all for being here as always, and for being patient as I will always make sure I get these newsletters to you but every now and then, they’ll run a little late. Hoping you’re all enjoying spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, and hopefully a cooler change is on the way for all of you in the North dealing with some crazy heatwaves, thinking of you and your gardens. 🌞 Pip, Hugo and family xo
It’s definitely a busy time of year for us gardeners trying to get jobs done before the heat we know is coming ... thanks for your tips for feeding /planting roses 🙏 I am now a convert for seamungus and mushroom compost don’t think my roses have ever looked so healthy and we live in harsh environment here in Rushworth 👌