SEGT 2023

Just opened on the Saturday again - I knew I couldn't do both, it would just hve been too much. As it was, just opening Saturday was pretty huge.

It's a big day, lots of visitors. Again, there was some rain, but it was spattery and scattered and most people were quite happy about it all.

I was more prepared for this one, having contacted my peeps six weeks in advance to get some people to do garden admin - write names, check tickets. So I also had company for the entire day - at least one person around for every hour of the trail that my garden was open.

The season worked out really well - the garden beds weren't as heavily filled as they could have been, but the fruit trees were in full flow. I gave away nectarines and peaches quite freely - it saved me having to eat or process them myself! And it was lovely to see people appreciate the difference between 'sweet' fruit and 'tasty' fruit. The fruit was more 'tasty' than 'sweet' but it was still sweet enough!

I set up the chooken tractor to display the chook tunnels. People really liked the tunnels, particularly the part where they realised the benefits in having the perimeter tunnels - the combination of maintaining the edges of the garden, along with giving the chickens a nice space to move through, and saving me the energy of having to move them through the garden myself.

Oh, and I did get the benches done before the SEGT!

And the one under the avo.

All in all, I think it was a very successful day for me. And then I went out on the Trail with my friend, K, who helped me put the original wooden garden beds together back in 2021.

Anyway, now the whole garden has to survive the summer. Okay, so it's just December that it has to manage, but things are going to get pretty hot, and the root growth during December is what's going to make the big difference on whether it holds on in January.

That'll be an interesting month since I'm going away.

One thing I did just after the SEGT is create a 'Turfan Depression' trench - dug a trench in the bed between the ESPALIER APPLES and the DUAL STONE, and filled it with the worm castings and half-composted bits from one of the wormfarm boxes. The plan is to get some melon/pumpkin seeds in there and let 'em rip. That's supposed to be how it's done in the arid lands where melons were first grown; I just have to get some of the damn seeds to actually sprout! SO DAMN DIFFICULT.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks are getting the garden into 'survive the summer' mode. I'll be gone all of December and about a third of January, and B1 isn't going to have the energy or inclination to do more than feed and water the chooks, so the rest of the garden's survival will be up to a teensy bit of watering and a lot of prep.

We'll see how it goes!