Pottering and Passing Time Before A New Baby

With the new baby close to making it's arrival, we've been winding down the endless list of jobs and projects we have on to go. That said, there's always something going on (just on a smaller scale than our usual full on renos). This week I decided to clean up my Summer veggie garden, ready for Winter planting. One of the things I did was prune my raspberries which is a new thing for me, I'd never done it before as this is only the first season I've had raspberries.

Using my trusty go to guide (Google) I found out how to go about it and found that it was quite easy. First I established I had Summer fruiting plants (if you have Autumn fruiting plants, the instructions on how to prune are much the same but you would wait until the fruit has finished before pruning, so maybe late Winter.)

First, with a pair of pruning scissors I went through and cut each stem that had bore fruit this season, right down to the soil level. You can tell which ones bore fruit because you can still see where the fruit used to be on the end of the stems.

Then using a bit of string, I tied each clump into a bundle. Before the end of Winter, I intend on actually setting up a bit of a trellis which should hold them up straight rather than them flopping all over the place like they did this season.

The benefit of pruning your raspberries is not only so you can get your jungle of a garden back under control but it means that next year, your fruit will be plumper and healthier.

It took me a few days overall to finish pulling out all the old tomato plants, raking the chicken coop and putting all the poo/old straw and compost on the garden beds but it looks much better now. A clean pallet, ready for some Winter veggies.

I have big plans for my next Summer veggie garden. Using an old tank which we have at the shack, I'm going to do the same as we did before and cut it into raised garden beds and put them where the old galvanised garden shed sits now. The shed is going completely and down the side of our house we're going to pave and put slimline sheds and utilise the otherwise useless space we have between our house and the fence we share with the neighbour.

Anyhoo, that is a project for well after our baby comes, it only really needs to be done by Spring. Still I can't help but dream and plan!