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It has been a long time since I’ve added an entry, and that’s because I have been, and still am, very ill. The cancer returned with a vengeance, ‘lots and lots!’ of metastases the doc said and I didn’t ask him to count them out for me.

I’ve been undergoing (yet more *sigh*) chemo with little effect as yet.

I have been exhausted, hardly able to get my head off the pillow. But while the cleaner is in the bedroom vacuuming I decided to ‘dash’ (LOL) out here to give everyone a quick update.

Thank you to everyone for their thoughts, I truly appreciate them.

I have some amazing friends looking after me - many thanks to Karen and Stephen, and Joy and Michaela. Their help and love has been unbelievable. Thank you all, so much.

As I can I’ll get back to update you. Love to all.

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Today I discovered that my new still camera also takes videos! So here is my first attempt - I will do a better one later once I’ve worked out what goes where. This is unedited with all its flaws. Enjoy!

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I woke yesterday morning to a glorious day and the sound of the dill screaming.

The herbs, patiently nurtured along in their pots in the greenhouse, wanted to go into their herb garden.

So yesterday was spent planting. It is a fantastic feeling, sinking all these seedlings into the ground or their permanent pots. Suddenly spring is really here. I planted out the dill, the marjoram and the oregano. I planted out the ruby silverbeet and put all the asters into their big display pots. Red empress nasturtium went into the herb garden and lime geranium into a spot in the big bed which will soon house all the potted artichokes.

The elderberry is about to flower, so I am readying my wine-making equipment.

Today - the tomatoes? Traditionally tomatoes are planted on the fourth Thursday in October in Hobart, but I wonder if I can risk them a bit early. The forecast for the next week looks good ….

Meanwhile, in the rest of the garden …..

The greenhouse with all its baby charges.

The clematis on the veranda is beginning to flower.

As is the camellia.

While the chocolate vine in the woodland has made a bid to take over the walnut.

The jasmine is out and I can smell it all through the eastern garden.

A closeup of one of the tiny flowers of the chocolate vine.

Overall the garden is in good shape and I am happy.

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Spring is here, even if the calendar insists it is not. Most of the trees are budding, the peonies are sending deep red phallic spears into the air, the bulbs are up, if not yet all out (although the hyacinth have been blooming for weeks now). The peach trees have been sprayed against leaf curl and are about a week out from flowering.

Most of the garden is set. It has been weeded, composted, and mulched heavily with pea straw - which the Indian Doves love. I have a pair that nest near here and every year they await with anticipation my pea straw mulch so they can dive in under the straw after the loose peas.

On the minus side a family of rats made themselves a cost home under the mulch, too, until I noticed one of them as they left for a day’s work in the garden.

I have decided to grow more flowers this year and have set seed for double phlox, hollyhocks, cosmos, poppies, stock, a half dozen others. One of my major vegetable beds was last year, during my period of incapacity, taken over by the children of a single but very fertile foxglove and so I have succumbed and allowed the bed to revert to flowers.

But I will have a few vegetables. Not a vast many, but a few. Just my favourites. I have cleaned out the hothouse and set seed for leeks, button squash, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumbers (every year I seem to have a disaster with them so this year am hoping to get at least one!), beetroot, silverbeet (chard). I will also put in salad leafy things once I uncover the veggie beds from their layer of mulch and it warms up a bit.

I will also grow tomatoes and capsicums but will cheat and buy ready growing plants from my local nursery (they sell the old heirloom varieties which I like) this year rather than raise from seed. I’ll give it another 3-4 weeks before I get them.

I also have seed for … walking stick cabbage which peculiar plant originates from the island of Jersey. I had no idea about this until recently when someone mentioned it to me. And then, a couple of weeks ago, I was in a hardware store when I walked past their seed counter and lo! They were selling seed for walking stick cabbage! I will have to try a few of them. This page shows the finished product.

So - I have a garden of mulched beds and lots of little pots waiting for seed to sprout!

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Which means, I have some time for the blog, sadly neglected. It has been a busy few months as I have had to finish a book, as well spend what time I can in the garden.

I am mostly fairly well right now, with the occasional bad patch, which are bearable enough.

But to business, the garden. I have tried to spend a few days a week in the garden, even if it is just 15 minutes a day. Some days have been good and I’ve been out most of the day, others it is just the 15 minutes, but … gradually the garden is being cajoled back into shape. At the moment the garden is (mostly) a mass of weeded and mulched garden beds and looks fairly boring. I have been fairly severe with it, taking out things that haven’t been doing well. About 75% of the veggie beds are now manured and composted and heavily mulched for the spring/summer season.

This year I am going to plant more flowers. Not so many vegetables. Just the things I really like. A flower garden can mostly take care of itself once it has been planted out, but a veggie garden needs constant work. So I am hoping to stay well enough long enough to get a nice flower garden in.

If not, well, a bare but mulched garden bed is not the worst thing that can happen to a garden!

I have got lots of seeds to start out soon, and yesterday I planted three more peonies (I have lost some over the past 2 years): Felix Crousse - hopefully they will flower this year, although peonies generally hate being transplanted.

As I have been clearing I have been finding lots and lots of old clay pots. These I will be doing something very special with once a bright day and a pile of energy comes along!

But, mean time, there are more beds that need weeding. *sigh*

As for the Self-Sufficiency experiments. Well, that ended half good half bad. The summer was excellent, as I’d been good through spring of last year and had planted lots of stuff from which I ate well. But then from early summer I became progressively sicker, and I did not plant anything for winter, although I did have a bed of leeks, some brussel sprouts, and a bed of winter beets to eat from.

Oh, the rain, I love it!

(It has taken me about 3 hours to write this damned post because a few weeks ago I also got a new computer replete with new software, and trying to get one of the bits of software to do what it was supposed to … grrrrr!)