It’s been a good week. At the weekend we headed down to the Ellerslie Flower Show in Christchurch. This annual event draws garden lovers from all around the world and has some great displays.

The themes of the gardens this year covered everything from courtyard gardens for urban environments to a fantastic exotic retreat garden. There was even one that had made a feature of concrete tubing. It’s great to see some of the innovative ideas people have about garden design.

It was predictably busy at the show, despite the rather blustery autumn weather. But it was well-organised, parking was easy and ticket queues were short. It’s the first time we’ve actually made it to the show; we mean to go every year and then never quite get round to it. Last year we had actually bought our tickets and then the whole thing was scuppered by the quakes.  So it was nice to finally get down there.

Meanwhile, as autumn sets in we are still busy on the lifestyle block. I’ve been pruning trees and collecting the last of my tomatoes that are ripening on the vine. We’ve already had one frosty morning, which they survived as they are in a sheltered area.  But I’m picking it won’t be long until we are getting more frequent frosts, so we’re currently eating a lot of tomatoes!

To help with some of the heavy work around the block we finally bit the bullet this week and bought a tractor. It’s a tenth-hand thing, old and not very pretty but it works and will be useful for all sorts of jobs. One of the first things we want to get sorted is our main paddock. It’s full of holes, ruts and bumps and because of this we’ve been unable to get the grass in it cut and bailed for the last two summers.

Hay balers that come round don’t want to risk damaging their machines by taking them over such rough ground. So, with our own tractor we’re hoping to be able to start filling in some of the holes and evening out some of the bumps. This is something we’ll chip away at over the winter. 

Apart from this we’re also on the look-out for some hay to buy at the moment.  We managed to get around 150 bales off our small paddock early in the summer, but since then the weather simply hasn’t given us the good spell we needed to get a second cut. We need around 300 bales to get us through winter so now is the time to get the barn full so we’re not worrying about it when the weather turns really cold. That’s all for this week.