The sun was up at 6:21 this morning and it’s past the neighbour’s place on the next ridge, and is only a few weeks away from the big tree which represents due East to me. It’s a clear pink sunrise with only a few delicate clouds on the horizon, and I have all my favourite and rare things today:

– a Big pile of compost
– 3! Types of poo to add to the compost- sheep, chicken, and alpaca
– some bought seedlings, including random annuals chosen by C
– a new bit of kit for the camera
– a new garden
– corms and tubers to plant
– cinnamon bagels, which I am toasting and trying not to burn as we speak.

The compost arrived by truck last night – 3.5 meters in one go – about 5 good trailer loads. It’s made by a private company from garden trimmings etc. I can’t be sure that there aren’t sprayed items in the mix, but it seems pretty good. It’s mostly to help turn the areas along the drive into something more friendly for flowers and less appealing for dock and kikuyu grass and weeds.

The seedlings were picked out by C – poppies, stocks, and lobelia and a few other flowers, red cabbage, spinach, lettuce and a few more greens.  The greens really should have been in the greenhouse all winter, but they can go in now for a few months and get pulled out when the melons and anchos need the space.

All the bits I planted in the new garden are doing well. The Bilbergia nutans is even now flowering after being rather clumsily divided last week. The dahlias I bought a couple weeks ago are sprouting in the bag so I will try to take the sprouts as cuttings and plant the rest into the new garden. I had good luck taking cuttings from other dahlias – they have to be from sprouts from the tuber. They grow well in a pot in the greenhouse standing in a saucer of water.

The tomatoes planted 3 weeks ago have their true leaves and are ready to transplanted, and tiny real asparagus are popping up among the imposters.

Daylight savings starts tonight so tomorrow it will be lighter in the evening (and darker in the morning).