Hello lovely gardeners

I have some exciting news.  I can announce the winners of the Meet the Gardeners Mini Challenge.  I appreciate how difficult it was to choose just one gardener from all the lovely people we have here in the growing community.  It was even harder to select the winners.  

A big CONGRATULATIONS to:

·         JamesMcc nominating  Tarnz

·         Simone15nz nominating  Briar's Patch 

·         Southern Gardener nominating Lulu's Garden 

The team at Yates will be in touch with you all shortly. 

If you missed out, never fear there is always another opportunity to win something and with the end of the first Mini Challenge we have the start of the second Mini Challenge:  

Mini Challenge – PAY IT FORWARD

"We are looking for examples of when you brought some gardening joy to others in some way shape or form.  It could be being generous with your spare seedlings or produce, helping out in a school or community garden or helping out an elderly neighbour in their garden or reaching out to a new gardener and helping them with their first garden.  There are countless ways you can share the garden love.

You can enter as many times as you like with different examples of when you have paid it forward if necessary.  There are 3 prizes up for grabs and this runs until the 23^rd October 2020.  It doesn’t affect the overall outcome of the Vegie Growing Challenge.  Check out > What's Going On < for more details."

This Mini Challenge was inspired by our Late garden friend Carol Jane from Waikato, who was always generous with her encouragement and advice but outside of the Vegie Growing Challenge she was generous with her excess and came alongside new gardeners and young kids to encourage them to grow a better garden.  She would have certainly been a strong contender for this prize.

In my garden it is certainly a bit blowy today, but last week was a bit of a mixed bag as far as garden productivity was concerned.  I was working on a secret project that I might give you a sneak peak of once its finished.  I have made some mulch by running some of the tree lupins about the place through my shredder and have weeded the garden within an inch of its life.  Those darn things keep popping back.

I have gone through all my flower seed packets and noted which ones were annuals which were perennials, their size and colour and any other distinguishing features so I have a lovely spreadsheet, but it all got a little overwhelming when I got to the planning stage.  So what I think I will do is just sow loads of seeds and when they are ready to plant out I will lay them out in their pots on the flower beds and move them about until I am satisfied with how it will all look.  I am a bit of a visual creature and need to see things in situ before making a decision.  This is currently driving my builder a little crazy as we are renovating our bathroom and I need to see how it will look before making decisions!  Fortunately, he is very patient with me.

Have a lovely week in the garden and enjoy that extra hour in the evenings that daylight savings has given us.

Keep an eye on that weather forecast – spring can’t be trusted and it would seem there is trouble ahead.

Happy Gardening.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)