• Plant seedlings of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, silverbeet, spinach and spring onions.
• Directly into the garden sow seeds of; broad beans, spinach, winter lettuce, onions, radish, peas, turnips, swede and parsley.
• In trays sow broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower for  planting out later.
• Plant seed potatoes.
• Plant garlic and shallot bulbs.
• Earth up celery and leeks.
• Protect cabbages, cauliflower and celery with Champ to prevent fungus diseases.
• Plant strawberries.
• Harvest feijoas, guavas, kiwifruit and tamarillos as they ripen.
• Thin carrots and other autumn sown crops.
• Mulch vegetables with Compost.
• Feed citrus with Citrus Fertiliser.

Roll on June, warm fires, mulled wine and plenty of rest for me and the garden ..... oh yeah I got this lovely shot of a kingfisher bird in the garden
having a bath....

To cheer up the house I have cyclamen's in pots they love this time of year - you should get some keep them in a sunny spot and keep their bulb moist and dead head the flowers when they drop. 

Also put pansies in pots outside to really brighten up the deck or garden they don't cost much but look great. In my garden the azalea's are showing off and flowering profusely and it's really nice to have bright colour in the garden this time of year. 

Also the Camellia's are starting to bloom, so I'm already cutting the blooms and bringing them into the house.  If you camellia blooms drop their "heads" get a cool looking bowl fill it with water and float the camellia flowers in the bowl, it looks gorgeous they don't have to be arranged in a vase.

Slowly but surely the fire pokers are coming through, and my gladioli bulbs are starting to make a strong appearance.  So you can have colour in the garden this time of year.

In the vege garden I have removed the last of the celery they don't like winter and the capsicums and frozen these for stews, casseroles etc.  I also planted "Swift" and "Rocket" Potatoe seedings in potato containers and in the garden so we'll see if you get lots of tatties.

We spent the other weekend collecting fire wood from a friend of a friends farm in Thames, you're probably thinking heck that's a long way to go for fire wood, but the trip alone was worth it, such a beautiful part of the country.  We stopped off at the Royal Oak in Tapu what a lovely pub with a gorgeous garden out the back complete with chooks, water falls and goldfish - really worth a stop if you're up that way.

May's garden reflects the fact that winter is well on it's way with colder days and nights and our fair share of rain, taking it's toll.

The trees continue to drop their leaves absolutely everywhere, man it's a pain and just feels like it's never going to end, so to save some time clearing up the leaves later I thought I would assist some of smaller trees by ripping the leaves off for them - you don't think I over did it do you?   

The wet weather has also encouraged a proliferation of toadstools and mushrooms in the lawn.  The toadstools are really interesting little buggers see how the little white ball pushes up through the soil to eventually become a rather cool red one - hmmm it amused me anyway.










I also pruned my hydrangea back to 1/2 it's original size leaving a bud on each branch as I do every year you really have to do this to keep them under control and looking good over summer - even though it makes them look rather sad over winter.