Springtime!

I think we can safely say it's spring now, some gorgeous things happening to our plants:

This is our plum tree; it's a triple graft and I think this one is Black Doris; it's also Billington and Elephant Heart.  Unfortunately the weakest graft is the Elephant Heart which is my favourite.   Spraying this each weekend at the moment with the seaweed spray to help it against the leaf curl.

This is the almond I planted down the driveway winter before last; the idea is that the fruit will be available to our neighbour as well.  I'm also spraying this each week.

The scented bulbs are out, narcissi down the driveway, the freesias are out by the front door; and they smell divine!

The kittens are feeling it too, much playing outside.   Here's Ray up in the silk tree, right at the limit of the branches

and Star looking for fun in the grass

I've cleared the main vege patch and will start on the secondary one this weekend; here's the main one

and the pile that will be dug into it this weekend

This is a mix of composts that will help boost the soil which is a little depleted going by last years performance; though some of that will be due to not being able to water the garden after the earthquakes.   We'll have that problem this summer too; already on notice that there will be water restrictions due to the damage to the water supplies in Christchurch.
I also picked up some Heuchera's to replace our Hosta's with.  Thomas isn't keen on the Hosta's as they're really messy over autumn and winter.  These guys are pretty and should fill in the space nicely, very little sun too so they'll be happy.

3 bronze and 2 purple ones.  I'll get more if I need them.

Onto the knitting, I've been working on my Jetty with no diversions to any other knitting.  I've got to the 4th ball of yarn which will get me to my 800 yards.  Today I finished the sleeves and I've tried it on and really like it.  Made some changes to the increases for the hip since I'm a size up in the hips than what I am in the bust.   I've changed to increasing every 5 rows instead of every 8 rows and will stop increasing at 220 stitches and then just continue knitting till I hit the end of the ball.  I have 6 days left to finish this, which is just as well as I also have some work to finish and it's taking me longer than I expected.

Ignore the lines on the sleeves, that was the stitch holder which I left in for just in case I didn't like the way I'd done the sleeves; those'll be coming out as I'm quite happy with it.