Today has been the nicest weather that we have had this summer if I am completely honest. The humidity has been low, as have the temperatures for summer here in Sydney. I haven’t done a lot of gardening today, but I have done a couple of little bits here and there.

I will start with my Sunday/gardening day weather stats for you, noted down at 4.06 pm. The temperature was only 20.6 degrees Celsius and the humidity was 42%. We have had no rain today while the wind has been westerly, at an average speed of 7.2 km/hr and gusts up to 11.2km/hr. We haven’t had any rain, but my weather station forecast says there is rain forecast. The light level at the time was 234 Watts per metre squared. Relative pressure was 1010.9 hPa, while the absolute pressure was 993.4 hPa. The cooler temperatures and lower humidity have certainly made the day far more pleasant than the past two and a half months of summer have been. Thankfully, we don’t have much summer left and it will be a relief when autumn does arrive.

Now for my gardening. For my established plants that I have been growing for a couple of months now, I applied granular seaweed fertiliser. I have previously used the liquid version, but it is a bit smelly (not in an offensive way, but just a seaside smell) which the granular version is not I have now realised. For established beds, the application rate was to put 250g over five square metres, so you don’t need much. I watered it in and it didn’t look like I’d applied any which I found interesting. all these plants are growing really well. How many tomatoes I will get is anyone’s guess, but the tomato plants are growing very well. Also growing well so far are my Brussels sprouts-they seem to be thriving. They aren’t the quickest growing plants, but they are coming on really well.

There are a few benefits of using a bit of seaweed, both in liquid and granular forms. It encourages better plant growth and thus better flowering and fruiting, stimulates better root development and encourages microorganisms in the soil.

Most of the seeds that were sown last week have now germinated, which I’m really happy about. Of these, I potted up three Brussels sprout seedlings, two beetroot seedlings and four dianthus seedlings. The rest can wait until they are a little bigger-I’ll pot them up next weekend.

That was my limited gardening session this weekend. While my time is limited at the moment, from the start of next month I will be able to spend more time gardening at home which will be really good. This is because I actually get to do what I see as proper gardening, so sowing seeds, potting on, taking proper care over my plants and actually adding to a garden. At work, all I do is hedge hedges and weeding garden beds at the moment-so taking away green plant material without actually doing anything to support the remaining plants properly. While hedging and weeding are part of the job, they shouldn’t be the only things I do. Gardening at home allows me to use my training in a more positive way, and once my studies are done in September, this will be the case in my working life too!