Going on adventures to fill the garden

We are in the middle of school holidays at the moment, so I have all my precious children home with me. We've been having such a lovely time exploring our new patch of Auckland this week.

This beach is just a 15 minute drive from our house. Isn't it stunning?

We discovered it today when we were searching for seaweed for my garden. The kids had such a wonderful time playing at this little river inlet...

...collecting rocks...

...finding interesting shells...

...exploring caves...

...looking for crabs...

...and just generally being Kiwi kids.

I needed seaweed because yesterday we went biking and rollerblading at the girls' school, and while we were there I spied loads of Autumn leaves. My garden is never far from my mind, so I grabbed our garden bag out of the car and filled it up with the dry leaves. A lovely woman I got chatting to helped me fill the bag, which was so lovely of her.

I layered the leaves in my wraparound deck garden, on top of previous layers of grass clippings, homemade compost, sawdust and coffee grounds.

Autumn leaves forming a carbon layer in my garden.

Today I had it in my mind that I wanted a green layer to go on top of the brown, dry leaves layer, so that's why we ended up out at the beach. We actually went to two beaches. The first one was messier, and was where we found lots of seaweed. The second one was more beautiful and fun for the kids to explore, as you can see from my photos above.

Seaweed forming a nitrogen layer in my raised garden. 

Isn't it good when my passion for gardening aligns with epic adventures for the kids?