My Garden in Pictures

The bees are loving all the flowers in my garden. I think that's a good sign for potential future bee keeping.




The whole vegie garden.




This is where my compost bin used to be. The coiled thing is a zuccini, it's amazing how they keep growing in a circular pattern. I think mine is on it's last legs, it only has boy flowers right now which will never turn into fruit.




This was Tony's project last weekend. He took my one huge compost bin and broke it down into 3 more useable bays. One bay for compost to leave and let mature, one bay to keep building, and one bay for twiggy sticky stuff that won't break down very fast.







My curcubitacea patch. Mostly cucumber, zuccinin and button squash.



My Root vegetable patch. Carrots, parsnip, radishes and beetroot.



My stunning potato and lettuce patch, which has as many cosmos flowers and mizuna flowers as potato plants.





And now the last patch, beans and brassicaceae.




Today is only the second day I have put my chickies in their outside home. This chicken coop is really a rabbit hutch, but as the are small birds it's the perfect size for them. Right now I am just getting them used to the cooler weather outside and everything else that goes with being outside. They are now back in their inside brood box so they are warm overnight.










So much beautiful fruit growing on in my strawberry patch. I can't wait to eat the first one.




This is the prettiest part of my garden, it consists of purple sage flowers, orange nustursium flowers, hot pink geranium flowers and little white rocket flowers.




The Boo enojying the outdoors with me



These are just out my back door and make me smile everytime I see them, they are so pretty and bright.

An experiment

Today I've started an experiment with my carrots. About a month ago I planted carrot seeds of 2 varieties. The problem with carrots is they have really tiny seeds and so it is very hard to sow them finely. They tell you in all the garden books to mix the seed with river sand then sow it, but I don't know what river sand is exactly nor can I be assed finding out, so I just tried my best to sow it finely.

The seedlings are now of a decent size, and I need to thin them out. There are so many seedlings it feels like such a waste to just pull them out. The problem being if you don't, the carrots don't have room to become a decent size. They almost stay kind dormant in seedling size till they have the room.

So to my experiment. I read somewhere that an awesome (though time consuming) way to get perfect carrots is to make a hole in the ground with a broom handle, dowel or something similar, fill it with potting mix, then put a carrot seed on top. The carrot will basically grow to fill the potting mix hole.

So I have done a similar thing, instead of using carrot seeds, I've used my pulled out seedlings. Hopefully they will grow to fill the compost filled holes I've placed them in creating a lovely sized and shaped carrot.

I may need to thin my original carrot plot further as they grow. The next lots of seedlings I pull I am going to throw into a stir fry, green ends and all. You an eat the whole lot when they are little. Really delicious!

The simple life

You know that feeling you have as a kid when the world is exciting, that the simplest, most wholesome things make life exciting and good and just so enjoyable? Well that's how I feel today. I have gone about my entire day with a huge smile on my face and a flutter of excitement in my heart all because of my garden.

I look out at my garden and I see so much potential, so many things I can do, not to mention the 'fruits' of what I've already done. Right now my veggie patch is on the cusp of exploding. I have 3 kinds of beans in the back plot near the compost bin. That's borlotti beans, Cherokee wax, and purple king. Also in this patch I have some kind of mystery brassica, I think it might be cauliflower but I don't know as this was a labelless freebee from the lady across the road. Also I have from her a single majestic kale plant with it's lovely grey curly leaves.

The next plot is full of potatoes, bright pink cosmos flowers, lettuce and the bastard weed that is nettles! Today I harvested my first lot of 'new' potatoes. New potatoes are the small ones with the fine skin that are still young. While 'bandicooting' these little gems out I was reminded of the nettles stinging me like some kind of protective security for the potatoes. Even now hours later I stil have red welts.

Next plot has neat rows of early carrots, red core carrots, radishes, golden beetroot, long red beetroot and parsnips. In addition to all that some lovely thyme, coriander that has self seeded from last year, some swiss chard (again another freebee from my lovely neighbour!), and some spring onions. I've staggered my planting of carrots in hopes that when one crop is almost done I will have another one coming up.

Last plot, closest to our back door will soon have curcubits in it. So that's cucumbers, squash, zucchini and the like. Up until a few weeks back it was growing a green crop of mustard which has now been turned back into the soul to add organic matter and help kill off any nematodes from the tomato plants I last grew there.

Other edible plants of note in various spots are a native Australian finger lime, a granny smith apple thanks to Al and Renee, my ever producing rocket patch, an artichoke that is finally taking off and becoming quite large, sweet potato, more herbs than I can list, a doughnut peach, silverbeet, papino, zucchini, pinkerbelle apple, lots of strawberries coming on as well as blueberries. Also I have found about 5 brocolli plants growing straight out of my compost bin, which if the most awesome discovery! The original plant I had never did much it just bolted straight to seed. With these I might actually get some broccoli from them.

I'm just so excited about all the fruits and veggies that my garden is starting to provide. I also love finding different ways of using plants. Did you know if you cook them you can eat sweet potato leaves? You can also eat the leaves from carrots, beetroot, as well as silverbeet as salad leaves when they are small. When I plant carrots seeds, you have to thin out the seedlings, but instead of throwing them in the compost, you can eat the entire plant in stir fries!