Our garden

I’ve been meaning to post pics of my garden for ages. So finally, here are some as of last weekend!

This is the pots all along under the kitchen window. There’s flowers, parsley, mint, cat grass, a lemon tree, a bay tree (that’s the tiny plant in the black pot!), a pot of radishes and coriander, fruit-salad citrus tree (grafted mandarin, navel orange, valencia orange and pomelo), three avocado seeds that haven’t sprouted yet, dead basil, russian comfrey and a chilli plant.

Then there’s the hanging baskets, with snow peas, sugar snap peas and a Broad Ripple Yellow Currant tomato plant. The tomato plant is still flowering and fruiting, absolutely amazing considering it’s the middle of winter and we’re having frosts! The fruit isn’t ripening though, it’s just sitting there green… Plus the child, who seems to grow anywhere!

These are our gardens along the back fence. The frames were made by Eddie, from scavenged pallets. We filled them about one-third full of ‘vegie mix’ that our neighbours gave us. Vegie Mix is purchased soil, well, it’s sold as soil, but I think that’s exagerating! It’s mainly made from cow manure and fill, plus a bit of fertiliser, and a heap of sand to add drainage. If it dries out it becomes rock hard, and plants actually don’t grow that well in it. However, when you mix it with a heap of compost, manure, vermicast and the odd old bag of potting mix, it does very well!

I’ve been harvesting out of these gardens for about two months now. This is garden one; there’s alyssum flowers, parsley, garlic, parsnips, carrots, spring onions up the back, spinach and some coriander that hasn’t sprouted yet and a cabbage that’s being eaten by bugs. However they seem to be sticking just to that one and leaving everything else alone, so I’m happy to leave it there!

Garden two: two walking stick cabbages, alyssum, silverbeet, garlic, spinach, ordinary cabbages. The one in the front was harvested just after this photo and used for the Cortido in yesterday’s post.

Garden three: Broccoli, Cauliflower, silverbeet, beetroot, garlic, Nero de Toscana Kale.

And I can’t find the photo’s of the pumpkin patch, which is now a pile of compost, but I did find a pic of the pumpkins we harvested. The pumpkins were growing when we moved in here, we think from kitchen scraps thrown on the garden. Also in the patch was two tomato plants, one of which we were able to harvest half a dozen small tomatoes (which Dian took to school in her lunches) however the other plant didn’t ripen before winter hit.

I’m intending to put in at least another three gardens for next spring, just need more pallets and a heap more time!