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The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul. ~ Alfred Austin

Wednesday 28 January 2015

The vegetable garden mid-summer


The first bed has tomatoes, basil, zucchini, cucumber, and Jerusalem artichoke.

I am not sure what is going on with the tomatoes, quite a lot of the branches
are dying off and the tomatoes don't seem to want to ripen on the bushes.
I ended up picking a whole heap of them yesterday when I got home from work
at lunch time as they were getting burnt. They all had a touch of colour on them
when picked and it looks like they will ripen inside okay. 


The second bed has potatoes, watermelon, tomatoes, basil, beans and asparagus.

Once this bed starts growing it will be quite crowded, hopefully now I have the mulch
on there it will take off. The beans are Blue Lake which I have always grown in the
past, but this year, they just seem to be really tough and not really nice to eat at all.
Might need to look at trying a different variety next summer.


I have never had any success planting potatoes in the vege garden before for some reason.
So this year I had a plastic tub and drilled some holes in it and planted the spuds, they started shooting away in no time. On Christmas day I found some potatoes in the pantry that had sprouted so I ran out to the vege garden and just shoved them in the ground and forgot about them, got such a surprise when I when out there one day and found they were poking up through the dirt.


There is lots of basil planted, and it is finally starting to take off.
Looking forward to some pesto.


Zucchini, well yes, there are about a gazillion of them out in the garden!


The first lot of potatoes I planted in the plastic tub.


The small harvest I picked the other day. Since then there has been lots more
tomatoes, beans and corn picked. I also put a second lot of corn seedlings
in on Sunday.

I was looking back at some photos recently from the summer of 2010 when the raised garden beds were first built. That first year or two the vegetable garden both summer and winter was the most productive it has ever been. This summer is really the first time in a few years that I have been able to do a bit more out there, as two bad shoulders has seen not much happen in the garden. For probably the last six months I have been trying to do a bit out there everyday. The garden is nowhere near like I would like it to be, but slowly but surely I can see a little bit of improvement. I guess a little bit is better than nothing. 

Yesterday was a very hot day and today is set to be another stinker, in fact the next few days are all pretty yuck heat wise. We have had no rain here for about 3 or 4 months now so everything is extremely dry. While we melt some parts of the northern hemisphere are experiencing blizzard conditions. The weather always seems to go from one extreme to another. We have had no rain and yet over east, parts of that have had torrential rain. Crazy weather. Think I might go find something to do with all these zucchinis!!




Sunday 25 January 2015

It's been awhile.....


Correa 'Catie Bec'

Love having sunflowers in the garden

Can't wait for these buds to open.
It hasn't flowered for a few years and from memory
they are large white flowers and I think they may open at night.


I can't believe we are at the end of January already. I haven't been here since the end of September. I didn't mean for it to be so long, I kept thinking I want to add some photos and write a post but they just never happened. I can't even remember what happened between the end of September and the end of December.

What I do know is we have had a happy and a sad start to 2015. The good news is eldest teen was accepted into University and starts next month. Youngest teen started a mechanical apprenticeship last week. I am very proud of both of my children and so happy and thankful they are able to follow their dreams.


Now onto our very sad news. On the 5th January we had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy BJ. He has brought so much love and joy to our family over the twelve years that he was a part of our family. He was eighteen months old when he came to live with us and was the most lovable goofball. Both the kids were sad when we had to say goodbye and they miss him, but it has hit me much harder. BJ was my constant companion, he was never far away from me when we were inside and always by my side out in the garden. I miss him so very very much. 


I have started a new garden bed for BJ. I wanted to plant a rose for him and found this beautiful white rose called 'Guardian Angel'. I have a garden seat there and a couple more roses as well as a few other flowers. It is a work in progress, but I wanted a nice spot to sit in the garden to remember my best friend,


I have spent a lot of time outside mostly in the vege garden today, doing lots of mulching and now I am aching all over. Time to call it a night I think. I have missed blogging, have been spending a bit too much time on Instagram. Have met some really lovely people on there and seen some amazing photos. My plan is to update my blog at least a couple of times a week consistently throughout the year, rather than leaving it for months at a time. When I come back in a few days I will share some photos of what is happening in the vege garden at the moment. If there is anyone out there reading this, Happy Australia Day for tomorrow!