Gardening

Here’s the lonely rejects from the Bentleigh POD that met here two days ago. I had Roma tomato and cos lettuce seedlings to give away, as well as a couple of punnets of onion seedlings that I didn’t want to plant out.

We had 7 of us and we had a lovely time. We’re all pretty much on the same page, with veggie gardens that we’ve been puddling around in for 2 or 3 years on average, with a deep interest in organic methods of fertilising and pest control. (They were very interested in meeting the chickens.) My worm farm wasn’t producing any worm wee, so a couple of the guys unclogged it for me, which I was so grateful for! So were the worms… they would’ve been doing the australian crawl in there if things had’ve kept going. The group also taught David2 how to plant fruit trees, so today is the day that the trees go into the ground!

We arranged to meet in 3 weeks time at Mick’s place a few streets away. It was a pleasant, low key way to spend a couple of hours on the weekend, so I think this is something that will continue.

This morning I grabbed the camera and had a bit of a wander around the garden. First I visited the front porch, where I have my herbs and some seedlings who are imatiently waiting to be planted in “real” soil.

Jordan’s watermelon seeds FINALLY sprouted. There were 6 seeds in both punnets, but 2 are better than nothing. All it took was a torrential downpour for 36 hours to do it.

The lone punnet of brown onions are beside it. Thankfully one punnet was adopted on Sunday, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with this last one. Maybe I’ll take it to work and see if anyone wants it?

Here’s a snippet of cherry tree. It’s still in its pot on the front porch. People are telling me that cherries are hard to grow, so now I’m a bit scared of it.

Peppermint. It was originally just in the pink pot to the right, but it boldly leapt where no peppermint has leapt before and invaded the coriander pot next door. The coriander is gone and the peppermint remains. I really like to end the day with a peppermint tea as I read a book in bed, so I’m quite happy that this has happened. (Not all that keen on coriander anyway…)

We have strawberries!! Happily, they’re not this blurry in real life.

I can’t remember what these seedlings are. I was so sure I’d remember so I didn’t label them. They’re either brussels sprouts or cauliflower. Or both. Or something else.

I have 2 pots of curly-leafed parsley. The weird thing is that it’s going (or growing) great guns in the big pot, but it’s looking a bit pathetic in the small pot.

Same original punnet, same potting mix, same porch. Mother Nature can be capricious.

I finally tracked down some asparagus plants. I LOVE the idea of these babies…. you basically ignore them for the first year and leave the spears, harvest lightly in the second year and then for the next 15 years you have asparagus every year. I bought two packets, then when I got home I read in a gardening book that 15 – 25 plants are adequate for a family of 4. I bought 4 plants. So basically these will only last us 5 minutes. That’s information I would have been glad to know before…

Now we’re out the back. These are the beans I pulled from the pantry and planted… the black eyed beans/peas. You can still see the toilet roll holders I started them in. I’m planning on leaving these to dry on the vine, so I’ll have free dried beans for casseroles next winter.

The climbing beans are showing signs of intelligence and grasping onto the tower we bought for them. Ignore the fine crop of weeds in the back… the chickens will eat those.

My 20c broccoli plant from Bunnings seems to like the spot we plonked it in.

As usual, Daphne accompanied me through her garden.

Monster leek. This one has been in the veggie patch for 2 years. I just cut them off at ground level and they grow back. We’re eating leeks and spring onions that I originally planted 3 years ago. What a joy to my frugal heart!