WEIGHING DOWN THE CLOTHES LINE – APRIL IN THE GARDEN

Globe artichoke leaves

Beans climbing up a bamboo pole

Bull's blood beetroot seedling

Ripening cayenne peppers

Eggplant flowers

Garlic sprout pushing through the mulch

Red marigold

Climbing pea

Pale yellow zucchini flowers

Purple basil leaves

Yellow sunflower

Sunflower seeds

Yellow marigold

Zucchini Tromboncino growing on washing line

I’m rather impressed with the size of our Tromboncino Zucchini, our washing line has started to tilt rather alarmingly due to its mass. The rogue sunflowers have been reaching upwards, but none is as impressive as the Digger’s Club sunflower which is as thick as my wrist and would brush our kitchen ceiling if given half a chance. My garlic has surfaced and the cayenne peppers have turned a delicious colour. They are so much hotter than supermarket chili that Dylan claims that one with the seeds scraped out has the same strength as ten with seeds. My taste-buds tend to be burnt off by looking at a chili so I think I’ll leave him to experiment with that one.

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LITTLE HELPERS – MARCH IN THE GARDEN

Making a new guerrilla garden in the nature strip, Melbourne, Australia

Little girl planting marigold seeds in guerrilla garden, Melbourne, Australia

Extended nature strip guerrilla garden, Melbourne, Australia

Little next door neight bour "helping" in the garden, Melbourne, Australia

Little next door neighbour planting out nature strip garden, Melbourne, Australia

Chickens digging in the driveway

Isa Brown hen digging by a sage plant

Freshly laid eggs and flowering roquette

Baked eggs in puff pastry with fetta and roquette from recipe in Delicious Magazine

Potato plant and orange French petite marigold

Seed potato in the ground

Seedlings from the Digger's Club

Zucchini vine near the no-dig garden

Timber palette planter box on wheels

Seedling trays on our bedroom window sill

Oriental, white and Australian garlic from the Digger's Club

Digger's Sunshine sunflowers

Zucchini Tromboncino climbing up washing line

 

 

We are slowly extending our garden into the unused corners of the garden. The chickens have helped us weed the driveway  and the little girls next door helped me plant out a second nature strip garden. I found a lovely Easter reciped for baked eggs in Delicious Magazine and it was lovely to be able to use our own eggs and roquette, but not our own fetta…yet. Hehe, I don’t think I’ll be able to get a goat just yet.

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PUMPKIN PENDANTS – FEBRUARY IN THE GARDEN

Vines taking over the back fence

Basket of garden produce

Cherry tomato plant tied up with old socks

Eggplant flowers

Freshly picked green beans

Native raspberry growing in the driveway

No dig garden bed

Plastic bottle protecting young seedlings

Sunflower leaves

Zucchini tromboncino ready to be picked

Cluster of pots around the wattle tree

Investigating the corn

Picking our first black beauty eggplant

Vines taking over the back fence

Zucchini chips

We were away a bit in January and the pumpkin and zucchini vines took the opportunity to take over everything, although we’re not complaining with zucchini chips and beautiful beans in our tums. We were proud to fill our first basket of produce from our very own garden. It probably didn’t need to be all piled into the same basket, but it just felt much more satisfying walking around the garden piling it up higher and higher!

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CREEPING VINES – JANUARY IN THE GARDEN

Cherry tomato growing in a planter box

Tomato and carrot leaves

Creeping zucchini vine

Beans climbing up a timber lattice

Corn flower

Pineapple sage and lettuce seedlings from Deans Marsh Organics

Baskets of seedlings and potatoes from Otway Herbs and Deans Marsh Organics

Dylana nd Gracie the Border Collie gardening

Strawberries and its companion plant borage in pot

Pumpking vine investigating the hot compost

Spring onions poking through a pumpkin vine

Pumpkins, zucchini and beans have been cheekily creeping their way across every available surface vertical and horizontal. There is a sweet little road side Organic fruit and veg stall in Deans Marsh and for only a few dollars we got a whole bunch of lettuce seedlings and lovely reddish potatoes. We used a new chicken feed that wasn’t ground up, when the chicken tractor moved on the bed began to bristle with sunflowers, corn and wheat. The sunflowers I transplanted elsewhere, the others have been frustratingly prolific and even the chooks have stopped being interested in their stringy leaves.

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