le garden

Bushbabe just posted about her love for her vege patch.

Being a Sunday, my day of leisure and contemplation tends to take place in my garden (okay, on the computer with forays into the garden).

And being 2 days before Spring (by calendar reckoning) it is really starting to pay off.

So here, with pictures, is the garden tour.

To take you back for a moment in time, I received dirt for my birthday/Mother's Day presents. They have indeed been blessed gifts.

Birthday Bed: Our strawberries are ripening up and the pansies are blooming. We have actually picked the first 3 strawberries - not hugely sweet but they were the tiny forerunners to a veritable feast, given the amount of flower and berries that have emerged. The radish are just coming up after being planted last week.






Mother's Day Bed: Tomatoes are going crazy, onions and spring onions none the worse (for the amateur gardening attempts by a nameless visiting dog attempting to infuse a little blood and bone - well bone - into the patch), beetroot beautiful, spinach going to seed and silverbeet coming to fruition.







Every other day of the year Bed: Have just planted this one with snow peas, peas, beans, cucumber, corn and sunflowers. Along the back fence I have put a few hills of dirt and planted some watermelon seeds in the flood zone - I figure nothing lost, nothing gained - and I am looking forward to some watermelon and hopefully less mowing!




Around the house:

• Harvesting pumpkins from the front wasteland;
  
  
  
  
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  I just pulled all the old basil and coriander from this bedand am letting seeds rejuveniate. I dug up and separated all the bulbs last year to go all along the side bed and am hoping to have some beautiful flowers for November;
  
  
  
  
  
• the origins of this chilli tree are the cut price stand at the local supermarket - its amazing how 1 bag of rotting birdseyes can turn into the most prolific chilli tree. V's other "avenue" of chillies are attempting resurrection and are not pictured (in case the shame will be their final nail). Only the habernero goes strong, and as anyone who has a habernero can attest, a few go a long way - and that doggarned bush goes just that bit further (why it can't be the jalopeno or the cerrano I do not know);
  
  
  
  
  
• my other herb corner (which used to house the sunflowers from my banner, and subsequently a lemonsgrass cluster) now has oregano, thyme, basil, coriander and the bloddy garlic chives going great guns (still haven't found a better way to use these than a very small amount as garnish - and a very small amount makes no dint in the spreading mat);
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  the citrus we received for wedding presents are shooting and starting to flower - it appears they do like a little attention, although we need to read up a bit on what sort of attention we need to give them.

Thus far from our labours we have had feasts of pesto (I often refer to our crop as "the basil hedge" as it is something that has always been 100% productive), beetroot, spinach and silverbeet in a variety of ways, herbs to add flavour to cooking, chillies for accompaniment and many salsas. The excess green tomatoes from today's prune are set to become another variation for our usual Mexican feast on Tuesday.




The other benefit, of course, is that we are inviting nature into our back yard. Magpies have a bit of a reputation, but we have never attacked any of our brood and they (touch wood) have never swooped us but sing for us (especially when we are gardening and mowing) -and then there are some where we look and wonder - what the heck are you?




Only 2 days to Spring - but it has been Spring it seems for months around here. So come on all - how goes your garden?