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Check out this video! John Patrick shows you how to build a garden that takes water straight off the roof… and it’s a really great idea. Lots of other videos to watch there, too…
Due to the inordinate amount of time I’ve been spending online lately, I have to admit that I have been neglecting my garden.
I walk past it when I go out, and the little plants have seemed to be looking at me forlornly, wondering why I have been neglecting them.
Well, no more. I went for a nice long walk this afternoon, and when I got home I got stuck into the garden. I’ve now planted out a few of my cherry tomato seedlings into the big caged garden bed, as well as a whole lot of sugar snap pea seeds and my nasturtium, which had been starting to look a little sad in its pot.
It felt really good to be digging around in the dirt! It made me long for a place of my own, where I will be able to really get into it and make a proper garden in the ground. Pots are great, and my collection of potted plants has become somewhat mind-boggling… but it doesn’t compare to the ability to just dig in the ground and transform a piece of the earth.
So, my need to garden has been assuaged, for now…
P.S. Apologies if you had any trouble accessing the site yesterday - my host was doing maintenance.
A few months ago Nick and I (well, mostly Nick…) put up a cage (yes, as my regular readers have now guessed - to keep our nemesis possum out) around an old garden bed along the fence next to our driveway. We planted a number of seedlings in the soil, but didn’t have the resources to enrich it very well, so we were sceptical as to how well the plants would do.
Well, a few of them died, but our beans did really well, as did the mung bean plants I’ve mentioned earlier, so we got some harvest from it. Since that harvest, I’ve kinda ignored that garden and focussed on my pots.
However, this morning I was out there, admiring the parsley that has not only survived, but thrived…
…and I actually had a good look at the bean plants I thought were finished with. I was wrong!! Down low, the plants had come back to life, and I managed to gather myself a most lovely and unexpected harvest:
I was so excited by this wonderful surprise. I guess it just goes to show how resourceful plants are. We can learn all about the proper soil composition and nutrients for each type of plant, all about companion planting and crop rotation… but sometimes it’s humbling to be shown such an example of the resilience of plants. They’ve been doing what they do for thousands of years before we started cultivating them, it I guess it’s a good lesson: that we don’t grow plants - they grow themselves. The most we can do is just help them along.
Has anyone else out there had the pleasure of an unexpected harvest? I’m sure I’m not the only one…
I was talking to Nick on the phone tonight, and the topic of the weather arose. This often came up in jest before he left, as we here in Oz were entering ‘winter’ and complaining about the cold, while Nick just laughed, sitting there in his shorts and t-shirt.
So, we discussed the current weather in our respective parts of the world. Oz - winter, about 22-24ish degrees today. England - summer, about 22-24ish degrees today.
I love my country. I really was blessed to grow up in such a wonderful place with such a wonderful climate. I never have to worry about frost in my garden - just my nemesis… (yes, possum, I’m pointing at YOU). So, in the spirit of sharing my good fortune, here are some photos I took on my balcony the other afternoon when the sun was just right…
A lovely day, all around.
This is where I’ll be this Saturday - mum invited me along and it should be heaps of fun!
I have to admit a fondness for lantern parades
I love growing productive plants, but I have to admit a fondness for bulbs also. I’ve never really grown them before, though I’ve always wanted to. The often simple plants have some glorious flowers!
This year, I found a whole lot of bulbs on sale at K-Mart, of all places, and so I grabbed a stack to plant. Now, not really knowing how long it would be before they flowered, and how much longer I’m going to be living here, I didn’t plant them in the ground.
Instead, most of them went into the soil around current ornamentals in pots. So, at the moment I have random green shoots popping up amongst my other plants - and as I’ve forgotten some of what I put where, I’m really looking forward to the flowers - and the surprise!
I did dedicate a few pots just to bulbs, and here’s one of them just yesterday - hopefully soon to be blooming with iris’s:
As I also mentioned in a previous post, I succumbed to buying some tulip bulbs the other day. Now, tulips are my all-time favorite flower (perhaps it’s the Dutch in me coming out). I’ve never tried growing them before, as I live in a sub-tropical climate that doesn’t really suit them.
But, I’m going to give it a go, even though I know they probably won’t be able to regenerate after they flower.
Has anyone else successfully grown tulips or other temperate bulbs in the subtropics? If so, what’s your secret!
I have just polished off a midnight snack of Cruskits, topped with avocado, Dijon mustard, cheese, and sprouts. Lovely, yummy, lentil sprouts, to be exact.
And it got me to thinking - there is surely not a simpler, space-and-time saving method of growing fresh nutrients than sprouts. I have them in salads, sandwiches, as a snack… they are tasty and versatile. And anyone can grow them. As long as you have a window, and a jar, all you need are seeds and water and you’re on your way.
Here are my some of my lentils, in their dormant state:
Do they look a bit boring? What?? Who said that - the essence of all life, boring? I don’t think so…
And, after a few days of soaking, rinsing, draining, and a little kitchen-bench sunlight, we have the ‘finished’ product:
This is my sprouting jar that I bought from Mrs. Flannery’s (an organic grocery chain in Queensland). But, while it is cool, it’s unnecessary to the process - all you really need is any old jar with a bit of Chux held over the top with a rubber band.
These were soaked overnight, then rinsed twice a day for about three or four days (can’t quite remember…) and you can see the roots quite clearly, as well as the little leaves starting to appear:
Just look a them… yummy.. I usually sprout Mung beans, but I wanted to try lentils, and I have to hazard to say I may just possibly like them more.
Now, lentils and mung beans are really cheap to buy in bulk. For lentils, you can get them in a big bag from any supermarket for a few dollars, and mung beans can be bought from a good organic grocer, or often a health food store.
Nick and I tried an experiment a few months ago - we actually planted some of our mung beans to see how productive a plant would be. We got about a good full hand full of seeds from about 6 planted, so not bad - it might be something we do on a bigger scale one day. But in the meantime, I’ll just buy the seeds in bulk.
Oh, also, you can buy them through companies like Eden Seeds - and if you haven’t checked them out already - go, go now! (If you’re an Aussie, that is). They are my favourite heirloom seed providers, and I love looking dreamily over their catalogue and planning my future garden.
So, in short, if you’re not sprouting - why not?!
I was in the Web Panel of my hosting service, Dreamhost, today, and realised that they are a carbon neutral organisation. Now, I know I have discussed my scepticism regarding carbon offsetting in the past, but putting that aside, I think it’s pretty cool that they put the effort in to do this. And, it means that my site is green as well!
They are fantastic - I plan on staying with them indefinitely, not the least because they make things so easy, for example, they offer one-click installation of WordPress, among other things, (and if you, like me, installed it the hard way the first time, you will appreciate how fantastic that is!!).
Also, I have decided to join their affiliate program, which means I will get a payment whenever someone signs up from my site/recommendation. I want to be totally upfront with you all about this - yes, I will earn some dollars if you sign up with them, and I really believe they are an awesome web host. As I said, I use them myself.
So, if you want to check them out, click the link above - or check the link in my sidebar. I recommend the latter, as that one is currently linked to a promo code EPHFREEDOMAIN - i.e. if you sign up using that link and promo code, you’ll get to register one domain name for free, which will save you anywhere from $12 up.
So, if you’re looking for a host, check them out
In other news…
I am having an issue with my cherry tomatoes. Every time they ripen, they are splitting. It is getting rather annoying, but I don’t know, as yet, what is causing it. Has anyone else had this happen?
