Category: Garden

Hard to believe it looked like this just 4.5 months ago.

Lots of zucchini – you can see the two plants have overtaken the garden. We’ve got standard and lebanese. Plus carrots.

Beetroot, strawberries, lots of tomatoes (a few different types) and one cucumber (so far).

The toms and strawberries are so delicious – so much better than anything you can buy in the shops (even organic).

And we’ve found a few monsters hiding amongst the leaves. They are rather tasteless though so the dogs get these ones.

We’ve also had some baby pumpkins and the butternut pumpkins is desperately trying to give up some pumpkins – but they keep dying once they reach about 7cms :-(. Our lettuces went to seed with all the crazy weather and we’re waiting on the new ones to grow. The celery got squashed by the zucchini  and the spinach is just about ready to start harvesting.

FINALLY…I have the video ready to share with you. It’s been a bit of an ordeal I can you and after doing the video twice – firstly on the i-phone, then with the proper video camera, this is the original i-phone video – which I was finally able to upload. It’s probably not the most exciting video but I’m pleased how the garden is progressig after the flop it was last year.

Yes, it’s Spring which means it’s time to get those vegetable seedlings in the ground.

This is what I started with. Lots of soil, weeds and a few leftover spring onions. Though surprisingly last years strawberry plants have started producing again.

The first job was weeding, then the not so fun job of raking through all the soil. This year I had to do it by hand which was tough.

Then the fun part, planting the seedlings. With being away we didn’t grow any ourselves this year so all had to be purchased. I also planted some seeds – carrots and silverbeet.

Then the last job – mulching. Of course, using straw for the strawberries.

Looks a little better doesn’t it?

The fence (used for tomatoes) is to try and keep the dogs out of the garden.

Now the hard part…being patient and waiting until things are ready to harvest…

….allowed me to get outside and check up on our vegetable garden. Unfortunately it’s not looking very healthy at all.

Things started to go bad when we were away January and Kevin only watered the garden once all week – despite having some pretty hot days. Then for the last week we’ve had lots and lots of rain.

So the tomatoes are on their last legs – the big ones have gone rotten (I assume from all the rain).

The celery stopped growing ages ago and looked like this after a week of no water.

Still no sign of any viable zuchinni (the one thing we’ve always had lots of success with), cucumber plant is dead and our pumpkins never got going this year. The only thing still looking good are the onions, carrots, capsicums and some of the strawberries. It’s been a very mixed year with the tomatoes (until we went away) being the most successful. Now need a dry/sunny day to get out there and give it a good tidy up.