Pumpkin suprise

Update: the vegetable patches have been neglected for quite some time due to other commitments, and doing other creative things like knitting, so I was surprised recently to go outside and find a vine sprawled across one bed sprouting a bulb which I initially thought was a watermelon.

 

It turned out to be a pumpkin of course but unfortunately was harvested too early. I did however save the seeds - half of which I roasted as a snack, and half which have been put aside to sew next season.

 

 

 

We continue to generate some produce from fruit and nut trees like this handful of macadamia nuts, and oranges which have just been turned into juice. We had a glut of lemons and grapefruit. The rosemary bush is still growing strong, and we continue to get the occasional capsicum. Other than that I've been a bit stumped by the milder weather and long periods of dry followed by heavy downpours resulting in flooding and saturated soil. Perhaps I need to stop thinking temperate and start planning a subtropical one!

 

 

 

Intro

I got into gardening a few months back after an innocent request to remove a small tree turned into a full-on landscaping epic. We are a fairly typical family on an average suburban block (around 610sqm total) on the outskirts of Sydney. Our yard is L-shaped and by no means large. A portion is fenced off for the dog, another section houses the blow-up pool (in summer, trampoline in winter). Some of the rest is given over to a play area and what will hopefully be a deck, and also a meditation garden.

We have four beds assigned to vegies, another which I haven't completely decided on yet and is currently home to some lovely sunflowers and another bed which is for flowers only. I probably could have planned the bed rotation better but because the whole set up was a bit haphazard (made up as we went along basically) there are plants alongside plants that probably aren't recommended to be together. But hey, Brooke Shields and Michael Jackson were happily dating for a short time so why not corn and beets?

Here's a list of what's currently growing (to varying degrees of success):

Bed 1 (kitchen garden bed)
Tomatoes, lettuce (various), capsicum, dwarf beans, lavender, basil, marigolds and a sick zucchini.

Bed 2 (along a fence)
Ballerina apple, cucumber, lavender, watermelon, leeks, carrots, capsicum, squash, cherry tomatoes, rosemary. And just planted runner (climbing) beans.

Bed 3 (the organised bed)
Cherry tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, capsicum, zucchini and newly planted runner beans.

Bed 4 (the anything grows bed - pictured below)
Ballerina apple, dwarf beans, squash, sunflowers, chia.

Bed 5 (new raised bed)
Corn, butternut pumpkin, cos lettuce, beetroot, cauliflower, radish, broccoli.



Also around the place are dotted a few pots containting various herbs, strawberries, blueberries and a dwarf peach. Nearly all of the plants have either been purchased as seedlings or grown from seed in the past six months.

This blog was inspired by a tip I read in one of Jackie French's books. She said to get the most from your garden, as motivation for doing all the yakka if you like, eat something from it every day. Even if it's a sprinkling of herbs. So for the past few days that's what we've done. Yesterday it was a handful of dwarf beans cooked with mushrooms to go with our sausages and mash.

Can we keep it up for 365 days? Let's see.