Garden Updates

I feel that we are over due for a garden update. The weather lately has been so lovely, if a little changeable. Seriously, jeans and layers in the morning, but I'm in shirt and shorts by 11am! Then back to long and layers by four in the arvo. Madness. 

Anyway, because of the great weather, and the lots of time staying at home, our garden has been looking a little bit more well tended of late. The first exciting news is this: We grew a pumpkin! 

Out of all the amazing pumpkin vines, this was the only one we got, which makes me think it didn't appreciate being trampled on when we were building the Rainbow Fortress. Oh well. How many pumpkins do you need anyway? These pumpkin vines were all under the fruit trees and thriving in summer, but I tried to start another couple of vines in the same place and it turns out it's just not the spot for it in winter.

The fruit trees are well into their prime and producing lots of fruit. Limes every week. Actually, limes every day. Even though we make Limeanade quite frequently, and I made a batch of lemon/lime butter (six very large jars worth), and I use limes in just about every meal I can, the tree just keeps fruiting. So many limes! I'm constantly giving them away to everyone I see.

The mandarin tree has about 30 mandarins on and they are starting to turn orange which is exciting. Kids will be able to pick themselves and afternoon tea snack soon! The little lemon tree has given us one beautiful lemon and still has three on the tree too. I used it to make a roast chicken which was simply delicious.

I have plans to prune these trees back after they have finished fruiting to help keep them small and healthy. Who knew that I would one day be looking at videos entitled "How to Prune your Fruit Trees" of my own volition?

The front garden bed is finally starting to thrive again. After we moved it to the front of the house before the big renovations of 2018/19, it was sadly neglected and languished for quite a while (except to grow some very messy tomatoes). I've made more of an effort of late and things are looking up. I'm growing sage there for the first time, the parsley survived the possums and is looking healthy, and the most recent tomatoes to pop up were culled accordingly and are actually being taken care of this time.

We are also having some mild success with carrots (first time ever). To be honest, they are a lot of work, and I'm still not convinced they will be worth it, but we are giving it a go. I also have some capsicum plants that originally went into the bed next to the water tank before being transplanted to the front bed. Oh, and those spring onions that I regrew from the shop off cuts. Free food!

The oregano here is so healthy and the little blueberry plant seems happy too. Not sure we will get fruit this year, but that's ok. I can wait.

The flowers in the water tank bed are really taking off, and the bok choy, coriander, spinach, lettuce and rocket are all doing great too. The broccolini is growing, but we are yet to see fruit. I did plant at least 50 snow pea seeds along the back of that garden bed, hoping they would grow and use the wire fence for a trellis, but I ended up only having about four plants pop up, and to be honest, they are very pitiful attempts at snow pea plants. I'm not sure if was just the old seed pack, too early in the season, not enough water or what, but they just didn't take.

Despite this, we are growing so much and I love it. The lettuce in particular has been amazing, because previously I would have bought a whole pack of leaves and then only used half of it. Or got an iceberg lettuce only to forget it was in the fridge at all. Now, we can just go out and snip off a few leaves when we need them. So great.

The passion fruit vine is going great guns, which we are pretty pleased about, even though it's unbelievably hard to photograph.

It's grown up and onto the trellis and then straight over the path like it's supposed to. I'm keeping a pretty keen eye on it to make sure it keeps growing like it should, and nipping off any run away tendrils.

We might need to construct better support for that over the path trellis that's growing on, but it's working for now. It's all the way over to the other side and the plan is to train it down to the water tank, so fingers crossed.

The last things we have are some little snacksicum seedlings that I started from seeds (again from fruit I bought at the store). I don't know if they will grow fruit, but the start of their lives is looking good.

Even though we are growing so much, I still have a strange desire to have more garden beds. Is this rational? Am I going mad? I don't know, but given that Steve will probably provide the labor for the construction of new garden beds, and he is currently training to run 10ks to support his brother on his marathon, I don't think they will be appearing any time soon. Better just focus on keeping all this stuff alive and well for now.