From time to time I decide to start garden blogging - you know, recording what we plant when, what works, what doesn't, when it flowers or fruits etc. But then I forget about it (much like the garden). So what's different this time? Nothing. but I am feeling very excited about the garden again.
Since the beginning of Spring we have been working fairly consistently in it, getting veggies in, mulching and planting natives out the front (over what was lawn), weeding and mulching existing beds that have been neglected badly since we moved in six and a half years ago. I've been afraid that it's going to turn out like our house does every time we tidy up. At first we're determined to keep it tidy, but each day it gets a little worse, until it takes another huge effort to make it presentable. But so far we are keeping up with the gardening we've done - I think there'll be years of work to reverse the damage the couch grass is doing, but we're pulling it out as it comes up again (and trying to get the whole root) and trying to plant more and more other things to supress it (like gazanias and violets), if that's even possible.
For the record, our vegie garden is currently nurturing tomatoes, zucchinis, borage, buttercrunch lettuce (most of those are in a pot on the deck actually) and butternut pumpkin seedlings. Actually none of those are in the vegie garden proper, cause we've temporarily moved the chooks in there. Most of these seedlings are in a new bed, pretty small (2x2.4m) which we (mostly I actually, since Chris had hurt his back) built a few weeks ago - a few sleepers around the outside, newspaper over the little bit of grass that was growing, and lucerne, cow poo and straw on top, with the seedlings pocket planted. They are all doing really well I'm happy to say. And the pumpkins, which I planted outside the garden since there was no room in it, are also very happy. They're in what was chook run, so they're probably digging down to very nice soil underneath, though I pocket planted them on top with some straw fliched from the new garden.
The only foods we are currently able to harvest from the garden are the remains of the parsley (it's gone to seed but we can still pick some - what the chooks are can't reach), lemons (oh so many lemons) and the fabulous buttercrunch lettuces which I only planted two or three weeks ago. Oh and of course a few spring onions and garlic chives which we have in pots on the deck. The garlic chives are perennial but both they and the spring onions have also self seeded from last year. So not much at the moment, but it is still so satisfying to be able to eat out of the garden at all, after about 4 years (from when Liam was born) of doing almost nothing with it.
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