A wheelbarrow full - almost

It's so good to be able to take from the garden after all we have put into it over the last few months.

Today when I got home from gym I decided to head straight into the gardens to do some maintenance work. I banked potatoes, staked tomatoes and planted some corn where I pulled up spent spinach.

I then collected all produce ready for harvest and this was the result...



I made spinach quiche for supper using the good non-holey spinach and the more tattered ones were washed and cooked for the dogs in their food. One large courgette went to a friend and the other into dog food and the last was made into yummy courgette and almond muffins for an end of year function.



The strawberries are almost at 1.6kg's for the week and tomorrow I plan on making some strawberry jam for us. Can't wait!

Water, weed and feed me!

Now that the major planting work has finished it is time to maintain this garden of ours. The temperatures are climbing steadily everyday and the vegetables are needing much more water.

Because we do all we can to save water in our household, I really lavish water on my garden now. We luckily have a wellpoint so we use this most of the time to water as far as the pipe will reach.



I also have three different kinds on sprinklers as we have all these pathways and each sprinkler can water a section most efficiently with minimal amounts of water being wasted on paving or gravel. I water the gardens every second day for a long time in each spot so that if I dig down about 10 cm the soil is damp.



It is also at this time of the season when weeds are growing as much as our plants. Each weekend, one of my children's early morning chores is to produce a bucket of weeds from the gardens. These are hastily picked through by our chickens as they enjoy most of the weeds that we offer them.

Then I also focus on feeding our gardens, pots and baskets. I will add a good sprinkling of Bounce Back once a month and water it in well. But I also use our wonderful worm juice.



We drain off about 1 bucket a week which is then diluted half-half with water and this is fed to the vine and granadilla plants. I use SeaGrow or Liquifeed for my baskets and pots which is given to them every two weeks.
If I am more adventurous, one day I will try to make some manure tea!

I know this may seem extreme but I believe that the yields are better when we care properly for the growing plants. For example, we are picking about 200g of strawberries a day at the moment!

Hey! Mom...come look at this!

My children work hard in the garden and while the major push of planting and compost adding is done for the season there is alot of weeding and watering still happening.

Just becase I am not super human (we only have one of those in our family :-)) I need their help with watering the hanging baskets daily. Sometimes they grumble but generally work with happy hearts along with me.

It was a delightful voice that called to me this morning as my son was doing the watering of the baskets as he spied this amongst the vine....



He says when he is surprised by our garden like this he feels that all his hard work is worth it.



Our grape vine is 18 months old and has been through one pruning. This is the first year that it is showing a promise of fruit. We have about 20 bunches on it and it spans the fence for about 2 metres.

We water it deeply daily with a trickle hose at its roots and then weekly with a rich feed like worm juice.

Can't wait to try them in a couple of months time!

Jungle gardening

In one of my favourite gardening books - Jane's Delicious Garden - I came across this term...Jungle Gardening.

Because of our space constraints we have had to modify her ideas and instead of having a tripod to grow our climbers we used an A-frame with slats leant against the wall.




We have allowed our second garden to be more loose in it's design but have put down boards to walk on between the plants.

It is in this space that we are growing our courgettes and with all that we have growing in the garden at the moment, it is the plant that is yielding the most. And like a true jungle where things grow biiiiiiigggggg....



It wouldn't be fair to call this giant a "baby marrow" so a fully grown courgette it will be! This beauty found it's way into one of our favourite meatless meals:

Cube 1 butternut
Place in a ovendish, sprinkle with olive oil and salt.
Bake in a medium oven.

Peel and cube and equal amount of potatoes and add to the dish in the oven. Toss a little and return to the heat.

Place a dish of sunflower seeds in the oven to roast.

Slice the courgette and add to the dish for the last 15 minutes of the 1 hr cooking time.

While this is cooking, mix together the juice of 1 lemon, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, chopped parsley and chives, and two cubed rounds of feta cheese.

Remove the vegetables, sprinkle the roasted sunflower seeds over and the feta/sauce mixture and serve. Delicious.

That's it! I am officially done.

Today I officially planted my last seeds - 4 watermelon seeds and 18 corn. We have no more garden space to plant. Thus far we have 6 beds of corn, 5 of potatoes, 1 of runner beans in the main garden. We also have 3 granadilla vines, lots of strawberries and sunflowers growing there.



Outside my kitchen door are my herbs, lettuces and chillies. The grapevine trails along the fence and we have all our hanging baskets with strawberries.



In the other vegetable garden we have cucumbers, gem squash, courgettes, butternut, tomatoes, spinach, berries, beans (4 types), cucumbers, loofahs, azec corn and watermelons.





Growing in the compost are the Ghostrider pumpkins which are doing well after 2 weeks. We have the 6 stacks of tyres at the compost area with more potatoes.



In the newest area which is visible from the gate are sweet potatoes, more mature chilli plants, rhubarb, tomatoes, cape gooseberries and two transplanted Ghostrider pumpkin seedlings taken from the compost.



We are well and truly "full up" and now we have to continue with the watering and feeding routine as well as banking up of potatoes as they grow.



I am already thinking ahead to next year winter when we will convert the last remaining area to incorporate fruit trees and a raised bed for my asparagus.

A second try

When we started growing our own food in June 2008 one of the first things I tried was growing potatoes in tyres. The goal was to create more space and leave the raised beds for other vegetables.

While we recieved a medium success with tyres we really did not get the yield that was expected. We then started growing potatoes in the main beds and had great success.



This year I have used up all my available ground space with corn, potatoes, beans, squash, tomatoes but still had some seed potatoes left over.



We have started off 6 stacks of tyres again for the remaining potatoes. I think when we first grew them I was in a rush and did not let the foliage die back before harvesting, so this time I will be more patient and give them a little more time before harvesting.

Morning visitors

I love going into my garden early in the morning. I am normally up from 5.30 for my excercise session and there is still dew and that fresh crispness in the air even though summer is threatening to burst into full swing.

I see all the squash flowers at their best - wide open waiting for a visitor...



Earlier in the year we were looking into getting a hive. I contacted the Honey Bee Association and bought their book to read. I am allergic to bees so wanted to think it through very carefully before getting a hive.

Not even two chapters in we realized that having a hive would not be an option for our home. We simple don't have enough space. They recommend that a hive not be within 100 m of your home and we just don't have that ground space.

So we went to plan B! Lots of flowers and hanging baskets. Superman took care of this for us with his surprise a few months ago and we planted borage wherever we could.

So even though we don't get the honey, these little morning visitors come to pollinate my flowers and we eat the product of their work.