Saturday 30 November 2013

The Garden Share Collective { December }

A monthly (and my second), post for the Garden Share Collective. Started by the lovely Liz from The Strayed Table to encourage more people to grow their own organic food at home. A blogging community, who share a garden update about their own vegetable patches, big or small. What is growing, what has been harvested and what has made it onto the do-list. 

While not unexpected in this part of the country, I can't help but mention that we have been experiencing some hot weather lately. Everyday is around 40 degrees. A cool day for us now is in the low 30's. It seems I have started to acclimatise to this weather, as a 30 degree day, now sees me feeling cold and wanting to wear trousers and a long sleeve top. Despite all this, our vegetable garden has continued to thrive in the heat, even if we are slowly wilting beside it. And most importantly, our daughters are enjoying helping us look after the vegetable garden. This is as much a garden for children, as it for us to be able to grow a small amount of vegetables for us to eat.

This month, we planted a few additional vegetables. Some spring onions, zucchini, and even though it was a little late to be planting them, some carrots. We had the room, and I thought it would be worth the try. Maybe I might regret it! The corn is looking very tall indeed, the Sunflowers (of which I've decided we planted too many) are looking very sunny and happy, the Lebanese cucumber plants have been gently thinned out and are also growing nicely. Alongside that, are some chilli plants, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, purple runner beans, coriander (which sadly seems to have gone to seed) and some parsley.

We have continued to harvest yellow and red cherry tomatoes, and also lettuce. A slow, but steady amount for a garden that is 3 months old. Though I can't help but wish, that we had made a larger vegetable bed for ourselves.






The to do list continues to grow. But mostly concerning restructuring of the garden and what we have planted, to make the most use of the space that we do have. We have too many sunflowers and chilli plants. And I'm considering removing the coriander and parsley, and planting it in pots, beneath the lemon and orange plants. This will leave me with a lot more space to grow vegetables. From there, it will be choosing plants that will be best to grow in this dry heat, keeping in mind it will only continue to get hotter for the next three months.

Thank you to this monthly share collective, which gives me the initiative to go out and weed the vegetable garden in readiness for its photos! Enjoying sharing in other's journeys with their vegetable gardens also.

12 comments:

  1. Hey Carla, you may want to climb your cucumbers up a post to save room. Just use some ties and wrap them up the post and when the reach the top wrap them back down. I did this last year and it worked wonderfully and saved heaps of room in our small garden last year. For the heat you are having your garden still looks great.

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    1. Thanks Liza, I might just try that. In some ways I almost wish I could start afresh in some parts of the garden and lay it out a little better!

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    2. Sorry Liza, predictive text on my iPad typed Liza!

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    3. Oh, I give up. Miss my laptop (I'm on holidays)

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  2. Your garden seems to be handling the heat wonderfully, hopefully it will continue to thrive over Summer as I have heard how hard it is to get good quality fresh vegetables in the mining towns. Looking forward to next month's update to see how it is progressing.

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    1. Thanks Louie, I'm hand watering it twice a day at the moment, which I think is helping!

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  3. Well done acclimatising to the hot weather... we're in mid-30s here today in Melbourne and I don't think I can ever get used to heat like this! (And I come from a tropical country!)

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    1. You will! You won't even notice it. I'm in Perth at the moment and really noticed how much cooler it is!

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  4. it's wonderful to see how productive your garden is. you can see the heat in your pictures - clear gorgeous sunlight - and the pants seem to be coping well, if the humans aren't.
    it's interesting how you say you have acclimatised and now 30 degrees feels cool... i am originally from western sydney, so i grew up with hot weather, high 30s were normal in the summer. now that i live in tassie, anything over 24 is a stinker! it's crazy how you adapt.
    i'm really inspired by everyone's posts in the garden share this time - i need to give myself a kick along. happy gardening :-)

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    1. What brought you to Tasmania? My husband and I still plan (dream) of moving back to Tasmania. We're both from the North West Coast, but Hobart would be the place we'd most likely live. We love Battery Point and all of it's federation homes and history. So different to our current surrounds!!

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  6. Your garden is progressing well. Lovely photos.

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