The Garden Share Collective { January }

Joining up with Lizzie from The Strayed Table for our monthly Garden Share Collective.

Well, what a month my vegetable garden has had.

We returned to civilisation (Perth) for a brief holiday. And came home to a vegetable garden in disrepair. Windswept and totally dried out. In fact completely and utterly sun kissed. The plants had obviously missed my twice daily watering by hand. And red back spiders had created lots of little webs in and underneath a lot of our outdoor belongings. A complete and total manic working bee was required. To tidy the garden and rid the yard of red backs. Insects like these, that can potentially be very dangerous, always make me worry with our two daughters running around.

And then we welcomed in the New Year with a cyclone. The cyclone changed course before reaching our small town, but we still received a lot of rain and heavy winds. Which again played complete havoc with my garden. Whiplashing my already struggling sweetcorn and sunflowers. And my tomatoes too. And the heavy rains, washing away the new seeds I'd planted the week before.

Between the excessive heat, overbearing sun, and all that rain and wind, well my garden is looking a little worse for wear. In need of some TLC. The corn is looking a little unhealthy, the sunflowers died, and the tomatoes and cucumbers all had to be tended too, tidied and broken stems removed.

But there are some positives. We've had an abundance of tomatoes, some chillies and our purple runner beans are close to ready. Spring onion, pumpkin, zucchini and sunflower seeds have been replanted. And no more red back spiders have been sighted.

And I received a new gardening set from Mum for Christmas. Which I love. Thanks Mum!

All's well again with the vegetable garden. Aside from my corn. Any ideas what is wrong with it? Is it just sun bleached? Entirely possible with our weather at the moment.

The Family Table { Our first harvest }

The vegetable garden, has yielded it's first harvest. Yellow cherry tomatoes. They have been slowly ripening over the last week, and today I decided, they were yellow enough. Ripe enough to eat.
I planned to make a salad with them for our dinner tonight. To celebrate our first taste of home grown vegetable.

But my eldest daughter had other plans. Quietly eating, next to all of them, while they sat in the small blue bowl I'd left them in. Well, they were for eating I suppose. And who could blame her. Once I tried one, I completely understood. These were the most sweetest tasting tomatoes that I'd tasted in a long time. I'd forgotten what a "real" homegrown tomato tasted like.

It's a rare thing, for my children to spontaneously eat vegetables like this. Perhaps the novelty of watching them grow for weeks and picking them together, made them all that more enticing to eat.
Whatever the reason, I'm pleased to see her eating them with such joy.

The Garden Share Collective { Our Vegetable garden at 7 weeks }

A monthly (and my first), 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. 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 to the do-list.

Well, my garden at seven weeks young, is slowly blossoming. We created it, to both grow our own vegetables, but to also instil the joy of looking after, and watching plants grow with our two young daughters. It is our first vegetable garden. We are growing vegetables, sunflowers and marigolds from a mixture of seedlings and plants.

 

Our climate is a little on the hot side in this part of the country. Most days are in the high 30's. And, at the moment, it keeps getting gradually hotter and hotter by the week. Despite this, with twice daily watering, it still continues to thrive.

What do we have growing in our garden at the moment? Yellow and red tomatoes, cucumbers, purple runner beans, zucchini, chilli's, parsley, lettuce, coriander, and corn. We also have a potted Valencia Orange tree, lemon tree, and a New Norcia Olive tree which were relocated with the rest of our belongings from Perth. We had a limited amount of seedlings available to choose from when we first planted the vegetable garden, and as my brother was helping us with the construction of the vegetable garden, he was the one who quickly chose seeds and seedlings to plant. A lot of things that were on my shopping wish list to plant and grow, were not in stock unfortunately. The joys of living in a remote part of the country. You can read my post about the making of our vegetable garden here. As time goes on, I hope to be more organised in what we plant to eat at our table. I can already see, that we're going to have more purple runner beans than our small family could ever need. We haven't quite found a balance of planting that works for us yet. But this was a vegetable garden, planted in haste, before the temperatures became too warm. 

What do I have on my to do for next month. Some more considered planting, basil, carrots, and spring onions. All of which I use often in the kitchen. And to look into a small compost bin system for our food scraps. And, of course, a little bit of weeding. They grow as quickly as our vegetables.

'Til next month!

The Vegetable Garden { An Update }

Six weeks ago, we planted our first vegetable garden.
We have tomatoes growing and those inconsistent and devilish parsley seedlings, have been to hell and back two, three , seven or nine times (depending on your source), and finally sprouted also.
Instead of being a chore, we have really enjoyed caring for, and watching the garden grow. Twice daily watering, and a little weeding is all it has needed from us so far. Too early, to claim that I have a green thumb. But time passed enough, to at least claim that I am a willing and eager grower. Attentive, if nothing else.
There's not a tomato, slowly ripening, that we don't know about. Or a seedling, that we're not patiently waiting for. It has been a peaceful distraction, in an otherwise, toddler busy backyard.

 

 

Excuse the weeds please. They're gone now!

Shoots and Leaves

And just like that, we have shoots.

 

 

It was just over a week ago that we planted our small vegetable garden, and we are so excited to see lots of little plants growing everywhere. Twice daily watering seems to have overcome the daily 30 degree temperatures, which I thought might have slowed down any new shoots, from sprouting too soon. It might be too soon to say, but it seems our garden, with all the care taken in preparing the soil, is thriving.

Now, if only we'd remembered to place tags near to where we planted each line of seeds. My guess is that these are our cucumber or beans sprouting.

Do any greenthumbs have any answers for me?

A Vegetable Garden

I have wanted a small vegetable patch for sometime now.
I planned one for our own home when we were living in Perth, but it soon became obvious that a move to the Pilbara for my husbands’ work was more than likely on the cards. So I let the idea go.
But now, with my veggie patch loving, perma-culture trained, organic farming, bee hive keeping brother is here visiting, our own vegetable garden is now finally a reality.

 
The climate is less suited, the soil is average. Very average. We managed to find somebody selling sleepers here for the garden bed, and by chance we were also given a trailer load of top soil by a local resident. It wasn't the best top soil, certainly not the kind you might find in Tasmania, where my brother is used to living and working. But it is as good as it can get for here. We've chosen plants (and sunflowers), that can supposedly tolerate full to part sun, and added as many nutrients as we could possible to the soil.

The afternoon was fun, preparing the soil, digging and planting seeds. Both girls loved it. Much soil was consumed by my youngest in the process.

And my eldest planted the seeds, with some assistance.
No dirt allowed on the favourite orange tutu.

 

 

 I look forward to picking our first cherry tomatoes, sweet corn and cucumbers to eat. Locally grown produce is not readily available here. Neither is there much organic produce here to choose from. And no farmers markets. And fruit and vegetables can sometimes be a little wilted, before you've even had the chance to take them home. It will definetly be worth the effort to grow some of our own.

It was the last afternoon we had the chance to spend with my brother and his partner. And we spent it creating the vegetable garden. It was the perfect end to their holiday with us. It was followed by a dinner of homemade paella, and a bottle of 13 year old Portuguese red wine I had been babysitting for my brother. It was left here on his last visit to us, which I'd clearly forgotten about. Otherwise, it wouldn't have survived sitting in our wine rack for the last five years. 

Their leaving today, has left me feeling the most down that I have felt since moving here. We are ridiculously far away from everybody I care about. We've made some new friends since being here, but it just doesn't quite feel the same. Not yet anyway. I have a feeling, that it might not ever feel quite right for me here. It's all a bit too far from home. Too hot, too sunny. Everyday.

If nothing else, with or without flourishing vegetable plants, watering the vegetable garden everyday, will allow me to reminisce of my brother and the great afternoon we all spent planting it together.