A Garden Update Spring 2024

We had a taste – a lick and a promise, so to speak – of spring 2024 the last few days. Being antipodean, that officially started in September, but I’m writing this a week before the end of August, confusing innit?

And I got stuff done!

Sorry this is gonna sound like Dear Diary but it kind of is when you think about it. Blog came from “weB LOG” because the early bloggers were seen as diarists who kept their diaries open to the public. Some saw it as narcissistic but diaries are a source of historical fact corroboration, in some case they were the only historic written mention of events. And blogs began to have content like you’d keep in lab notebooks, as records of project planning and execution, and much more.

But in any case – I am SHYTE or even WORSETHANSHYTE at going outside in winter. Whatever causes it I don’t know, but going out into the cold and back indoors again kicks my butt harder and harder each year so I spend most of the cold months indoors and concentrating on writing and cooking and so forth. A couple of “fake news spring days” energise me almost instantly, and we had a few great FNSDs there, 18C – 20C blue skies light breezes.

Garden

Our “lawn” (all 30-odd sqm of it, ehehehe) got mowed and whippersnippered, then I pulled up weeds and some plants that are due to be changed out because we’ve found that while they’re lovely scents and colours we just don’t use them in cooking.

Before you say it, I know – what kind of attitude is that from me? Plants feed the soul too ya know? Of course I know that – but Kerry has the ornamental gardens, I have the food gardens. We meet in making a harmonious picture, and I’m int the process of running reticulation to all the plants so they get watered in the hot summers, because it turns out we’re both not what you’d call consistent waterers . . .

So yeap, the garden’s been a shambles. Here it is improving slightly:

This is the eastern fence after some weeding and topping-up soil. The leftmost orange tub has borage in it for the beesm and because I also candy the flowers as a decoration for desserts. The next tub is reserved for Greek basil, and the one to the left is the first of three in that corner and has bushing peas, basil, and hopefully a pumpkin vine that’ll produce some (totally unknown variety, seeds from a seed bank) kind of pumpkin for us.

We have an arch trellis (half store-bought, half home-made) with two passionfruit vines on it, this is the flower of the banana passionfruit which is producing heavily this year.

Behind it is a fairly well-grown self-seeded “weed,” a malva neglecta or mallow. These things grow to moe than two metres tall and are considered a weed but as a species of mallow they’re actually edible and I make a chicken and mallow pie whenever I find one that’s volunteered itself like this one has. It’s a highlight of the season when we can get one.

The next image is an “almost-to-scale” of the front garden, which is our main garden for recreation, cat exercise, and the vegetables When you look at the model, be aware that it’s about 10m wide and not quite 7m the other way.

The top of the drawing faces roughly east, and there are now three separate reticulation system lines from the controller around the yard. I’ll do another article on those worm feeders (white cylinders) or find the link to my original article, they’re a handy place to dispose of garden prunings, kitchen scraps, and so forth. They actually do attract worms and then those little beauties cruise around eating the scraps and putting their poop casts around in the garden beds, which means I save a fair bit on not having to use much fertiliser. Also the worms aerate the soil and let water penetrate around plant roots.

This year I’m hoping to – finally! – have a complete season with peas, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, radishes, greens (the foreground greenery in the top picture is rocket lettuce, behind and to the right our perennial Fordhook silverbeet “tree.”) and maybe half a dozen more varieties. We already have potatoes, two kinds of parsley, rosemary, citrus varieties, and some nasturtiums around, so we have a pretty good resource for improving our meals.

Why Is This Here?

You’ll notice this is in the PTEC3D News section, but could just as easily be in TEdALOG Lite II or TEdAMENU Tuckertime, but as I’m writing about the worm feeders and retic, both of which are Make type projects, it’s in here.

The hope is that you get inspired by the feeders or retic systems into making even a small start on growing some fresh food at home. When you don’t have a garden, have a pot on the windowsill with parsley or mint growing. You’ll be amazed how much something small like that makes a plain meal seem special and tasty. And that’s it for now. Enjoy!

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