Summer kitchen garden progress 2017

Hello! 

I've been trying to get my kitchen garden up and running again this Summer, I was a bit late planting things, due to an enormous clean up that had to happen first, but we had a cool Spring so things were slow to get going anyway. 

I'm happy to say that the things that I did manage to plant have grown really well! 

My boys wanted me to grow iceberg lettuce as it's their favourite variety.  I haven't had much success with this type of hearting lettuce before, but this year they have grown beautifully, and I have nice tight, heavy hearts of lettuce, the snails have done a bit of damage to the outer leaves but mostly they are fine. :) 

.......We have also had lots of snowpeas, which are my favourite vegie, I can eat them all day! .........

........ the tomatoes are starting to get bigger,  they are still very green, I think they are a bit behind because we haven't had a lot of warm weather yet, but they are starting to fill out now and there are plenty of flowers......

.......the Lebanese cucumbers are starting to come on too,  usually I plant these and they shrivel up and die, but not this year! Yay! ..............

...........along with the snowpeas I threw in a pack of sugar pea seeds, they are ready to eat now too, so sweet and crisp, much better than the shop ones. :) 

I have also got a few pumpkin vines on the go, some capsicums, spring onions, strawberries and blueberries.  I am a bit late with my climbing beans, but I think I'll still put some in and just have an Autumn crop.  The only flowers I've managed to plant are my dahlias, I'm hoping for a good show from them in Autumn, I have only just got them in the ground, but they are sending up nice healthy shoots! :)

So that's the kitchen garden in a nut shell at the moment, I think I'll do a monthly check in and see what is growing and happening in the garden through the season. 

Do you grow some of your own food? or lots of it?  Is gardening a hobby for you too? 

Have a great day!

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Darling Dahlias

Hello there! 

 I thought for the last day of summer in would be a nice thing to share some beautiful blooms that my dahlias have produced over the last month or so.  I have really tried to be more consistent with my care of the dahlias this season and the plants have rewarded me with the best display of flowers that I have ever grown.  Such bright and showy flowers really speak of summer to me. I hope they keep blooming for a few more weeks, I will be dead heading like crazy to try and get another flush of buds. 

So, are you looking forward to Autumn?  I'm a bit sad to see Summer go, it always seems the most relaxed season to me, and I love the long days, but it will be nice to have the cooler months again and all that cosy crochet time in front of the fire. :) 

Have a great day everyone, I'll be back with some crochet to show you soon! 

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Stills from my week....

1. Finished things that I made for the Emu Plains Market ( that seems like ages ago!).  Time to start making again for the next one. :) 

2.  It is rose season around here, and I cannot get enough of these showy girls.  The scent is just divine, and I love how full this variety is.  Happy days! 

3 +4 +5.  I have been very absent from these parts recently, (so much for my attempt to post every day of October, my poor neglected blog!) one of the reasons is all the new yarn that has been coming into the shop over the last few weeks, so many lovely distractions and lots of happy work packing it into shelves and sending out orders.  These are some of the new hand dyed organic cottons from Sourth Africa, so very lush.......but I will be giving them a post of their own shortly! :) 

6. I captured this beautiful sunrise on the weekend when we had a night away at Torquay staying at the RACV resort at the Golf Club.   The sky was very spectacular, it makes me wonder why I don't get up early every morning to see the sun rise. :) 

7 +8 +9 .  It is also poppy time in the garden at the moment, these beauties self seed all over the place and I always love to see the new combinations that appear each year.  Lats year there were lots of single flowered pink shades, this year there are lots more mauves and super frilly doubles.  So lovely! 

The bees adore them, the sound is amazing, all that humming and buzzing! 

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Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with something that might be interesting to you, I am working hard on so many different things at the moment, it feels like I have too many balls in the air at once, and I still have to show you all the new yarns that are in stock!!  

So what have you been up to recently? 

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Garden Share Collective - December 2014

Hello!  So it's the start of December and Summer here in Melbourne and time for another little look around the garden for the Garden Share Collective over on Lizzie's blog.  I haven't joined in for a few months as there was very little going on in the garden except for a whole lot of neglect!  

But during November I have started to reclaim the veggie patch and have planted out some Summer things.

Sticking to Lizzie's format:

Planting : During November I planted zuchinis, capsicums, carrots and lettuces.

Harvesting : We have been eating spinach, rhubarb and broad beans from the garden 

plus herbs and lettuce.

To do : Still need to continue weeding out beds and planting beans, beetroot, tomatoes, sweetcorn, lettuce, cucumbers and pumpkins.  Keep up with watering, it is really starting to dry out around here.

Like a little tour of what's going on in the Littlewoollie backyard?.....

......these are some of the beds I have cleared for summer planting, must get onto planting out now before it get s too late.....

......rhubarb still has good stems on it although starting to look a bit dried out.....

.....capsicums looking good, if small........

...... carrot patch, I am growing baby carrots and the round variety, I liked them for roasting last year. The cages are to stop the chooks and cats scratching this area up, seems to be working, there are a lot of tomato seedlings coming up in here too, I should transplant them and see what we get, I grew lots of different tomatoes here last year.....

.....zucchinis starting to take off....

 .......English spinach has been good, just starting to go to seed now, must try and find the pack of this seed, the leaves are huge and very tender, think I'll grow this again next year......

......this shot and the top one are carrot flowers, I think they are some heirloom varieties, different colours, white and purple I think, so I am letting them go to seed, hopefully I will be able to save my own seed for next year......

..........random potatoes coming up in the garden boxes, they don't seem to mind all the kikuya that is growing there too! .....

.....mandarins, I think they are past their best, probably dry inside.....

.....drying off the broad beans to save seed for next year....

.....and finally my parsley patch going wild, it is lovely and green though so I am leaving it for now...

How is your garden growing, are you eating much from it at the moment?

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Garden Share Collective - September 2014

Hello! 

Well, we are into the second day of September so it is time for another Garden Share Collective post, I missed the August one, so am going to do a garden update even if my vegie patch is not doing much at the moment.  

Springtime is lovely around here, I always forget how many bulbs are in the garden and get a very pleasant surprise when everything starts flowering, we have plenty of jonquils and daffodils, iris and freesia are starting to open, and my pots of hyacinths are looking gorgeous ( sorry no pics of them tonight, I will dedicate a post to them soon I think!). 

I have started a big mulching program for the front garden. 

It feels like I haven't done a lot in the veggie patch recently, but thinking back there is more going on than I realised!  I have started weeding each veggie bed ready for planting Summer things, and have bought some interesting seed to try this year.  (Beetroots and collards)

Kept feeding and watering the broad beans, they are looking good, with lots of flowers.

I have been down to the Community Garden a few times this month, and there is a lot of different veggies  growing down there at the moment, it puts my garden to shame! 

Planting:  I sowed English spinach and snow peas, and planted out golden shallots.

Harvesting: Rhubarb, lettuce, potatoes, spring onions, lemons, limes, mandarins, lots of flowers.

To do : Sow seeds of tomatoes, beans, carrots and lettuce.  

Plant potatoes. 

Prepare an area for sweetcorn. 

Sow sunflowers, zinnias. 

Mulch and weed all the beds ready for tomatoes.

Here are a few snaps from my garden at the moment. 

......someone left the gate open and the chooks had a nice time pecking around the big garden, Franklin watched on from a safe distance........

So how is your garden growing this month?

Garden Share Collective July 2014

Broadbeans doing ok.

Hello.  It's time for this month's garden update.

 I'm joining in with Lizzie over at Strayed from the Table and all the other gardeners who take part in the Garden Share Collective.

This month I have planted snow peas but little else. I have tried to do a bit of weeding as the grasses are growing very quickly, but really have not been very successful.  There are a lot of jobs to do, even though it is Winter.  We are not harvesting much due to my very late planting of everything, just some lettuces ready to eat at the moment.I haven't got much else to say about the garden at the moment, I am finding it all a bit depressing really, very time I look out the window I see so much potential, but there is just so much to do, I tend to procrastinate and do nothing!  And all the seeds I planted in my hot house ended up not growing well at all, they germinated, then just sat as mini plants for ages, I don't think they are going to thrive. Sad and disappointing.

Anyway here is a little visual tour of our garden at the moment:

......some of my veggie beds in the frosty morning light......

.......the huge salvia adds some nice touches of welcome colour to all the winter green.....

.........citrus time........we have mandarins.....

.....limes........

.......and lemons, think I might add a ruby red grapefruit or a blood orange this year.......

.......lettuces are going ok.....

........so is the rhubarb, I actually thought this had died over summer, so am very happy to see it looking so good......

...........the over grown  front garden, I am thinking of just filling this bed with rhubarb as it is quite a lush plant and fills up the space .  There are also about 50 tulips in this bed, I wonder if they will come up again.........

.........I have planted a little row of white lavender along our front path, hoping to feed the bees in summer......

...........even though we are in the middle of Winter there are signs that Spring is not really that far away, bulbs are starting to shoot through the mulch all through the garden, can't wait for all the beautiful flowers to come.........

So once again I say I must get my act together and stop neglecting the garden, I know it could be beautiful and far mote productive if only I put the time and effort in.  Hopefully I'll have lots more to share next month!

How is your garden growing?

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