Harvest time

The raised garden bed is starting to deliver meals! I read somewhere that two zucchini plants is enough for the average family, so I only planted one. Had one big fat zucchini yesterday grated and made into fritters with rice noodles - what to do with today's? Yes, one plant is enough. And when I say big, I mean by supermarket standards. I know that these little critters will morph into marrows given just a bit of leeway to grow!

Forgive my enthusiasm, but today I picked my first beans. They are also coming on so fast.

Dinner tonight is easy, just wander around with a colander and pick. The first roma tomato is ripening fast but not ready yet, so it will be greens in a stir-fry. I'm juicing spinach leaves daily at the moment before the bugs eat them. And the old bucket with a broken bottom that I rescued from somewhere, well it produced enough potatoes for about 5 meals. No I won't eat the flowers...

Edna the white chook has gone clucky again but that's OK, I have been giving eggs away lately.  Her tail feathers have grown back nicely. Madge seems to think I'm responsible for her mate being closeted away, as she tries to peck my feet at every opportunity.

My beloved S95 Canon was stolen last week, along with my mobile phone, so these photos are taken on the old Canon PC1309. It is not as good, but will do for now. This is the stunning dahlia that Rachel gave me. I'm not happy with the photography, but love the blooms.

gardening weather

Too lovely to pick? All that colour, it has to be good for you, especially when it is cooked immediately it's picked/ Tonight it went into vegetable pies, with chick peas and lentils and pumpkin.

Next I will create an extra vegetable bed...

So this is being cogitated. Yesterday I finally got around to cutting into some of the timber pallets that I have been scavanging, and I have laid this out to think about. What do you reckon?
 
I'm thinking of planting beans, and this would be the raised bed. It will be on the front lawn. But that is the area where the chooks play (as you can see, they were a bit shy of this new monster that appeared in their territory), so the bed will need to be protected from them, hence the high sides. I admit it looks ugly like this, but I was thinking a post in the front corner and some netting wrapped around. Then I could fill dirt into that bit at the bottom of the pallet and plant something chook-proof around the base on the outside which would make it look more attractive.

I have to say, I made a lunch of salad leaves and spring onions all freshly snipped from the garden with 2 fresh-laid boiled eggs and some mayonnaise and I think is the first time in my life I have been able to get a food from my own garden and I can't believe how good it is. So I cranked up Jenny's music machine that I quaintly call "the stereo" (senior moment?) with Fat Freddy Live at the Matterhorn and got out the heavy-duty power saw and ripped into it - felt really good. This creation has a way to go yet but I'm excited.

And I finished the socks!

Next up is a Super Mario beanie.

From the garden on Fathers' Day

I guess this is the low point of my blogging career, posting what I had for breakfast. But no ordinary breakfast is this. Freshly picked tender young silverbeet leaves and rocket, with eggs laid the day before by Edna and Madge, a squeeze of sea salt and pepper. Hard to do better than this on a Sunday morning with the lake shimmering silver and the sun streaming in.

The broccoli is just in the photo to show how the garden has picked up with this week of warm weather. I ate broccoli for afternoon tea, why not.


A couple of file photos from India here, just to show that MY chooks lay exceptional eggs...their brown and blue ones are soooo pretty!

Mid-winter garden

The broccolini is showing signs of something edible...

Daphne scent assails me every time I go for firewood or chookfood...

And there are clumps of flowering bulbs in odd corners

Simple pleasures

Making bread for lunch, waiting for the broccolini and silverbeet to grow...