Day 18: in the garden

We're having a hot spell here in Perth, but that means I have water from the air-conditioning with which to water the plants. I set a bucket up under the downpipe and it gives me enough for most of these potted plants.


More blueberries. We've been picking four or five ripe ones each day, just enough for us each to pop one in our mouths, yum.


A little baby strawberry :) The kids are very excited about these.


The beans are a-climbing!

Yum, yum!

This afternoon we nibbled on some blueberries from the garden. We only have one small, young bush, so it's not exactly a harvest, but there are a handful ripening at a time, which is very exciting for the little ones. Maybe I should get some more of these (the Nellie Kelly variety) as it's so rare for me to grow anything successfully! Although, looking at that website now, possibly my efforts were helped by our unusually cold winter this year.

Currently, I have yogurt cheese draining on my kitchen bench. We get 10L of raw milk a week, and I think this will be a good way of using up any left over at the end of the week. Some weeks we use it all easily, others, like this week, we have quite a bit left over. I'm planning on using it where I'd use cream cheese or ricotta - both of which are pretty expensive if using a whole tub, so that's another advantage.

Efforts at gardening

I am a really bad gardener, but I do try. At our house, it is very frustrating trying to do so. The soil is extremely poor, and the layout doesn't work for me at all. Plus, there are a couple of large overhanging trees that we need to get professionally trimmed, so there is insufficient sunlight in most areas (nice and shady to sit in summer, however).

The kids and I have been trying to grow a few things in pots instead. I will try and get the garden landscaped when we have sorted out renovating the house (hah! So maybe never at the rate we're going).

Here are our results, in this lovely spring weather.

Alastair's dwarf lemon tree:

It's really dried out over the past few weeks and I need to nourish the soil.

Emma's blueberry bush:


A little pot of mint:

Spring is coming

The nectarine and plum trees are flowering. Lots of bees buzzing around doing their work - hopefully lots of fruit this year!

I also bought a Pinkabelle apple tree. Despite the pukeworthy name, it's pretty cool - a dwarf Pink Lady apple tree. I'm going to plant it in a large pot with Evelyn's placenta (placentas are chock full of nutrients), which has been in the freezer for just over a year. It's partially self-fertile, which is lucky as it's the only dwarf apple tree variety available in Western Australia due to quarantine restrictions. I don't have the space for a full-size apple tree right now. So hopefully in a couple of years we will have yummy apples!

Nectarine tree:

From Surprisingly Domestic

From Surprisingly Domestic

Custard apple:

From Surprisingly Domestic

Yum yum.

Food. Yum.

I've been rocking dinnertime this week, if I do say so myself.

Monday we had sausages & heaps of roast vegetables (potato, sweet potato, pumpkin & beetroot), with broccoli and cauliflower. Home-made chocolate ice cream and raspberries for dessert (the raspberries were frozen, of course, I *wish* we could get fresh here). Tuesday I put the leftover roast vegies on a pizza (Garry also took some with pasta for lunch, and then I had leftover pizza for lunch today, so it was pretty good value), with crusty garlic bread & more vegies. Fruit salad with vanilla & cinnamon whipped cream for dessert. Tonight we had hoi sin mince & vegies with Chinese cabbage and egg noodles. Ran out of yummy desserts, though :(

Last Friday Emma and I planted some seeds (carrots in the garden, and parsley in a large pot). I'm hoping they germinate soon :)

The fruit trees are doing quite well. The orange and plum trees out the front (established before we bought the place) have flowered nicely, so I just need to keep the fruit fly off. The young ones out the back - well, the nectarine one is doing great. It had a whole heap of young fruit - and then Alastair and a little friend decided to pick a handful each *sigh* at least they didn't try to eat them. There are still about 20 on the tree, hopefully the bugs stay away. The peacharine (cross between peach and nectarine) only has a couple of stunted fruit that don't look like they'll grow, but that's because half of the tree was dead and I didn't prune it until the beginning of spring. Since I pruned away the dead part the rest looks a lot healthier, so hopefully next year. The other plum tree has 6 or 7 young fruit. The mandarin tree only has one bud. The grapefruit is flowering, and I think I killed the lemon tree, lol.