Long time, no blog

Oops. Far too long between posts, I am sorry! I haven't forgotten my little gardening blog, but things have been a bit mad around here recently. Not least of which, my D was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. Turns out his exhaustion was not solely due to overwork as I had thought, but had a real chemical/hormonal cause. He's probably had it for years. The solution was to locate the dodgy parathyroid gland (most people have four and they are usually behind the thyroid gland) and then remove the bugger. He's got the all clear now and is just left with a rather dramatic scar across his throat.
Anyway, we are getting back to normal programming now, so I'll leave you with a gratuitous photo of my boy and babe in the middle - literally - of our latest gardening construction project, which I'm calling 'Wall 2.' It's a rather imposing retaining wall we are plodding along building so that there is no longer a risk of stepping out of the laundry door and falling down a meter drop into the driveway. This wall will become an enclosed sort-of teardrop shape, and then this gardener will be putting loads of plants into it. Of course!

Handfuls of joy

Finally: I've cracked it! I have enough strawberry plants to be able to pick - and eat - an entire handful of strawberries in one go! Completely fabulous and delicious, but don't ask me what variety they are because I have so many different ones now that I've forgotten what is planted where. Many of the backyard strawberries suffered in today's 33+ degree Celsius heat - they are always the first plants to swoon dramatically the moment it gets to 25c - but the plants out the front have been in the longest, are the best mulched and must be the best established because they look just fine. Woohoo!

'Peas, peas!'

That's what our SP says, 'peas, peas!' These are Greenfeast and Telephone varieties: Y.U.M. SP and I have been picking them whenever we wander past the vines, and eating them on the spot. Poor Old D isn't getting much of a look in on the peas. Oh well, he does know they're there!

Buckets of broccoli

I have no idea why my broccoli is doing so well as it never has before. The variety is Magic Dwarf, and eight individual plants has been enough to keep this little family of three in broccoli for over two months now. In fact, with a fridge crisper full and another bucket collected today, we're starting to get a little sick of eating it; Broccoli soup, broccoli salad, broccoli quiche... Broccoli pudding next? Fortunately -or not - I think we'll be back to buying it soon as our crop is starting to shoot and the season is ending. This means that summer is on its way and soon I will be muttering about gluts of tomatoes :)

Summer Song Rose.

A long time ago I fell in rosey-love with pictures of a David Austin rose called 'Summer Song.' When I saw a plant for sale in a nursery this winter, I snapped it up without a second thought. My front garden is full of roses, but I felt this particular rose, with it's colours described as 'burnt orange,' wouldn't blend well with my colour scheme of white, yellows, and pinks, so Summer Song lives in a big black ceramic pot out on my back patio. She's been covered in flower buds for ages, and they have begun to open up before any other rose I have. She's also a bit lopsided, and in a hack-handed attempt to straighten her up the other day by squashing the plant up against a retaining wall I accidentally snapped one of the stems off. So today I brought in the bud that was on the broken stem and I'm enjoying it in a milk jug on my kitchen counter. I can hardly wait until it opens up all the way so I can see it in its lovely entirety.

Front path a masterpiece in recycling.

I haven't shown you any renovation pictures in eons, so will skip a discussion of growing eggplant from seed (or rather, a series of complaints about growing eggplant from seed) to show you our front path instead. It's only halfway through, but taking shape beautifully, and so far we've not spent a single cent on it. Bonus!

It starts here: with the porch. Pity I forgot to take a 'before' photo, but never mind. Why demolish the porch? Because it was broken and cracking, and right up against the old weatherboard, which was rotting. As the porch was peeled away, it became clear that the whole thing was damp and pretty terrible for airflow and general building health, so off it goes. We'll replace it with a little deck, we think. And I'm keeping the old iron scroll work pillars, because I like them.

Under those layers of tan-brown tiles, and rusty red stained concrete, there was sand and rock, and lots and lots of it.

 FIL had a flash of inspiration. A while ago, I'd mentioned just chucking a whole heap of paving sand around the 'pavers' I'd salvaged from when we demolished the back patio and have been using as stepping stones to the front gate. FIL thought he could dig up all the sand from the front porch (since he was going to anyway) and use that instead. Brilliant! The garden edging down the left of the path is old hardwood beams we had (although if they're old ones from our house, or ones the neighbour gave us, I can't remember).

 

Right down the back of  the path, behind FIL in this photo, is our new gate, which D has been building in dribs and drabs over the last few weeks to help make our yard a little more toddler-safe. Our gate is actually our old back door, with a recycled hardwood architrave. I think I'll paint it pillar-box red, or yellow. I like yellow, at the moment. We've put a little trellis to the right-hand side to climb plants up and over this space (I have planted roses, the native 'wisteria' Hardenbergia violacea 'Rosea,' and native clematis, Clematis microphylla). For the gardeners, other plants I have in this space - though barely visible at this stage - include the natives Plectranthus argentatus, Plectranthus  parvifolius, Hibbertia aspera, Guichenotia macrantha, and Goodenia amplexans. I've also got lemon balm and nasturtiums in here. This scrap of garden is probably the most challenging spot I've come across so far: it's quite shady, narrow, and not just dry but actually water-repellent. So far I've added loads of compost, manure, and clay to address the issues faced here.

And just for fun, here's a happy snap of the other half of the front garden which I took tonight at my favourite time of day: when the sun is getting low in the sky and shines though my Poas, which swish and shimmy in the breeze. All those roses are going to explode into flower in just a couple of weeks. Last year this happened in November, but some of the buds are splitting open already so I think they might bloom early this year.

Potting up tomatoes.

I promised ages ago to show you pictures of my seedlings, but as usual I haven't got around to it, so today here is just a selection: perhaps a quarter of what I have been growing. A lot of these are going to family-members vegie gardens, because there is far more here than I need. Last year I had perhaps 10 different tomato varieties and we were inundated with fruit for most of summer and well into autumn; this year I am trying to be more circumspect.
All of the bigger seedlings I'm going to plant directly into the garden. The smaller plants I'm going to pot on and give away. Known varieties here are Amish Paste (the biggest seedlings, prolific and delicious, great for cooking), Black Russian (one of the better known heirloom varieties) and Wild Sweeties (tiny taste bombs). I'm also growing a ten colour heirloom mix, and a currant mix, both from Diggers.
Incidentally, today I'm also going pot on, or plant out a punnet of sage babies, and another of marjoram. Those are the ring-ins in the pictures.
Which varieties of tomatoes are you growing and eating this year?