Sweet Pea Teeee Peeees

Hey readers!

Short post today to share a different way to grow climbing veggies (peas, beans) if you don’t have room for or don’t have lattice – built a tee pee for your sweet peas!

So for each tee pee, you need only 3 bamboo stakes and some twine.  Hopefully you can see from the photos how you wrap it around the stakes.  I found that the easiest way was to stick them in the ground first, tie the tops together and then wrap the twine around starting from the top and winding it around each stake as you pass it.

If I’d do it again, I’d use longer stakes, as these seem a bit small, but I figure I can always add more tee pees or string twine between them if I need to…and I think I might.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed and gained some useful information.  If you’re short on space, you can grow peas in containers!  These tee pees would be great for that too!

Do you have a garden be it container or beds?  Love to hear about any interesting ways you grow your plants!

Enjoy,

Kat

Garden Update

Hey all!

Well, I promised a garden update, so here we go.  I planted out a bunch of seeds about 12 days ago and many have come up!  Unfortunately that includes a crap tonne of wild oats and rogue tomatoes (like hundreds), so this weekend it’ll be weeding time no joke.  Some of the seedlings are much too small for me to ID them as not weeds, but some are quite big now – so here are my babies!

We’ve recently acquired a choc-mint plant!  Seriously the leaves smell like chocolate-mint!  Not sure what exactly I’ll DO with it, but I couldn’t resist.  She’s confined to a pot because mint will take over your garden if you let it.

The herb garden now has Italian parsley and a couple young corianders (cilantro)

Our little lavender is doing quite well.  I got the French lavender, as it is my favourite - it seems happy to me!

Beans and peas are sticking their little heads up and look good – although something chewed off two of the seedlings to the ground – that’s why I planted 4!

I also planted Florence Fennel in a pot – as same as mint, it will take over your garden.  The old saying goes – fennel has no friends in the garden.

We’ve also got a shirt load of broccoli, cauliflower, multicolored silverbeet, oak leaf lettuce and kale happening in small pots

An improvement I made over last season was actually making row markers so I knew what I planted where, which helps when trying to identify your tiny tiny infintesimally small seedlings so you know where to water/weed.  For these, I just cut up an old plastic milk bottle into marker shapes and wrote on them with a Sharpie.  They work great!

Anywho, that’s our winter veggies in.  Just have to replant some beans that got eaten prematurely and do a good weeding session.   Fingers crossed whoever ate our seedlings is good and full now!

Enjoy,

Kat

Garden Update (at long last)

I think we’re way overdue for a garden update, don’t you think?

The reason why I haven’t been posting much about my gardening activities is the searing Perth summer heat – the over 40 degree week we had killed or nearly killed a few plants.  The capsicum (peppers) did quite well though the heat, but did get a bit dry and wilty.  So today we pulled them up and harvested a cornucopia of capsicum!

Wow, that’s postcard material, eh?

Herb garden survived because they’re hardly little buggers.  Rocket  (arugula) is definitely rocketing and continues to put out numerous flowers that get pollinated (the bees LOVE them) and dispense seeds everywhere…so we’ve got a lot of rocket, let’s just say that (yes it’s the one spilling onto the footpath).   Green onions are doing their thing and lemongrass has gone crazy.

Rosemary is rocking along and unfortunately choked out sage, who is dying (at the very front of the photo).  Kaffir lime is doing well, silverbeet got pulled up because it was at its end and passionfruit is prolific.  Also unforunately in leafy growth and not flowers!  I’ve hand pollenated several but they keep falling off!!!  If anyone has any idea why and what can be done, I’d love to hear it in the comments.  Rhubarb is in the back there looking all stressed out…let’s hope it survives.  It’s not exactly a warm weather crop.

Another oddity in the garden is our strange mini rockmelons (canteloupe).  They bore one melon, which is definitley rockmelon and tasted absolutely beautiful.  It came up on its own and is about half the size of the normal rockmelon plant (in terms of leaves, flowers and fruit).  It too has gone crazy and is bearing some little green melons (if you look closely!)

Not sure how or why this magical fruit is growing in our garden, but hey, some things you just don’t question.

Did I mention our compost pile yet?  DH would appreciate it if I did since he’s been hard at work turning it every weekend (not exactly his favorite weekend activity, but you’ve got to do it because plants don’t like growing in sand.

There’s 5 more huge sacs of grass clippings waiting at the side gate – guess what you’re doing tomorrow, Chris!

Last, but not least, the wedding fig is doing really well and producing some nice fruits.

So, that’s about it for this instalment of garden update!  I’m still working on the bodice of my bombshell dress, so hopefully a nice update for you on the sewing front tomorrow.  It’s been a bit of work, but totally worth it.  Anyways, that’s for another day.

Enjoy,

Kat

Green up your windows!

A friend and work colleague of mine sent me a great link about building your own hydroponic window gardens…perfect for those of you dear readers that are in apartment buildings or don’t have a yard to dig up.  Here’s a great site dealing with the workings of the window gardens.

If you’re keen and want to build your own, it’s not too difficult and only costs around $30 for a 3-plant system.  Here’s a link to a pdf describing the step-by-step methods with nice colourful illustrations.

3 plant window garden HOW TO

Just goes to show if you’re keen you can garden just about anywhere…I reckon it would make a great herb garden

Enjoy,

Kat

Garden Update!

 

 

I realize I haven’t done a garden update in a while…and it’s about time since a lot has changed in the last few months.  We’ve succeeded and failed (mainly with the beans…we’re thinking they may get too much heat from the wall – see below) So, let’s get started, shall we?

The Herb Garden

Coriander has come and gone and provided us with a huge amount of seed – which is great for curries!  But parsley, spring onion and rocket remain.  We’ve added lemongrass, which seems to be liking it so far – yummy in Thai curries.  Raddichio is also doing well – time for a pizza, I reckon!

This is the best part of the herb garden.  Leeks have really fattened up since we’ve been watering two times a day.  Sage has blossomed but still flavorful, basil is old reliable (LOVE basil), onions are happening (already harvested a couple and they’re very flavorful!), rosemary is prolific and oregano and thyme are nuts!   Terragon just died one day…maybe it was too hot?  Silverbeet is in the background and is prolific and easy going as usual!

The black hole

This part of the garden is unforunatly empty (hate that), but that’s where spinach was and it bolted and died after a long and productive life.  I’m growing cauliflower in small pots now, and that’s where it’ll go.  Rhubarb is healthy though, but I”m told not to harvest that for the first year to allow the crown to form – hard but OK.  Patience.  Beans are looking pathetic.  Not sure why – maybe too hot against the wall like I suggested earlier?

The Squash Celebration

The zucchini/bush squash/cucumber part of the garden is the most prolific and hard to keep up with!  I think I shall bring more into work tomorrow and pawn some veg off on my colleges!

Tomato A Go-Go

You want prolific?  Try the tomato patch!!  We’ve got heirloom and cherry tomatoes here – all green – but will be red in a couple of weeks!  So excited!  Tomatoes are one of the main reasons we have a garden – there’s just nothing like homegrown tomatoes, a bit of nice olive oil, fresh basil with a sprinkle of rock salt

The Main Bed

The main bed has broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant (the hotter it gets, the harder it grows!) and capsicum (peppers).  The marigolds are there to keep away aphids and root knot nematode and such.  A very effective fumigator.  And pretty

Well, that’s the tour!  I hope you enjoyed and that you’re inspired to start your own veggie garden -big or small – if you don’t already have one.  It’s one of the most important and satisfying  things you can do for yourself, your family and your community.  And not to mention very very tasty

Enjoy,

Kat

Garden love

 

I had a serious case of garden love today when I gathered the pickings for the night onto the cutting board for prep.  I was faced with a beautiful cacophony of home grown goodness in the form of silverbeet, summer squash, garlic , parsley and onion…all from the garden.

Our garden is starting to become diverse and productive enough not to have to run to the veggie store every second day for provisions…and that’s just beautiful, if you ask me.  All I do now is peruse the garden and pick whatever is available.  Squash is being super prolific, so I simply sauteed it with butter, onion, garlic with some salt and pepper until soft.  I then garnished it with fresh parsley and yum.  Super simple.  Super wonderful.

Just had to share.

Enjoy,

Kat

 

 

 

Garden update

Sorry no posts for so long, but we’ve been busy gardening  So, in the spirit of a lovely Sunday morning, I thought I’d share some of our efforts with you all.

First, the ornamentals.  Having flowers in the garden is not only pretty and good after a busy day or for a lovely lazy morning coffee (as if that’s not enough!), they also attract pollenators and insects that attack pests that eat your plants.  So, here’s our effort.

Now for the veggies!

Radicio

Herb garden is cranking!!

That's some happy spinach

Rhubarb lovin' the sand...for now...

The main bed with small broccoli, cauliflower, not so small garlic and very *tiny* capsicum and eggplant

Things are all growing nicely dispite some snail visits which chomped off half an eggplant cotyledon!  Now it has only half its solar panels  Ah well, some Blitzem snail pellets solved that!

Off to make a special roast lamb birthday dinner for my babe!  Wish me luck…first time with a lamb roast.  Will be awesome though with some garden rosemary, garlic and red wine.  Our favourite at the moment is Upper Reach from the Swan Valley here in Perth…nice to have a wine region in your city!

Big breath….

Enjoy,

Kat

Good times and in bad

My partner owns this fabulous little book called “The Hard Times Handbook”

It’s chalk full of practical advice on how to survive in hard times by growing your own food, making your own clothes, doing odd jobs, preserving cheap food etc etc.

Although this book offers great advice for truly hard times, it is a bit extreme for the majority of folks.  However, why not take the essence of this book and apply it during the ‘good’ times as well?  Why live ‘frugally’ when the money is good and the economy is humming?  Well, several reasons that I came up with:

1.  It’s always good to have savings…and making your own saves you money.  With the recent volatility in the global stock markets, having a good savings cushion is always a good idea.  Plus, peace of mind is priceless.

2.  You learn  new skills.  Learning how to cook, bake, preserve, sew is fun and fulfilling.  When you get reasonably proficient you can easily make things to suit YOUR taste and preference and those of your family.

3.  Home grown anything is just tastier!  Hands down, a home grown tomato, carrot, pea is always going to be tastier than those that have been trucked thousands of kilometres.

4.  You know what went into what you made.

5.  Its just better for the planet.  I think we’re now recognizing the consequences of the disposable society.  It feels good to do your bit and recycle that pair of jeans into some shorts or refashion that dress into a top.

‘Loving what you have’ is an art form – and will teach you to love yourself.

There you have it – 5 reasons to live within your means (or even slightly below!).  Do you have any more reasons why you think it’s good to live frugally?  Do you disagree totally?  Feel free to answer in the comments!

Enjoy,

Kat