Spring Vegetables

This is my very favourite time for gardening.  The days are warming up but not yet too hot.  Seeds and vegetables are growing at a fast pace.  While it hasn't rained here for a few months, I am managing to keep water up to all the plants.  Luckily we have a couple of water tanks for the garden.  But here we are only in October and they are both almost dry!

What I am growing in the vege patch:
eggplants, tomatoes, silverbeet, chilli, cos lettuce, cucumbers, beetroots, rocket, pumpkins, potoatoes, sweet potatoes, capsicum, spaghetti squash and loads of different herbs.

I am harvesting: Green beans, cos lettuce, beetroot leaves (for salads), chilli, rocket and herbs.

My veges grow in a special raised vege bed (above) as well as in other garden beds where ever there is a space.  The herbs are scattered around the garden and I always have pots of herbs growing by the laundry door where they are easy to get to quickly.

I am hoping it rains very soon!

Vegetable Garden in Suburbia

Please indulge me today as I go for a wander around my garden.

My garden is an average sized suburbian garden with a lot packed in.  It isn't a pretty formal garden but an abundantly productive one.  Most days I eat something from my garden. Last night it was herbs - parsley and thyme and cherry tomatoes.

I have no idea how to cook up the artichoke above.  There are two so far.

The fruit on the peachcot tree get ruined by fruit fly if I don't cover them with these exclusion bags.

 Thats a little apple.  The tree is only a year old and there are two apples growing.

Parsley that I am leaving to seed.  It is very pretty and reminds me of doilies.

Sowing/sewing

This week I have been enjoying the beginning of spring.  I have a mountain of orders to sew and send off  but, boy, am I finding it hard to stay inside and sew when the sun is shining and I just want to be out in my garden.

The garden has definately won out!  I have been in a frenzy getting the vegetable patches ready. I have dug them over, added blood and bone, mushroom and cow manure and covered them with pea straw. This year I have increased my vegetable plot by double and I am hoping for good things! 

I have loads of seeds growing and some just about ready to plant out.  Seeds I am growing this year include tomatoe (tiny tim and roma), zucchini, legbanese cucumber, basil (from last years saved seeds), snow peas, spaghetti squash, eggplants, chillies, beetroot,  pak choi, capsicum and coriander.

The fruit tree have all had a feed and I have blossoms on the peach, mandarin, lemons and peachcot trees.  The three olive trees look like they have very tiny olives too!

This week coming will have to see me doing more sewing though.  I have a lot of felt foods to finish off, some half assembled cloth books that need finishing off and a few ideas rolling about in my head for new felt play foods perfect for Christmas.

Thermomix vegetable Stock

Giveaway Winner is ....Pauline who likes to create because she finds it satisfying and calming.  Well done Pauline, the Pink nursery organiser will be coming to you very soon.

This weekends cooking from the garden is vegetable stock made in the thermomix.

 This is a thermomix and it has changed the way my family eat for the better.  We eat more food made from scratch (no cans, no preservatives or package mixes). I love my thermomix and use it daily.  It is the best kitchen appliance by a mile!

The ingredients for the vegetable stock or concentrate are:

200g celery, roughly cut
2 carrots, roughly cut
1 onion, peeled and halved
1 tomato, halved
1 zucchini, roughly cut
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
few leaves basil, sage and rosemary
1 bunch parsley
150g rock salt
1 tbsp oil

Most of the vegetables and all of the herbs came from the garden.  The concentrate is cooked up and then bottled and keeps in the fridge.  I use it as you could stock cubes in soups, casseroles, rissotos etc.  It is a concentrate so I only use 1 tbs.

In the garden this week I have planted  pak choi seeds, turnip seeds and peas.  I have also planted lettuce seedlings and harvested yellow cherry guavas from the tree.  The boys hadn't tasted them before but all declared them to be delicious!

My yellow cherry guava tree is less than a year old and is growing in a large pot and it has already produced 20 or more fruti. Unfortunately the possums found the tree and ate half of the fruit.  I ended up protecting the remainder of the fruit with fruit fly protection bags and the possums left them alone. Since I have had such a success with this guava tree and we all love the taste of kthe fruit I will be buying a strawberry guava soon.

Garden Delights

I have mentioned a few times here that I love my garden and I love gardening... I mean I really love gardening. It in't a chore, it is another way of being creative and I get the same feeling of contentment and happiness gardening as I do sewing and cooking. It is not a neat manicured garden by any means.  Although I do attempt to have areas that are really tidy.  My gardening style is all about being practical and the produce.  I grow herbs, flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees.

I get such a kick when I harvest something that I have grown and cook with it. I don't live on a large property.  I live in suburbia on an average sized block of land.  I grow wonderfully fragrant herbs including lavendar, rosemary, basil, parsley, sage, bay tree, kaffir lime tree, thyme, garlic chives, oregano, lemon grass...
I have over 16 fruit trees in my garden including lemons, mandarin, fig, apples, peacherine, peach, avocado, banana, cumquat, guava, fejoa, mango...
I love reading gardening books and blogs (see the links on the left for some of my favourite gardening bolgs).
Who else loves growing their own food?  Do you blog about it?  Please drop me a link as I would love to visit.

Summer Garden

I have been giving the garden a bit of loving lately and it has been giving me back lots of veges and fruit.
I think we are the only place in Australia that hasn't been having rain - just want enough to fill up the tanks and water the garden thanks. It has rained all down the coast, skips us and goes out to sea and then rains all down south! So a lot of my summer gardening involves watering.

I have been picking lots of basil, parsley, chillis and other lovely herbs. The chillis are fantastic this year and I have been using them in cooking, dried lots and yesterday I made a very hot chilli paste.


Most of the fruit trees are still young and not fruiting just yet. I live in suburbia on an average sized block and I have over 15 different sorts of fruit trees. Some are in pots and some in the garden. Some are dwarf varieties because of size issues - like the banana, one of the lemon trees and avocado.
I have loads of lemons and cherry guavas. The tree below fruited fantastically this year. It is a peacharine tree. Unfortunately fruit fly has got to all the fruit that wasn't in exclusion netting. The tree has at least 50 fruit on it still and they are very close to being ripe. All the branches were full of fruit until those horrible pests got to them. Next year I will use exclusion netting on the whole tree.

Veges are also going well. I have tomatoes, carrots green beans, eggplants and artichokes. This is my first year growing artichokes and it wont be my last. They are so pretty when allowed to flower.

Really nothing tastes better than the yumminess of freshly picked and eaten produce.

Mosaic Firepit Project

The mosaic is finished! I am so thrilled with it too.
I loved the whole process (well except for the grouting). My hands are cut and I have grout stains that wont wash off but it was worth it.

Hubby enlisted the help of eldest munchkin and friend and put it into place. It is heavy! They ended up sliding it down between the fire pit and fence and wedging it between the fence rails and liquid nailing it in place.

Just a couple of finishing touches - a top edging and then I will seal the tiles once the grout has cured in a weeks time.


I could become addicted to mosaics! One thing I do know is that my second project will be much smaller than this one! I have already picked up some things to mosiac from last weeks bulk garbage day. I found a stone pillar that I intend to add a bird bath to. Also came across a cafe style outdoor table. The legs need a coat of paint and i am going to mosaic the table top. Will have to wait for my poor cut fingers to heal first!

Mosaic Project

My creative space this week (and last one too) is full of broken tiles and adhesive. You may remember me mentioning in this post about the fire pit we have built in our backyard and about the big mosaic back board I was making. Well this is it.
The mosaic is huge! About 2 metres long. It features flames on one side with a moon and night sky. On the other side there is a mandarin/olive tree (haven't decided which yet) and the sky goes from black, to grey to dark blue to light blue with a sun. There are also some chillis, glass of red wine and a wine bottle there too.We are having a Christmas work party here at the beginning of December so it needs to be finished by then. At the moment the large board is outside on the outdoors table and it all needs to be clear before the party.

I am really enjoying doing this mosiac but would recomend beginning with one that isn't so big for a first attempt. But I think I am now addicted to mosaics and have collected a few things that I want to mosaic. It is rather therapeutic (not that i need therapy) to get the hammer and bang tiles until they break.

Building of the fire pit

I am working on a fun and rather large project at the moment. It is a huge mosaic to go on the back of our newly built fire pit/bbq/pizza oven.

At the moment the mosaic is being done on a large cement board which is sitting on the outdoor table. There are lots of broken tiles. I have discovered it is rather therapeutic to smash tiles, to give them a good thump with the hammer. It is going to look wonderful if i do say so myself. But I have no idea how we are going to attach the huge and heavy cement board with tiles stuck on it to the fence???? I am hoping hubby has a plan for that - he assures me it will work without all the tiles popping off or the fence buckling and toppling over.

Anyway, I thought I would share the building of the fire pit. We are the sort of family who enjoys camping on uneven ground in our tents in the bush with no running water or flushing toilets and cooking over an open fire - yes, call us crazy, and even though I winge about the bugs and the heat and the flys and the uncomfy sleeping aranagements I really do enjoy it! The munchkins of course are in their element - they are regular Bear Gryles (you know that dude from the show Man versus Wild).

So when we are at home with all the creature comforts the munchkins and hubby still like to go outside to our little suburbian garden and light a fire, cook a bit of charcoal (I mean meat), roast marshmallows and act like they are living off the land.

We used to have a makeshift pit but when we landscaped the yard recently we built a fire pit. It is basically a brick rectangle, deep enough to get a good fire blazing, big enough to fit a grill and have a fry up and great for the marshmallows.

There are future plans of building a pizza oven on the right side of the pit.

Of course I have been itching to do the mosaic back board and now I have started it (photos to share in another post). Mean hwile the munchkins and us bigger people are enjoying the fires and outdoor cooking. Thats youngest munchkin below with his bow and arrow he made from a green stick. and some string aiming at some imaginary enemy (baddies he would say). I love how my munchkins can amuse themselves with homemade toys.

I would like to invite you to come and join my Creativity List. 

It is chocca block full of fantastic content from freebies and special offers to kids craft ideas and small handmade business articles.

As a thank you, you get not one but two free Ebooks.

Creative Play To Keep Boredom Away

50 Boredom Busting Ideas For Children.

plus

50 Tips For Selling Handmade Crafts Online.