Herbivores

One of the most exciting things about our new garden is the herb patch. Summer isn't the same without handfuls of freshly-picked basil in our meals. It hurts me to have to buy the soggy, limp sprigs of herbs wrapped in plastic from the green grocer, when I know how different and delicious fresh herbs are. So here's the herb patch:

I do have a rule with herbs. I don't plant things I don't eat. That's just a waste of space. Here I have my favourites growing... basil (of course), coriander (I hope), garlic and onion chives, parsley, chervil, oregano, lemongrass, tarragon and chillies. I have a wonderful colleague I often go to for gardening advice who has been leaving gifts on my office desk. I'll often arrive at work to find a pot of mint, or thyme or lavender seedlings for my garden. Last week she passed on some Thai basil seedlings, that went straight into the herb patch. The mint is a special case. There are sometimes you can't grow enough, so I've planted some in pots and I dug the sand out of a patch by the side of my house and replaced it with the amazing soil and planted the mint there where it can get plenty of water... and it can't escape and invade the rest of the garden. We're looking forward to mojitos this summer!

Pamela and the Beanstalk

Seeds always amaze me. Particularly bean seeds. The rocket is always the first out of the ground, of course, coming up within three days sometimes, true to its name. Beans take a little longer, but when they do pop their little heads out of the soil, and unfurl their seed leaves, I marvel at how much material they can store in a dry, shrivelled seed. Here are some of my bush bean seeds that sprouted this week: 

 

 

Where do they hide those leaves inside a tiny seed?

 

My bare patch of soil is no longer bare at last. Below you can see more seeds bravely showing themselves. Apart from the bush beans and rocket, I have carrots (orange and purple), radish (they grow so quickly, we'll be eating them in salad in a month), lettuce of all different sorts, red kale, spinach, beetroot and cucumbers, among other things. Give it another week or two and this bed will be a sea of green foliage!

I admit I find this time of the year when everything is sprouting so exciting. I can be seen wandering around the garden with my cup of tea, bending down examining what to some people may look like mulch... but I can see the tiny seeds coming up through the mulch and get a small thrill each time something new appears. Ahhh... Spring!

Chilli

Here's our little girl, Chilli.

She once ate all the chillis off a big jalepeno bush. Seriously.

My mulch brings all the worms to the yard!

I've been working so hard in the garden over the past week, I've not had time to update you all with the progress shots... so here's what's been happening at the Pink Flamingo (that's the nickname we've given our new house. Our previous house was known as Margaritaville, so we're sticking with the Vegas theme).

Firstly we filled it up with soil... and ran the drip lines:

Then I spent a morning putting the lupin mulch on the soil. This stuff is fantastic... it matts down better than pea straw, which tends to blow around a bit. And it will attract every worm in a 2 kilometre radius to your garden! (Shout out here to GM for the awesome title to this post)

I planted my first batch of seeds on Wednesday... by Saturday the first lot were up. Rocket of course wins the race... followed closely by the red kale and radish seeds. I'll keep you posted when the rest make an appearance.

Here I cheated and bought some seedlings. I can never be bothered raising my tomatoes from seed. I planted a couple of Grosse Lisse. I'm hoping to get my hands on some some Tommy Toe or Sweet Bite cherry tomatoes... and i might even try my hand at some of the heritage black tomatoes, just for some extra colour on the dinner plate!

And finally... the fruit trees went in! About six years from now... I might be able to harvest my first avocado! We planted a Hass and a Fuerte, so they can cross pollinate, along with a Satsuma and a Mariposa plum. The plums went into one hole... according to the people from the fruit tree nursery, this helps them cross pollinate as well as keeping the trees a little bit smaller.

We also put in a valencia orange tree... I can't wait to have a glass of freshly picked and squeezed orange juice for breakfast one day. And finally we put in a Black Genoa fig. Yum. Fig trees start producing very early.

It takes two

I love it when a plan comes together! Here it is... our sculpture, finally in place in the middle of the future herb garden.

The armillery sphere was made by a metal sculptor who lives in the Perth hills. We bought it years ago, and it's moved house with us multiple times now... so we know just how hard it is to move the thing! One neighbour is constantly worried everything is going to get 'nicked'. She came over on the weekend to tell us it would get nicked from our front yard. I tried to tell her it weighs a tonne... It takes two of us, a lot of groaning, perhaps some swearing and sometimes even tears to struggle it into position. So if it IS going to be 'nicked' it's going to take someone a lot of trouble. If you don't hold it in the exact right place, it swings around and that pointy arrow at the top there... that hits you in the head! The same neighbour is also worried about our flamingo and a giant terracotta pig that must weigh 120kgs! The pig is also needs a team of two to move. (The pig is having a makeover this summer... he's going to be painted a bright, glossy colour, I'm just not sure what colour to go with... red, fuchsia pink, yellow, orange??? If you have any ideas, let me know!!)

Down and dirty

At last I don't have to sit back with a g&t and watch other people play in my garden... I got to get down and dirty! The soil was delivered on Friday. Beautiful, rich, organic soil that even had the neighbours crossing the road to ask where it was from. Of course the excitement of soil quickly waned as the 4m3 appeared to take on the characteristics of the Magic Pudding... no matter how much I shovelled, the hill didn't get any smaller. Maybe I over-estimated the amount I needed? This soil is allegedly so good I am not allowed to add anything to it for at least six months. My vegetables would be bursting out of the ground in weeks from now. I'll keep you posted about that.

 

 Then came the fun of laying the reticulation lines. I had the contractors lay the mainline and connect it to the automated reticulation system, but wanted to lay the brown dripline myself, because I know where I want it to go, and it's easier to do it myself than to explain. I had a lovely experience at the irrigation shop. I walked in and was served by a man with L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on his knuckles. He was very sweet, extremely helpful and gave me a nice discount because I was a 'lovely lady'... even when I came back a second time because I had UNDER-estimated how much I would need. Despite what you may be thinking... for a journalist, math IS actually a strong point of mine. I must have been having an off week. Or maybe I should just get my engineer hubby to do the math for me in future!

 

 Anyway, we got the retic in as well as the soil. Some days when the sun is shining, it's not too hot and your shoes sound like maracas as you walk because there's so much sand floating around in them and your fingernails are black with dirt, it seems such a shame to have to clean yourself up and go to work.  *sigh* My 'sand shoes' are sitting by the front door waiting for me to head back out and finish the job soon. For now... it's off to my day job. 

Then there was light

The lights look fantastic!

A little bit indulgent, perhaps, having lights in a food garden, but it is in the front yard. And it means that we don't have to go out in the dark if we're cooking and search around with a torch, looking suspicious.