Christmas shopping

The Christmas holidays are the best time for us to enjoy our garden. We have two weeks off and we spend as much time outdoors as possible. I have spent many a hour reading under the umbrella with the bees and the butterflies. It is the best feeling.

This holiday I want to finish off the succulent setup, at least that is the plan! But before that we wanted to make a trip to Masters and check out what they have that we could plant. We came back with more than we had planned for :)

We picked up these really tiny trio of Cacti. They are growing in moss possibly, but I did not want to prick myself to confirm that! These are ideal for sealing off one of the routes into our garden beds that the doggies like to use.

Trio of Cacti

Masters had beautiful Dahlia plants. I have never grown them before, but they looked too good to resist. We bought them in two colours. They have a beautiful shape.

Dahlia "Gallery Pinto"

Dahlia "Gallery Valentin"

A couple of Decembers ago, we went to New Zealand for a holiday. The country is beautiful, with a picture postcard scene at every bend of the road. In south island, on our way to Milford Sound, we came across a field of wild flowers by the stream. They looked beautiful even on the rainy day we saw them. When I saw the very same flower in Masters, I jumped at the chance to own them. They are called Lupins, we bought the Russell hybrid.

Lupins in New Zealand

Russell Lupin

Finally, we bought an indoor plant to replace the one we lost. From Betters Homes and Gardens, we learned that Bromeliads do not mind indoors. We bought one to place next to the front door, next to a window which gets evening sunlight.

Bromeliad

Updating the veggie bed

When we bought our veggie bed, we did not have enough soil to fill it all the way to the top. To fill it to the top needed at least 40 bags of soil, which was back breaking work. Hence, the first year, we only filled it halfway. Every year after that, we raised the level of the patch in part. This year was the final raise to bring the entire patch to a workable level. It did mean transplanting some plants that we had growing already and not being able to increase the height of the asparagus side.

Raising the level of soil

We added some seasonal vegetables like lettuce, spinach and eggplant to the mix. The potato on the right, and the chillis and capsicum on the left are from last year.

Last summer, we had bought 6 chilli plants. I wanted to try my hand at saving the plants from the frost, to see if they would survive. I am happy to say that they did. We covered them with a shade cloth throughout winter and pruned the dead branches at the start of spring. I later learnt that this process is called "overwintering".

Hot chilli

Jalapeno chilli

Mild chilli

This year I also tried  my hand at raising some vegetables from seeds. A couple of years ago, we had a basil plant from BAAG, whose dried leaves lasted us for two years! We wanted a new one this time, but were disappointed that the season was not hot enough for them to stock the plants. Instead we picked up seeds of a "cinnamon basil" plant. I planted it September, it has just started to show some leaves.

Cinnamon basil

Finally, we picked up Bhindi (Okra) seeds too.  I do not have much hopes with this vegetable as it needs heat. Our veggie patch gets direct sunlight only in peak summer (2-3 months) for 4-6 hours per day. Anyway, the seed did sprout and I planted two of them. There is a sign of a fruit/flower in the plant already, will have to wait and see what it develops into.

Bhindi plant

Flowers in the garden

With the progression of spring, more flowers appear. It is a great time to be outdoors after the cold winter and the sight of these flowers brings a lot of joy.

While most people revel in the beauty of annuals and perennials, a gardener will look out for the flowers on the vegetable and the fruit trees. These give hope for a harvest worth eating! Strawberry is one such looked forward to fruit. The white flowers start popping up in the October and quickly turn into fruits. Once they start flowering, there is a ongoing supply of strawberries (if the birds/possums don't get to them!).

Strawberry flower

Another vegetable to look out for is the cucumber. We have had cucumber plants before, but they were not pollinated enough to give us any cucumbers. This year the task is to prop them up on some support to allow the bees to access the flowers.

Cucumber flower

Finally, who can forget the humble potato. Not the prettiest flowers, nor the most elegant of plants. But the most bang for you buck! Plant one and you will get a kilo of harvest from each plant. This year is our fourth turnover from the one we planted in 2011.

Potato flower

Spring beckons

A sure fire way of knowing spring has arrived is the first flush of leaves on our pomegranate tree! The pomegranate is deciduous, so the first leaf on the tree is reassuring no matter the chill outside. This year we were rewarded with bright red flowers and a hope to have pomegranates.

Pomegranate flower

As the weather warms up in Melbourne in September, a lot of action is happening in the garden. The most exciting thing this September was a full harvest of asparagus. It took two full years, but it was so worth it! The asparagus spears are to be harvested when they are about as thick as a pencil, which in our case were about two and  half foot long! We were harvesting asparagus at the rate of 5-6 spears per week. This was enough for two meals for the two of us.

Asparagus harvest

September is the month the oranges are ready. We are still not getting a full harvest as the tree is young. But the fruits were fresh and really sweet.

Oranges

It is also the season for the first flowers of some fruits. We have a lime tree, which was one of initial purchases. For the first one year of it's life, we had planted it in a restricted environment. When a house guest pointed out our mistake, we moved it into a sunnier spot. This year we saw the first flowers in the tree and hope that there will be some limes to follow.

Lime flowers

Gardening is a joy that is to be shared. Last winter, I shared the chillies with some friends. One friend responded in kind and gave me the lemons from her tree. An aunt gave us some methi leaves, which were such a treat!

Lemons from a friend

Methi from an aunt

A substantial harvest

Season 2 of garden harvest was more consistent. This year we had planted lettuce, capsicum, tomato, potato, strawberries, mint, cucumber, coriander, carrot and three kinds of chillies. Our veggie patch was groaning under the weight of all the produce!

Roma Tomato

Cucumber

Capsicum

Lettuce

The potatoes were our oldest plants. They were shooting up from leftover spuds in the ground. Compared to last year, we lost fewer to rot.

The strawberry plant was also from last year, having multiplied. Unfortunately, this season we have had an ongoing battle with a strawberry thief. We were unable to beat him to the fruit! Despite covering the plant with a cloth, the rat/possum/bird/whatever it was, still ate all of them.

This year we harvested the first of our asparagus. There was only one thick enough for eating. All the others grew side shoots very quickly, which is what sets the roots for the upcoming harvests.

Asparagus and few strawberries

Our most substantial harvest was from the chillies and capsicum. We had three varieties which had different levels of hotness. Hottest were the tiny ones, Jalapenos were less hot and the least hot were the fat ones. There were so many that I had to freeze them for use throughout the year and distribute them to friends!

Chillies in their full splendour

Mild chilly

The entire chilli harvest - ready to be frozen

We had a decent harvest of capsicums too. Most we ate while they were green, a couple we left to become riper and red.

Capsicum

Previous year, we had not liked the lettuce variety too much. This year we bought iceberg lettuce plants and harvested them in full before it became too hot and they started to bolt.

Iceberg lettuce

We harvested many more tomatoes this year, as we had planted them earlier in the season. They were Roma tomatoes, really juicy. The mint plant grew well and I dried a lot of leaves for the year.

Roma tomato

Mint for drying

I had also saved up coriander seeds from last year, which gave us some leaves. Frankly though, coriander needs too much work. One has to keep sowing them successively and can only harvest a few leaves per plant! Also, we got an odd carrot or two but most went to seed. The cucumber did not flower at all.

Coriander

Lone carrot

This season reinforced the satisfaction of growing our own vegetables. They were not as large as the ones in the supermarket, but were really tasty. Season 3 of our garden ended with a resolve to grow more next year!