Happy New Year

Happy New Year.
My thoughts are going out to all the people in Queensland and Northern New South Wales who have suffered because of the floods. The stories of courage, tragedy, kindness and community are very moving.
It was quite surreal several days ago watching this all unfold on TV from the comfort of my South Australian lounge room. The intensity of the weather and the human and environmental consequences all over the East coast of the country made me feel very concerned about our future and the effects of climate change.
Here in South Australia we have had rather a wet spring and early summer which has been beautiful for the garden and gentle on the spirit and body compared to our usual fierce Summer weather.
There has been a lot going on in my life in the last year and I really can not call myself a blogger with one post every 8 months!

I have been slowly getting to things in the garden, with a new patch going from this:

To this:


There is a Persimmon in the middle from the wonderful Perry's in McLaren Flat and some roses, climbing and bush roses from the equally wonderful Ross Roses in Willunga.

The trip to make these purchases in June 2010 was my last outing with my dear friend and colleague Lesley who died later in the year. I will always remember her when I see this beautiful part of my garden growing and changing.

The vegetable garden is growing well. In the Spring the Rainbow Chard was still going well and and I planted some tomatoesAs you can see the tomatoes have grown extremely well. Unfortunately the latest addition to the chook run Sylvia is an escape artist and climbs over the fence to eat tomatoes. She is an Australorp cross and apparently they are quite adventurous. I have not managed to get a really good picture of her yet so that will have to wait.

We are also picking Zucchini, squash, french beans, capsicums, mint, parsley, rocket, nectarines, lemons,
Soon we will be picking Roma tomaotes as well as the heirloom variety we are eating now, chillies, grapes, basil, lettuce, passionfruit and figs.

The citrus have responded well to all the rain, lots of new growth on the manderine and the lemongrass in front of it has finally taken off.




The courtyard is looking lush
and the Ginger is flowering very well under the Frangipani

The other exciting development in the courtyard is the new electricity meter, we now have 27 solar panels and I am looking forward to our next electricity bill which may be nothing or may be a refund!!

I have had a couple of small craft projects. Being a craft novice this is very exciting for me. I do take inspiration from the wonderful blogs from the hoards of extremely crafty young women out there. Good on you! This is a little crocheted cap that I made for my daughter but I don't know if she will ever wear it.

I have stared a African Hexagon bag, I found the hexagons on Ravelry. There is a pattern for a bag made out of the hexagons on there and some other lovely things that can be made from them as well.
I have been greatly inspired in the last few months by Ronda Jeans blog Down to Earth, I have put a link from here. I heard her speak in Radio National while driving up to Clare for work in October. Her ideas around sustainability, family, community and a simple life have really gelled for me. I greatly enjoy following her blog and exploring the links from it. I have enjoyed making quite a lot of her recipes and ideas for organising ones home. I have bought the ingredients to make soap but have not got to it yet!
The joy of the internet for me is that inspiration, idea and community can be accessed in such an easy way.

I have also been inspired by my continued reading and thinking around meditation, loving kindness and awareness. I am reading Jack Kornfield's "Wise Heart" having just finished listening to a 6 CD set called "Mindfulness and the Brain" by Jack Kornfield and Daniel Siegal. Fantastic for anyone interested in Mindfulness, Meditation and /or neurobiology.
I have also been reading Rachel Ramen "My grandfathers Blessings" and "Kitchen table Wisdom" Beautiful,moving and thought provoking vignettes from her work as a counselor to the dying, a counselor to health workers and tales from her own childhood.


I am on holidays at the moment for the last week so gradually calming down and slowing down. The complexities and challenges of life go on as the mother of two young people 15 and about to be 13.
I have this up on my fridge to remind me to breath, return to inner calm and keep going on.

More Garden News

Yes! I have a flowering Camellia.

I have an Avocado grown from seed in a pot, I am trying to decide if I am going to plant it in the ground.

Peppermint Geranium

Lemon verbena

We have just planted a lime tree. Really hoping that it will do well.

I am picking spinach, silver beet, rainbow chard, pakchoy, french beans, coriander, garlic chives, mint, lettuce, chillies, capsicum,, lemons, thyme, rosemary, lemon verbena, sage, and the very last of the basil.

This week I have planted lemon grass, ranuculi bulbs, tulip bulbs and blue iris bulbs.

May

Time goes by so quickly, I have had a busy month and have not done as much in the garden as I would like. I have just managed to plant some spring bulbs.

Above I have some pink Geraniums in pots near the front door. There is also Wallaby grass coming up between the pavers.

I did spend a weekend in the Southern Vales. This is the outlook from Coriole, I always love to see the garden there.

Yes, I have been busy and rather spoiled. I also spend a weekend in the Barossa Valley, these beautiful cup cakes are from the farmers market.

Back in the somewhat neglected garden the chinese cabbage is growing really well. In front of this there is garlic coming up.

Now I have to get busy and plant these lettuce and snow pea seedlings I bought at the Grange Organic market last weekend. This is a great little market and only a short walk from my house.

Late Autumn beauty in the garden

We are very lucky with the borrowed landscape from our small backyard. These gums across the laneway are full of rainbow lorokeets and catch the light in the late afternoon.

Bounty of the garden. Double Delight roses and quinces. The quinces are from a neighbours tree, ours suffered this year from lack of water and we not get any fruit.

April in the Garden

Alysium and a Sedum at the front of the garden bed looking good together.

Geranium in a hanging basket on the front veranda. I'm not sure what this one is called. I think I might have bought it at a small nursery in Clare.

The plum trees have put on an amazing amount of height this summer, this one is a Greengage, the other (not seen) a Golden Drop. You can see some of our borrowed landscape with gum trees and Norfork Island pines in the backdrop.

The Rose hips in the courtyard. I'm sure I could do something with these. Rosehip jelly?

Seedings. Pak Choy grows very well in the Garden.

Trying French beans for the first time.

There are several Salvias flowering at the moment. They are very drought tolerant and really add to the beauty of the garden.

Autumn is a lovely time in the garden but there are so many jobs to do and so little time to do it!

Today weeding and cutting back and clearing, taking out the last Zucchini and Rocket that had gone to seed and preparing some ground for planting. I am going to try some Garlic, from a bulb I bought at the Grange organic market a few weeks ago.

The Animals

The chooks feature strongly in the life of the garden. Their cheerful noises provide the background and I like to see them parading up and down the chookrun in the mornings and evenings waiting for their grain. They get a lot of greens from the garden as well. We have three girls at the moment, we are getting about 10 eggs a week. Sunny is a six year old Labradoddle. She has a very happy nature and although prone to occasional outbursts of digging she understands that the garden beds are a no go zone. She is well known in the neigbourhood and on the beach where many people will stop to speak to her! She has to have a walk every day and the beach is her absolute favourite place.

Marco the inscrutable. The front yard is his domain as he likes to keep out of Sunnys way. He is eleven and has a dodgy hip from a nasty accident when he was a very young kitten. Dispite this injury he used to be a very good ratter but in recent years he has not done so well with this. He likes to come inside and annoy people until he gets some food and then curl up preferably on a white chair or quilt cover so we know he has been there! He likes to appear tough and aloof but in fact he likes a good cuddle.

Sunny in the garden. This section of our very urban yard is looking a little rural in this photo (or maybe this is just wishful thinking).

The chook run; we have planted two new passionfruit vines to provide fruit and cover the backfence. Grapevine on the chookyard fence.

Rain and Festivals

It's Festival time in Adelaide and the lights are on again on North Terrace. The city is swarming with people at all hours of the day and night. Being usually disorganised this year we have tickets for nothing and have not even been to WOMAD (gasp).

All the tickets have gone for EVERYTHING at the Speigaltent and the line to get into the Garden of Unearthy delights is extremely long.

Still the buskers are great and there are many free events such as the light show and Writers week. The rest of my family are in the city sampling the delights of Amococo at the moment.

Fisherman and I had the unexpected delight of a double sleepover for the children last night allowing us to GO TO THE MOVIES, mooch about without any sounds of complaint and roam the city streets until the wee hours. I can highly recommend it.

The Northern Lights.

The lights change every few minutes making fairytale objects of the buildings.

So go on into the city and soak up the atmosphere.

But back to the happenings in the garden. The last few months have been extremely hot and dry but what excitment yesterday, it rained!!
The verandas flooded and we had a minor leak inside but we were jumping up and down with excitment to see all the water cascading into the rainwater tanks.

The chilli bush in its second year is covered with fruit. It seems to thrive in the harsh conditions.

This part of the garden is looking good with sedum Autumn Joy, some bright dwarf zinnias and a euphorbia.

A close up of the sedum Autumn Joy. It is also doing very well in the dry heat. I saw lots of these at the Gardening Australia expo which I managed to go to this weekend. I was feeling pretty smug that it is already in my garden (I do smug rather well and often without justification). Of course while I was there I did purchase some plants. This included a few more interesting succulents that hopefully will feature in a future posting, and also a Pomegranet, I am trying to work out where to put it.

The Garlic Chives are flowering. There are dahlias in here as well.

I had to put this in, I so love my walks on the beach, you never know what each day will bring.

Here are a couple of pots around the front veranda.

The lemon tree in what I like to think of as my mediterranean garden has been looking sick and really needs the rain, it is stressed and badly effected by scale but has a very good crop of lemons. There is also an Orange in a pot, rosemary, a myrtle, geraniums and a rose.

Dispite the lack of rain the front yard is looking quite good and we have only lost one plant from the past spring planting. The native plant sale is coming up in the first week of May so we can replace the eromophillia nivea that did not make it. The Causrinas, Banksia, Lamandras and various saltbushes are going well

Hopefully the extreme hot weather is over for this season. Dispite resolutions of being good and saving money I have ordered spring bulbs so I am looking forward to planting those.

I have big plans for winter planting of yet more fruit trees in the backyard!!

Yesterday I planted french beans and rainbow chard and I have seedlings of lettuce, coriander, pak choy and rocket coming up. Up until now with the very hot weather most seedlings have not survived so I hope this lot will live.