Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Garden Volunteers and Firsts


 Fuschias are bursting into flower in the fairy garden, they look just like fairies skirts.
 A first - flower buds on a Chilean Guava we have had for around 4 years.
 Our first quince. The smallest things get me very excited in the garden.

The mystery kiwi - not sure if it's male or female and if I can contain it to a Tee Pee.
  Elderberry flowers.  
Think I need another elderberry to improve pollination. Fortunately the birds have got two seedlings going for me under the pine tree.
Abandoned nest, our song thrush laid eggs but has now disappeared.  Hoping they didn't meet foul play from one of the visiting cats.

Cheers to the volunteers.
Rainbow chard/silverbeet.
Celery
Carrots
Potatoes
Raspberries - not a true volunteer but this is just one plant, gone wild.

Tomatoes


Spring Onions with bees hard at their voluntary pollination work.
Sweet Peas
Love in the Mist.  I have two good friends who think these are weeds.  What's your thought - friend or foe?
Calendula
Broad Beans and more sweet peas.  All the above volunteers are a testament to lazy gardening.

Undesirables have done there work on our cabbages, they are always bad this time of year.

The ever generous carrot patch, showing me why some vegies are worth persisting with.

Asparagus, a serious exercise in patience. Looking a little Christmassy with their bell like flowers, I think this one had a few too many xmas drinks.

I spent the day plating seeds with the Little Bowerbird today - they are a little late but I'm hoping they will fire along with the warmer days. When I exhausted her seed planting enthusiasm she said "No thankyou mummy, maybe tomorrow". A few seed experiments like loofah and spaghetti squash should keep things interesting, my first attempt at chokos was a fail but I have another on the window sill starting to sprout. 

Just bought another 6 bags of horse poo and ordered 10 bales of pea straw.  The sawdust I ordered for our paths 2 months ago is yet to arrive - you go down the list when they call and you don't answer - missed the call by 2hrs.... Hopefully I'll be around this week. Such a busy time in the garden, but I managed to spare a little time to put in some seedlings in our school vegie patch too. Beautiful gardening weather and butterflies and dragonflies greeting us wherever we look.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely pictures. Love in the Mist..I did plant this after your positive review and was surprised it came up as I gave the patch no love and it ahh, kind of dried out for a while. So far I like it..it looks prettier than weeds anyhow and fills a gap.

    One raspberry? Are you serious? Good grief. I hope the yellow raspberry I put in is just as abundant.

    And a quince! This is VERY exciting. :)

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  2. Fantastic photos and garden! We grew loofahs here a couple of years ago, and grow spaghetti veg each year... they store well over Winter (still have sitting in my garden basket, actually, better get on withy eating it!)

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  3. Everything looks so wonderfully green there! Enjoy your garden!

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  4. oh my goodness! this is amazing! i am attempting raspberries for the first time and compared to yours mine are very pitiful! haha! your garden looks like a happy place :)

    Kel x

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In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
Margaret Atwood

“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young