The Christmas Harvest

If you're anything like me, you're pretty busy in the week leading up to Christmas, and not a great deal gets done in the garden. This year, as I didn't have to work until Christmas Eve, I did a lot of Christmas baking for gift and for our visitors on Boxing Day. I made my 'famous' shortbread, made with my late Grandmother's recipe, and highly anticipated by some members of the family; Christmas cookies, sugared peanuts (that turned out really well and were gobbled up by my spouse well before Christmas!); and Oliver and I made chocolates. I also made a yummy trifle as I do every year.

I find though, that once Christmas is done, I'm super keen to get my jobs done while I have some time off from work. So in the last four days I've been pretty busy. I did some indoor cleaning and organising, but also did a few things outside, including harvesting my first crop of apricots, which I'm confident will ripen nicely off the tree. The one I tasted was delicious, so much so that I took the ladder into the garden to make sure I picked the really high ones. I'm amazed at how big the apricot tree has grown since I planted it last year. It's easily twice the size of the apple trees in the same garden.

I also picked my first zucchini (yum!),

a bucket of potatoes (which I cooked straight away and forgot to photograph!) and in the next week or so will probably be picking several kilos of blackberries. I'll go out and take a photo of the bush tomorrow, it's amazing!

I also did a bit (OK, a lot) of weeding, tied up more tomato branches and cut off some more of the un-flowering leaves (I'm sure there's a proper name for them!). 

Little Harvests

We have had a fair amount of rain (more than 50mm) over the last few days, with some big thunderstorms keeping things interesting (I love summer storms!).

I've been too busy to take pictures but the storm clouds have been amazing!

So I haven't been out in the garden much, but this morning was able to go and pull out a few weeds and pick some food!

A punnet's worth of yummy blueberries:

Some potatoes for dinner (slow-cooker vegemite roast lamb with home grown rosemary and garlic!):

 And my first cherries in a couple of years! YUM!

This a dumb thing to say, but the stuff you get to pick and eat is definitely the best part of growing food (oh, and we'll be a bit better off when the zombie apocalypse comes)!

October in the garden - planting!

Of course one of the big jobs in October is planting! Especially when you're growing vegies (and constantly finding fun new food plants to try...)

So in the bits that are already prepared, I've been planting.

I've planted lettuce twice, as the first lot was decimated when the chooks escaped from their yard (along with some of my precious garlic - aaaargggh!).

As well as some tomatoes, basil, eggplant and leeks. I had some little bits and pieces that I'd grown from seed (like some zucchini plants) but the chooks got those too. I'll put them in again this week. One of the pitfalls of having them I guess, but I wouldn't give them up. I love my yummy fresh eggs! I'll introduce you soon.

I've also put in some new raspberry plants from my dad (a very clever gardener along with my mum), planted some corn seeds, transplanted some strawberries and I thought I'd try a honeydew melon in a warm spot that I've got out the back. We'll see how it goes...

October in the garden - new growth!

Every spring I feel like I'm coming alive again. I've lived in Canberra my whole life, but I still struggle with the winters: the cold (though mostly beautiful and clear) days are tough, but the shorter daylight hours are what really get to me. By September I'm really down in the dumps and ready for things to warm up.

So in the spring, the garden and I come alive together. The wonderful thing about growing food is that in spring there are lots of blossoms. On the apple trees,

the berries,

and especially the weeds (I'll tell you about those another time!).

I grow really good weeds too. Sigh...

October is a great month for asparagus too (although in the last week or so, it's gone crazy with the warmer days!):

(I swear if you had a couple of hours to spare, you could actually watch asparagus spears grow!).

There's a lot of work in the garden in spring, but it pays off when you've got a big bunch of yummies straight out of the garden! 

This is my garden

I live on a 1/4 acre block in Canberra, Australia.
Canberra is a good place for gardens, especially food gardens. While we can't grow tropical stuff like avocados and mangoes, we have the kind of climate that is good for lots of fruit (apples, stone fruit, passionfruit etc), as well as lots of different herbs and vegies, and my favourite, berries!

My delicious organic Tasmanian garlic,

This is the food I currently have growing in my garden:

• Tasmanian garlic (grown from bulbs a friend gave to me when I visited in 2012)
• Asparagus
• Herbs: chives, basil, dill, coriander, marjoram, parsley, comfrey, camomile
• Pears
• Apples
• Apricots
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Boysenberries (although I've been trying unsuccessfully for a while to get rid of these!)
• Strawberries
• Passionfruit 
• Vegies: tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, lettuce, leek, spinach, kale, peas
• Almonds
• Oranges
• Rhubarb
• Cherries
• Pomegranate 
• Bay tree

Soon, I'm planning on planting more veg: corn, capsicum, chilli, celery (and all the other 'c' words!).

I'll tell you about it!