T.W.I.G. (this week in the garden 4)

chicago peace climbing rose

The potatoes are all up and growing and the radish has just emerged (no sign of the other root crops yet ) - and as I write this a light mist is beginning to fall out in the garden (fingers crossed it turns into real wet stuff). The ground is warming up and all thoughts turn to the vegie garden at this time - but its great to see so many of my roses blooming already - this is the best year yet for my chicago peace rose.... it's planted next to our oldest lemon tree....



To do –

sow climbing bean seeds

weed sunken garden (prepare to plant pumpkin and squash)

plant ivy geranium and seaside daisy seedlings

and I still haven't moved that oldhamii bamboo.....


completed

seeds sown – amish paste tomato, yellow pear tomato, yellow capsicum, cherokee wax dwarf bean, red cos lettuce

moved 'lambs ear' from herb garden to decorative garden next to the orchard to form a ground cover.

Lawn mowed (thanks FP!)


picking/ eating

baby broad beans, italian cabbage, diggies silverbeet, rocket, passionfruit, red onion, leek, little finger carrot.

wistringea hedge

just to prove the hedge has indeed been planted I thought I'd prove it in pics!


The new hedge consists just over 20 wistringea 'smokey' - bought as small tube stock (to reduce the expense!) Wistringea are tough little blighters - that grow particularly well here at the creek - in no time these will form a nice hedge leading from the entrance path up to my studio doors (I've already got a smaller hedge of wistringea 'jervis bay' growing on the other side of the path to the studio)




to give them a bit of protection whilst they are small I've put plastic tree guards around each plant - now lets hope for a nice growing season....

T.W.I.G. - (this week in the garden) 3

This week in the garden (TWIG): we've had a few more odd showers and storms which has lifted gardening spirits even if it hasn't filled the dams



many of the citrus are setting fruit - the lemons are looking particularly good at present




mulberries aren't ripe yet (the weather has been very cool) - other deciduous fruit trees have fruit on the way (the later apples have been blossoming) and we've given the whole orchard a liberal application of organic fertiliser

But much of our attention is now being focused on the vege garden... here it is at the end of winter/ beginning of spring - the two new beds in the front here are planted with pontiac potatoes - which have just emerged this week




here's the garden viewed from the west - and now that we have the 6 big beds I'm going to number them (to keep rotation in mind)




the closest to camera (and left to right) will be beds 1 & 2.... 3 & 4 are the raised beds in behind them... and 5 & 6 are the beds with the spuds this season... (I'll drawn a mud map when I get around to it)

bed one now has the first of the leafy greens planted - that's what it will be having all season

bed two will be our fruiting bed (tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant etc.)

bed three will be legumes (currently has a start with late season broad beans)

bed four is root crops - and here is where this week I've sown the first of our root section with royal chantenay carrot, white icicle radish, early wonder beetroot

I am hoping to do a lot of my vege planting according to my moon planting guide - but practicalities mean I have to plant when I have the time.... this has apparently NOT been a good planting week for anything.... oh well....

to do

left over jobs

sow first legumes

sow early tomato seed

beds 2 & 3 turned and prepared


completed

wistringea hedge planted (including attractive tree guards)

nasturtium seeds sown

early root crops seed sown

transplanted lettuce, pak choy, onion seedlings


picking eating
red onion, baby broad bean, chinese cabbage, tuscan kale, leek, carrot, silverbeet, rocket, passionfruit...

passionfruit preserves

I had a great time making passionfruit butter (our preferred name for what others may call passionfruit curd). Passionfruit Butter is a great way to preserve passionfruit and it's not dissimilar to lemon butter/curd. It can be used as a spread for bread/toast - or it can be used as a filling for mini tarts and pies. Passionfruit butter is not as astringent as lemon butter - and this recipe isn't as sweet as many spreads can be. It keeps in the fridge for about a month (if you can keep the family away for it for that long....)

soooo if you are inundated with ripe passionfuit why not give this recipe a go:

Sams Creek Passionfruit Butter

Ingredients
4 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup passionfuit pulp
200g unsalted butter (chopped)

Method
Beat eggs in a heatproof bowl and stir in sugar, lemon juice, passionfruit pulp and butter. Place bowl over saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly with wooden spoon over low heat (about 15 mins) until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon (this can be a little tricky to gauge at first... but it really must coat the back of the spoon as you swirl it around....in fact it actually feels thicker too... and it looks a little more opaque when it's ready)

bottle into sterilised but not super hot jars. Seal hot. makes about 5 small bottles (I double the recipe usually...)

eat cold!

this week in the garden - 11 oct

This week in the garden or T.W.I.G as I'll now refer to it in my blog post titles!


We've had a welcome fall of rain – about 65mm over the week of very cold wintery weather (Brown Mountain was closed at one point due to sleet and snow) - which has meant that many outside jobs have been held over – and a few surprise activities took place instead.

This was one of them - FP cobbled together a bulk compost area from found materials (a couple of old gates, bit of welded fence, fencing wire and star pickets) - it's designed to be accessed by the tractor so that we can add cow manure and the like in bulk - and use the tractor to remove the compost and add it to the nearby garden beds.




and look we've already added the first layers of manure, green stuffs and dry garden matter.



to do

* all the jobs not done last week!

* transplant onion seedlings (a gift from my auntie joy)

* transplant lettuce and pak choy seedlings (punnet bought)

* thin fruit in deciduous orchard

* plant salvia seeds in seed raising mix



Completed

* bulk compost bay constructed

* beds topped with new compost/manure

* passionfruit preserves (I've made wonderful passionfruit curd/ butter and I'll share the recipe sometime in the week)

* seeds planted in hot border

* banksia planted (hot border)

* herb garden weeded



picking/ eating

carrots, leek, tuscan kale, rocket, raddiccio, italian cabbage, 'diggies creek special' silverbeet, passionfruit, lemons, the last of the peas,

what you see....

I'm feeling stupidly pleased with myself. I've finally created a 'mud-map' of sorts of the large house garden here at Sams Creek - and I couldn't wait to plonk it up here... looky....

(click pic for a larger view)

yes I know its a bit rough and ready looking - but because I've overlaid garden bed/area shapes on a satellite pic it's actually quite accurate. Now at present I'm sure all these coloured blobs look very strange so I suppose a key and a clue to scale would be in order...

garden key

Black = buildings
Brown = the vege garden area
Purple = decorative garden area
White = the decorative white garden
Pink = the deciduous orchard
Red = the hot border garden
Orange= the citrus orchard
Dark Blue = the herb garden
Light Blue = berry garden beds
Green = sunken garden
Dark green = hedge

and all the round natural green blobs= actual photos of trees and shrubs in the garden

scale: the external perimeter of the house yard is represented by thin black line - the highway fence line is approx 75m (just under 250ft) - the longest fence line is close to 100m (330ft) and the total yard area is between 2-3 acres.

whew! so now when I talk about 'doing things in the white garden', or ' I'm going to tackle the weeds in the hot border'! it will all make perfect sense....


Now for a few other bits of background information. According to the Australian National Botanic Gardens plant hardiness zones chart, my area is typically zone 3 (which is apparently equal to zone 9-10 for anyone in the US) - and I'd agree - our lowest winter temp would be about -3C, maybe -4C.... our highest summer temps of course can reach 45C (nasty!) we had a couple of those shockingly hot days last summer... eek.

Presently our area is experiencing extremely dry conditions - so much so that the district has been granted 'Exceptional Circumstances' declaration from the government (I'll no doubt write more about this over the coming year as we weave our way through gov red tape to access assistance for the farm) and it's these current extraordinary conditions that have prompted my quest for record keeping.

Well - there you have it - a very basic introduction to the garden here at the creek.... I need a lie down after all that map making!

to do... and done

Well I've written out my first 'in the garden this week' list - and as I'll be changing the contents of the 'to do' and 'completed' lists each weekend, I'll also make a quick post (so that it is archived) with a few more details

TO DO

*dig compost into bed (to be root crop bed)

* preserve passionfruit (I have a monster load of passionfruit to dispose of - small children can only munch through so many... I have given bags away, I'm planning on freezing some in ice cube trays and making passionfruit curd with some more)

*mulch currants bed (with sugar cane mulch)

*spread remaining mulch in sunken garden (with wood chip - next year this bed will planted with rhubarb, artichoke, asparagus and 'wet' herbs - this season I'm hoping to use it for pumpkin and squash)

*plant wistringea hedge (along path to studio - 30 plants to go in)

*move oldhamii bamboo clump (not sure where to... but its gotta go from where it is)

COMPLETED

* prepare potato beds (FP moved in tonnes of soil for 2 new beds in the vege patch)

* plant seed potato (FP managed this late last night - just before drizzled rain arrived - he is always in charge of the potato crop - this season we have planted only pontiacs)

*order seeds (from Eden Seeds)

p.s. I know I promised I'd give some basics about the garden first - like climate zone and layout and etc - I'm still drawing up the mud map but I PROMISE I'll do it NEXT POST... PROMISE!