Garden Update

The garden and I aren't motivated to produce much at the moment. It seems we are preoccupied with events, heat etc. My seedlings mark II have been another dismal failure. In our last place my cucumbers took off, but in this place it seems to be much harder work. I think also have the veggie beds spread out makes it less motivating to take care of. But anyhow, here's how things are:

Strawberries

We discovered that our strawberry in pipes would have worked except we planted running strawberries rather than the regular sort. These babies love to run, but had no where to go, so Nate knocked up these awesome planter boxed out of 'acquired' pallets.

The two plants that survived are thriving and running, so we should have more soon. The plants in the other planter died, BUT some other goodies, we're not sure what yet, have sprouted from the compost!

Fruit trees

We had our first delicious nectarine the other day. It was perfectly juicy and we shared it between the three of us. There are no other fruit, but in a year or two we look forward to that tree spoiling us in Summer.

The other trees aren't ready to fruit yet, but have got lots of leaves and are doing well. A few weeks back I took some mint cuttings from Grandma's for ground cover. Quite a few weeds and other average looking plants started to make the area look shabby, but all it took was 20 minutes of editing and it went from this:

to this:

Vegetable Beds:

I have successfully grown heirloom carrots, spinach and lettuce. They are so pretty and colourful. I think we have really lost something by streamlining what colour, shape and size all vegetables should be.

Our corn is also coming along nicely and I replanted some watermelon and rockmelon (cantelope) and I see one healthy shoot! It's disappointing as I planted four, but I've got to take what I can get!!

Our grass invaded sweet corn.

Finally, a melon sprouted!

Our garden bed has got a lot of grass growing in it, so I have trialed zero weed kill directly on the grass in our garden beds to see how it goes before attempting to do it near the veggies. I'm waiting for this crop to be over before doing it. I'm also tempted to try the old boiling water trick.

Tomatoes

I caved and sent Nate to get seedlings. They have done so well and have been delicious  I'm starting to think seeds don't like me as they know I love to eat them!

Terrible photo, I know!

Not much better, but you can see the little orange glow peaking out begging to be eaten!

And that's it, our garden in the middle of Summer. How is yours going?

Summer is well and truly here

Tommy Toe Red Tomatoes from Diggers Club

It has been rather toasty in little Adelaide over the past few days. Which reminded me that I haven't posted this season's fridge cheat sheet. So here it is!

I've been finding lately I've been in a rut with preparing meals, so hopefully this cheat sheet will give me some inspiration to cook with this season's goodies.

Tomato's are in season, which is fantastic as meals taste so much better with fresh tomatoes rather than canned. I still haven't had heaps of luck with tomato seedlings, but I'm hoping to plant out the ones I do have today. Fingers crossed they survive the weekend.

What are some of the successes in your garden?

A trip to an orchard

It was another beautiful Adelaide day yesterday, so we made the most of it by driving to the semi-countryside to visit an orchard. We headed to McLaren Flat (near the famous wine region, unfortunately no time for tasting today!) to check out the very popular Perry's Fruit & Nut Nursery. A number of my friends had recommended the trip and we were not disappointed!

The staff there are great. They helped us out with choosing trees that would give us fruit spread out over the year. They also helped us with cross pollinating apples and choosing trees that would suit the size of our garden.

It was so much fun dreaming about what food we could be producing in two years! In the end we chose:
Pinkabelle, which is a dwarf Pink Lady Apple, which has a gorgeous shape.
A dwarf Royal Gala, another popular apple which will grow to about 1.5 metres.
A peacherine (also known everywhere else except South Australia as a yellow flesh nectarine!) which will stand at about 2 metres.

Missy Moo appropriately eating an apple and playing in the orchard.

Perry's made it so easy to transport the trees as they remove the soil and then place them in saw dust  and wrap them together.

We really wanted to get a mandarin tree as well, but unfortunately they didn't have any in stock.... oh well I guess I will have to take another trip down to the lovely orchard and maybe pick up a few extra trees while we are there!

If you had space for an orchard which fruit trees would you choose?

Photography by Missy Moo- shame the model didn't put much effort into her pony tail!