Early Autumn Garden Life

Sunday: Today I weeded two (very small) garden beds ready for winter planting. One of them has a lot of self-seeded granny's bonnet plants in that I will pot up before I plant the bed out with more lettuces and winter greens. The other still has some sad little capsicum plants that are going to provide me with approximately four mini capsicums when they finally ripen. I finished weeding under the pea trellis, and dug up two potato plants. You can see the enormous potato harvest above:)

However, while not large it's enough for four meals for me.. I made the potatoes into potato salad, and made a completely home-grown meal: Sauteed zucchini, tomato salad with home-made dressing, potato salad. 

Then half-way through the meal I remembered I'd also cooked kale to have with it:

Here's my tip. Always check all pans on the stove before serving up dinner. Can't go wrong. Anyway, I am rather chuffed to be able to say that I grew everything on my dinner plate, including the tarragon and rosemary on the potato salad. Not the mayo. I didn't grow the mayo.. I didn't grow many potatoes this year, but the few I have grown have been so delicious, I am determined to grow more in spring. I know I can grow all my vitamins - all the greens and fancy additions such as tomatoes, but I haven't ever really provided any of the carbohydrates in my diet, so here's to summer 2024 being potato year.

So while I was cooking dinner I got up from the kitchen table where I was reading to check on the potatoes or kale or what-have-you, and when I sat down again, I saw I had used a zucchini as a bookmark. I do that all the time, absent-mindedly mark my place in a book with random objects. So there's a thought for what to do with any zucchini you may have lying around. 

 I looked in the vegie crisper today and all that is in there is a bag of carrots from the shops and a ziplock bag of washed garden kale. Everything else lays about on all the kitchen surfaces. I have found that all the vegies except greens, peas and beans actually keep better out of the fridge, even cucumbers. Fridge vegies go mouldy whereas bench vegies just dry out eventually, but before that they keep remarkably well. On the other hand, then the kitchen benches are covered with produce all summer. I love to garden, but I am not that keen on the cooking bit. Eventually, when I run out of room on the kitchen benches I am forced to cook some of it. Also, I make giant salads with the tomatoes and cucumbers. Rosy has convinced me that thin slices of raw zucchini in sandwiches are delicious. Extra crunch and no cooking!

My last garden job for the day was sowing radish seeds. And then my seed order arrived. Mostly flowers because I am planning a huge and glorious flower garden next season, but some veg as well. This is only half my seed order, from Tasmanian seed company Veggie Garden Seeds. Their flowers are to die for. I also have another order with my old favourites, the cheap and cheerful Seed Collection from Victoria. 

Most flowers need to wait for spring, but I put in yarrow, larkspur, cornflowers and lots of peas and greens (must have food to go with flowers) here in Zone 9b.

The Next Sunday: This is where the flowers are going to go. It is currently a wasteland of weeds about 3m by 6m on a west facing slope on well-draining loam that is packed with a hundred years of rocks and bricks that have been thrown there by previous owners. Here is how it looked before I started weeding: upper half.

Lower half.

Did a bit of weeding while procrastinating over the stupid painting, and rescued and terraced two little miniature peach trees. Or possibly nectarines. I shall look after them better and surround them with flowers and they will be very happy. I will have to do more terracing before planting flowers or they will just fall down the slope. Luckily Paul has an almost infinite supply of rocks at his place, many of them with my name on them.

I popped down to the local toy shop on the public holiday on Monday and picked up a lot of cardboard to use as weed suppressant on my vegie garden paths and on the paths I plan to dig out in the new flower garden. It is not pretty, but very effective. I will top them with wood chips, eventually.

I dug up the last of the potatoes which were planted in the weed garden, soon to be flower garden. I might plant some more potatoes there next year. Potatoes were first grown for their pretty purple and white flowers when brought to Europe from South America. It took awhile before people could be persuaded to eat them.

Also, look, my first full-sized tomatoes (grosse lisse) have ripened. 

Let's finish with flowers. This is my top bee garden, at the top of my vegie plot, and just underneath my back verandah. I also have a bottom bee garden, which is a strip of flowers between the top and bottom vegie garden plots (following?). Next year I will have a giant (for me) extra bee garden where my weed garden currently flourishes, which will border the vegies on the southern side. Then the vegies will be nearly completely surrounded by flowers, which probably won't be as sinister as it sounds.

This is the mini larkspur I transplanted from the front garden. I have just received a packet of giant Salmon Queen larkspur, which sounds very exciting:)

How does your garden grow? Are you a flower enthusiast, or are you more a food gardener, or do you like a native garden? I love all three and have different garden spaces for all of them:)