Tag Archives: vegetables

Garden Update

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Much of what goes in the the garden happens without a lot of input from us due to the fact that both The Duke and I work full-time.

Today I want to share some progress on a couple of different fronts.

On Monday we finally had the large poinciana tree near the driveway removed.  This has been planned for over 12 months but when another large limb dropped a few weeks ago we were galvanised into action.  The tree lopper came on Monday and by the time we arrived home there was no sign of it apart from a small pile of sawdust where the stump had been ground.

This is now the view from our front verandah.  We will be replanting beside the driveway but have yet to decide exactly what we will do.

This is the remainder of another tree stump which we also had removed to make way for a revamp of the vegetable garden area.

The harvest from the vegetable gardens has not been as great as last year but today I was finally able to pick the broccoli.

2.1kg of broccoli from 6 plants is not a bad return and that is only the main heads.  As usual, there will be more smaller secondary florets.  We will use some of this before we go away and the rest will be blanched and frozen.

The cauliflower has been a disappointment compared to last year but at least I got some.  There was also 1 other small head which I picked for dinner last week.

Like everything else, the snow peas have not been spectacularly prolific but here are enough for the stir-fry tonight and the salad for my lunch tomorrow.

Finally, this is 836g of ginger that we pulled up on the weekend.  It grew from 1 small piece that we planted last year.  There is still more in the ground but I saw no need to harvest any more!  We will be dividing it up and planting lots of separate pieces.  The plants look lovely and thrive with the other ornamental ginger, cordylines and heliconias that are growing in the shade of the the cedar tree.

Last but not least I wanted to let you know about my 2 new blogs.

Eating For Health is about my decision to try a grain-free, sugar-free diet.  Click on the link and find out more.

Somewhere, Anywhere  is my travel blog.  This will be an online journal of our travels, beginning with our upcoming overseas trip.  You will be able to follow our adventures as all of the updates will be posted on there.

Digging in the Dirt

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Today we have been out in the garden.  Vegetable gardens dug over and mushroom compost added.  Then it was time to plant out our winter crops.  Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, strawberries as well as red and brown onions.

Most of them were bought as seedlings but I did have a go at raising some from seed.  The cabbages were from seed as are one lot of broccoli and one of cauliflower.  They are somewhat less advanced than the seedlings so hopefully it will spread the harvesting out over a longer period of time.

Continuing on yesterday’s theme of using up everything, I made some pumpkin and sultana scones with some mashed pumpkin that had been thawed from the freezer and not completely used.  I did not get to make the lemon butter so that will have to wait for another day.

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Back to the Practical Stuff

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After a couple of days spent debating the carbon tax it is time to get back to the things I do every day which reduce our carbon footprint today and increase our self-reliance so that we can face whatever the future may bring.

Collecting eggsWashing plastic bags

Taking our own bags and containers to the shops

Brewing beer

Raising seedlings

Harvesting from the garden

Making compost

Today was my day off so I immersed myself in all these jobs and more.  It has been productive and worthwhile.

Markets & Gardens

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My plan for this weekend was to buy seedlings for our winter vegie garden.  So, we were up early and off to the Yandina Markets.  We are spoiled for choice of markets on both days of the weekends.  While it is a little further to travel to Yandina than some of the others, it is definitely worth the trip for vegetable seedlings.  I dream of being able to grow all of my produce from seed but for the moment it is far more practical to let someonelse do the seed raising.

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We also bought some local pineapples, bananas and zucchini as well as some beans.

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Then we headed for home with a slight detour to Caloundra.  First stop was K-Mart to get the makings of another batch of home brew, followed by Aldi to get a few things and finally Bunnings.  We bought a large bag of potting mix, some seed raising mix, 2 more hanging baskets for the verandah and a tin of paint stripper.  The paint stripper will be used by The Duke when he starts restoring the silky oak dressing table that we bought a couple of months ago.

We spent the rest of the day in the garden and we now have our winter vegetable gardens all planted up with what will hopefully be a great harvest over the coming months.

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First things to plant were baby spinach, bok choy and cabbages.

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Then broccoli, cauliflower and beetroot.

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A trellis for the beans and snow peas.

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Finally, the celery and onions.

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Since we do not have the vegetable garden area fenced we have a variety of fencing/covering methods to exclude the chickens from the very tempting new seedlings and mulch.  Fencing is on the ‘To Do’ list.  One day…………it will happen.