Blogtober Day 18

 I have been lazy this past week; I haven’t kept up with my Italian lessons; I haven’t written in my journal; my colouring supplies have been neglected and worse of all, I haven’t walked once this week when I usually walk 4-5 times a week. I know the reason for it, I’m tired. Our elderly dog has been waking us up during the night because she needs to go outside, once back in bed, it takes an hour or more for me to get back to sleep, by the time my alarm goes off I feel like I’ve had no sleep at all. I’m out of my routine and I don’t like it. 

I worked a half-day at the Heritage Centre today. At the moment, I am cataloguing school children’s copybooks they used for practising their cursive writing, not an easy thing to do with pen and ink. Some are very messy. There are also some history and scripture exam papers as well, they make interesting reading. 

When I arrived home, I noticed that the garden was full of blooms, spring has finally arrived. I will leave you with some photos I took.

Bearded iris

My favourite rose of all time, Double Delight.

Cornflower

Erigeron aka Sea Side Daisy

Grandma's Rose, beautifully fragrant and thornless.

Lewisia

Dutch iris

Red valerian "Kiss Me Quick"

I will be back tomorrow.

    

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Bloomin' Lovely - Winter

I know its been a long time between posts, but seeing that this is a blog mostly about vegetable gardening and there hasn't been anything being produced in the vegetable garden there really hasn't been anything to write about.

Now that spring has arrived the plants in the vegetable garden are slowly starting to produce, but nothing of significance, so today I thought I would share some of the flowers that have been blooming in my garden over winter.

Jonquils, one of my favourite flowers, their fragrance always takes me back to my childhood and my mother's garden.

 Another one from my childhood, Snowdrops.

The calendulas have been blooming for months now and show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Carnations make a lovely addition to any flower garden, this one  was grown from a cutting taken from a store bought bunch.

Looking like a mound of snow in the garden Alyssum are a favourite with the bees.

Marguerite daisy, the blackbirds have built a nest in this one and there was at last count three eggs in it.

White oxalis

And finally tiny pink flowers on one of my succulents, it is the first time it's flowered.

Hopefully I will be back in a few days with an update on the vegetable garden, I hope your gardens are bloomin' lovely too.

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Seeds

Hello, and welcome to this month's Garden Share Collective, the theme this month is SEEDS.

Seeds, they are natures little power houses. Enclosed within each seed case is all that is needed for a new life to begin, from the tallest of trees to the tiniest of flowering plants it all starts with a seed. 

The largest plant seed belongs to the Coco de Mer, commonly known as the Sea Coconut, it weighs 18kg (40lbs) and is 30cm (12 inches) in length, when fully mature the palm tree which it grows into will be between 25 - 34 metres tall. At the other end of the scale the seeds of the epiphytic orchid which at 85 micrometres (1/300th an inch) is too small to be seen by the human eye. It's seeds are dispersed and carried on the wind coming to rest in the canopy of the rainforest trees where, over time they will sprout and form new orchids.

There's a kind of wonder in growing a plant from seed, you put a dry little capsule in some compost, keep it moist, and in a week or so up pops a tiny sprout that with care in time will provide food for your table. 

A tiny carrot seedling with its first set of true leaves.

I use seeds nearly all the time in my own garden,  they are cheap to buy and readily available in stores or online.

I am very excited to be trying out some new varieties this season.

 Once you start growing your own vegetables a good habit to get into is letting one of each of your favourite variety of plant go to seed, this way you won't need to buy seed the following season and you'll save money. 

Sunflower seeds collected from the only sunflower I managed to grow this year, but one is all I needed, I now have enough seeds for sowing next year.

I've never  seen so many flower buds on a lettuce before. These will eventually provide me with enough seeds for the next few years.

I would love to have picked this sprout of the Italian Sprouting broccoli, but I will let it flower and when it sets seed I will harvest them and keep them for next winter.

Growing from seed is not always the easiest of options, but it is the most rewarding. There is a great sense of personal satisfaction in knowing that you have been involved right from sowing to eating.

So why not give growing from seed a go, you still have time to go out and buy some seeds and get sowing. 

Harvesting

Broccoli

Cauliflower

A few peas

Parsley

Sowing

Tomatoes

Beetroot

Eggplant

Capsicum

Leeks

Shallots

Coriander

Thyme

Marigolds

Zinnia

Bergamot

Sunflowers

Alyssum

Things to do

Remove wnter vegetables as they finish

Add compost and fertiliser to each bed

Sow seeds for chickpeas and beans

That's it for this month's Garden Share Collective, if you would like to see what's been happening in other people's garden pop over and visit our GSC hosts Kyrstie at A Fresh Legacy or Kate from Rosehips and Rhubarb. I will see you again for next month's Garden Share Collective where the topic will be PHILOSOPHY. That is going to take some thinking about.

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Save the Bees

Welcome to this month's Garden Share Collective hosted by Kate from Rosehips and Rhubarb and Krystie from A Fresh Legacy, this month the theme is SAVE. 

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write about this month, and after tossing around a few ideas (saving seeds, saving produce, saving money) I finally decided to do a post on saving bees.

It shouldn't be news to any gardener that the world honey bee population is on the decline, climate change, loss of habitat, the use of pesticides containing neonicotinoids and the varroa mite are all playing a part in their decline. 

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A Slight Change In (Garden) Plans

It seems that I'm not happy unless I'm changing things around, I was certainly not happy with the way the vegetable garden was looking. I have been wanting to add more flowers to the vegetable garden for a while now so I sacrificed just over two metres of growing space for that purpose, which still left me with ten garden beds. When my girls gave me a greenhouse for my birthday I thought it would look good in the middle of what would become the flower garden. I also added my two plums trees and an insect hotel as well as three Salvias "Joan", "Hot Lips" and an unnamed blue one, Senicio "Vira Vira" and a Lion's Ear plant. The space very quickly became too crowded and getting in to water the plants and fill up the bee/butterfly dish behind the plum trees was quite difficult.

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Seeds

Seeds, where would we be without them?  They fill our flower beds with colour and fragrance, and allow us to grow tasty, nutritious food to feed ourselves and our family. They are the perfect little capsule, containing everything that is needed to start the next generation of plant life. They lay dormant sometimes for years waiting for the perfect growing conditions and then, they spring into life. 

This year I am trying to grow all my vegetables and flowers from seed.

What I'm growing

Sown 24th September

Melons

Hale's Best 

Sugar Baby
Luscious Red

Tomatoes

Honeybee 

Rouge de Marmande

San Marzano

Unknown truss (seeds were from shop bought tomatoes)

Corn

Kelvedon Glory

Jubilee Bicolour

Cucumber

Lebanese (sprouted today)

Zucchini 

Green Bush

Beans

Windsor Longpod

Brown Beauty

Butter 

Cannelini

Red Kidney

Borlotti

Leafy Greens

Cos lettuce

Green Mignonette

Salad mix which includes

Lolla Rossa

Bionda

Red and green salad bowl and

Great Lakes

Endive

Kale

Medania spinach
Celery

Eggplant

Snowy

Rosa Bianca

Capsicum

Hungarian Yellow Wax Sweet

Basil

Sweet Genovese

Thai

Radicchio

Palla Rossa

And a new one to try this year, chickpeas.

Flowers
Borage
Alyssum Rosie O'Day
Poached Egg Plant
Nasturtium
Zinnia
Candy Tuft
Calendula

So, hopefully not only will my vegetable garden be productive it will look beautiful as well.

This is my contribution to this months Garden Share Collective 

hosted by Lizzie from Strayed from the Table, Krystie from a A Fresh Legacy and Kate from Rhubarbs and Rosehips. To see what they and others have to say click on any of the links above.

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The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring, Tra la

With so little happening in the vegetable garden at the moment, I thought I would share some of what is happening in the flower gardens right now. Enjoy!

Snap dragons

Nemesia

Geraldton wax "Raspberry Ripple"

Scabiosa "Samantha's Pink".

Wonga Wonga vine, this photo does not do it justice, it is absolutely gorgeous.

My favourite rose, Double Delight.

Sweet peas

Not technically in the garden but close enough, Swan River Pea.

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Bloomin' Lovely

There isn't a lot flowering in my gardens at the moment but I thought I would share some pictures of what has been over the past few weeks.

Oxalis purpurea and oxalis hirta have awoken from their summer slumber to provide a splash of colour in the garden.

Oxalis purpurea

Oxalis hirta

 I have no idea what the name of this rose is as it was here when I moved in. The buds are a very pale apricot and as you can see it opens up to a soft blush pink.

 One of two minature roses in the garden but once again I don't know it's name.

One of my favourites, Woburn Abbey.

Grandma's Rose, I love the slighty antique look to the petals.  It is thornless and has a beautiful fragrance.

Lavender

Blue salvia

Seaside daisy just now starting to recover and flower after the hot summer.

 A late hollyhock.

Correa "Dusky Bells".

Cape Mallow, it has flowered constantly since I planted it almost two years ago even during the heat waves we have experienced here in South Australia this past summer. It is a definite favourite with the bees.

Stock that I had collected seed from thinking it would die down but it surprised me by flowering again.

And last but by no means least my dwarf Buddleja "Ivory".

What is flowering in your garden now?

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