Last spring Dino made a raised garden bed & planted veggies. Given he gardened with me every year when he was little he should have known better than to mass plant anything & not mulch. He should have known to check the companion planting guide & plant his tomatos with his basil, & his herbs as barriers. Anyway, he went to sea leaving Ditz in charge of watering. Ditz's idea of watering was to make sure the surface was wet ~ which took a whole two seconds. Needless to say given the strange summer weather we had the veggies went to seed & the weeds took over, there were bugs galore & the only thing that survived was the basil.
Summer is not the time to plant anything in Queensland, certainly not anything on the west side of the house, so I ignored the whole shermozzle. As the weather cooled off I began the mammoth task of clearing out the weeds. I don't have a lot of time to garden anymore so it took weeks of picking away at it in the stray 5 minutes that come my way. Eventually I got down to soil & basil. Dino was thrilled & talked about planting it again so I did no more. Well, Dino is broke. His course has caused *temporary financial embarrasment*. I think that's how you put it. Now is the time to plant, before the winter rains so I decided if I waited on Dino I would be waiting a long time. When the kids decided they wanted a DVD I decided that would be a good time to wander into the nursery & see what was in stock. No sooner had I detoured than I found every child I own hot on my heels, all with their own ideas of what I should grow this season! Why do I even bother?
I had no intention of getting a lot to start with. I wanted parsley for winter soups, some beans, because they always give such a good crop & some dill just because I like it. I also got snow peas for the trellis, though Dino swears they wont do well. Just because he couldn't grow them... Honestly, my kids think I came down with the last shower of rain.
Meanwhile Ditz was wandering round with a pot of chocolate mint begging me to buy it, Liddy kept waving sweet peas under my nose & Dino was enviously eyeing off all the things he couldn't afford to buy. I got the beans for him though I would have got them anyway. I am considering celery even thugh I hate fiddling round with it to get it to grow bunched & will get tomatoes & maybe some zucchini as well as silverbeet; lots & lots of silverbeet. The kids are thrilled & happily stood round telling me how great the garden would be while I did all the planting out...ok, Dino did the beans. I know what it is. They all adore wandering past, eating as they go. Oh, well. At least I know they're not consuming pesticides along with their beans.
7 comments:
Gardening is such fun! I can hardly wait. Our landlady doesn't want us digging up the lawn, but I'm thinking of getting some pots at least.
Did you get the choc mint? I had some many years ago. Keep all mint in a pot!
You've got to describe your weather patterns sometime! In south Texas, where it is hot and dry most of the time, we grew snow peas in the winter and tomatoes in the late spring, and everything did better in partial shade. You plant it all in the fall? Will you get a full crop before it gets cold, or do you winter it over till spring? (Or does it not get freezing at all?)
hmmm?
MamaO, we can grow stuff pretty much all year round unless the summer gets really, really hot. That kills most things off. Apart from that once the weather cools off we usually plant. I like to do it in the rain because everything establishes really well & does better. We rarely even get frost so the cold isn't a consideration. I've almost alawys gardened from fall through to spring ~ or until the sandies & mozzies make being ourside impossible, whichever comes first.:)
No, I didn't get the mint for just the reason you mentioned. I may buy her a nice pot & she can keep it on her school desk here she may just remember to water it.
I'll have to consult with Dearest about weather patterns. As with most things I garden by instinct rather than logic. I do better than my prosaic men. ;P
I *soooo* want to have a garden - I've never grown anything before (well, I have two cactuses - cacti? - and a newly gotten spider plant trying to live on my living room shelf, but never anything more) and I'm consumed with thoughts this year of having flowers and vegetables growing in my yard.....
The fact that I haven't a clue how to do something generally doesn't stop me, so it's entirely likely that we'll be digging up the front and back yard to plant stuff. The backyard is very tiny and a hill, so it will just get some flowers close to the house... the front yard - well, I'm hoping the landlord won't have kittens if I start digging that up and planting vegetables everywhere. Maybe if I offer him some free carrots....
My mother does flowers, so I can drag her over here to show me what goes where and when, but for vegetables I think I'll be sorting it out myself... and pretending I don't hear her telling me that I can't dig up the front yard. Yep.
/ramble/
Thanks for that info. I guess your weather would be more like south California than south Texas, except with a rainy season. Now I understand, more or less. ;-)
Hey, Moly, when you start digging there's lots of info on~line to help you out & plenty of gardeners round here who will understand your weather better than I do. MammyT & Mrs Darling come to mind. I've always found carrots a pain & never had any success; they need a light soil. If you succed in growing some tell us how you did it.
Just goes to show how little I know about gardening - I figured carrots would be an easy one LOL ....
No digging will happen for a while yet - I was cleaning snow off my car (and out of it) yesterday...spring seems to be dragging its feet around here!
Actually MamaOlive think Florida rather than california. The island is wetter than the mainland.
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