# The HF Gardening Thread



## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

OK, first up: my garden in Spain.

We live on the plateau in central Spain, at 2300 feet, in the continental Mediterranean climate of La Mancha. It is dry and windy here, and we are a couple of towns over from where Don Quixote jousted with the windmill "giants". The soil in these foothills is mostly a thin layer of orange clay (think: terracotta) over a granitic base, and almost everything is on a drip system. PITA. 

My garden is completely chemical-free, except for the insecticide I put on the biting-ant hills near the seating areas.

The front garden was created with clean fill bermed around the house. It is mostly herbs and roses, with a tiny Spanish oak tree and a larger _fraxinus rubra_ that I had hoped would do better and give us more shade. It has not.

The back yard is still a work in progress, and we are trying to create more shade with climbers like wisteria and trumpet vine on pergolas around the house, because there is not enough soil to support tree growth. Behind our property is conservation land, which is quite barren. Several people have told me that it reminds them of Arizona or Southern California.


Photo 1 is contruction in 2010, before retaining walls and berms were created.

2 is the front garden now.

3 is the back yard.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I am really glad you started this thread, @Spanish Rider, because I'd love to see pages and pages and pages of what everyone else is doing in their gardens all over the world - and lots and lots and lots of photos! 

I am tremendously impressed what you have managed to do in your incredibly arid environment, and with little water available, and poor soils. Your rainfall isn't much higher than that of Australia's Nullarbor Plain... :bowwdown: Do you have any tank water from your rooftop? Any bore water? Are you connected to any sort of municipal supply, or entirely self-catering for water?

It's lovely how you're living surrounded by nature. How much of that land is within your own boundaries? You don't seem to have any visible neighbours - what's the zoning that allows you to live as you do - near all that conservation land?

I love love love that decorative garden, and the natural-looking paving!  It looks like it would be useful for birdlife and lizards too. Are many critters attracted to your garden? Are you a sort of oasis in the landscape for them? And do you make pesto with your herbs?

You started constructing the year we bought our small farm... we started constructing late the following year, in 2011... basically, we've gardened on our places for about the same time! 

And...too right about the ready source of manure for composting, with horse people! inkunicorn: If you want a poop emoji, you could try requesting one, the technical people are very helpful!  The last request thread for new emojis was here:

https://www.horseforum.com/horse-forum-support-help-desk/chicken-emojis-795229/

You could tag your requests onto that, or start a new thread in the same section.

I'm not sure if they're going to give you realistic poop, but I'm sure they would at least do a reasonable metaphor like Mr Whippy Soft-Serve Icecream... :Angel: (is there also Mr Whippy in the US?)


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

We had a good gardening thread but it was ages ago so I’m glad to see a new one


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

We have so many house renovation projects going on right now that sadly I don't think this is going to be the year I get a garden started at our new place. Not to mention the fact that there were still frost warnings this past weekend, and it's already nearly June. Everything is so far behind this year. I'll probably do a few potted herbs, but nothing more exciting than that. So, I'm posting here to follow you all vicariously this year and hope to join in the future! 

I'm interested in hearing more about people who have a good rain barrel set-up. Has anyone watered horses or small animals with rain barrels, in addition to their gardens?


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Since moving to an apartment I have been confined to a balcony for gardening, besides the houseplants... We have potted herbs that tolerate it as well as natives, and a few others. Boyfriend here used to work at a native plant nursery so we collect those rare hard to find ones, and also just have fun with some more common ones. Our balcony is basically full shade so we have had to stick to plants that grow under the canopy. Blue eye grass, heucheras, strawberries...

We recently started a few bonsai as well. 

Inside we have pothos, climbing philodendron, anthurium, orchids, sansevieria...

At work we have a garden full of veg, stuffs been blooming, we should have food out there soon!


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

I like to garden! This year I've got a good start on my vegetable garden... I would take pics but it's not near as pretty as what was posted and I need to do a little weeding now so once I get it under control I will post some. I've got Jalapenos, tomatoes(different kinds), red and green bell peppers, zucchini, green beans and herbs.... I want to plant spaghetti squash, haven't planted those before so hopefully they will do good. Anyone got any other suggestions? It's a small garden, I've tried corn but they didn't do good.

For a few years I canned Salsa and jalapenos, I would love to can the green beans because they all come in at once and it's just me so I eat all that I can then not sure what to do with the rest. 

Glad you created this thread!


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

@lb27312- since you like canning, I'd definitely throw in some pickling cucumbers. These have done really well for me in prior years:
https://www.rareseeds.com/boston-pickling-cucumber/

This is the pickle recipe I've been using lately (though it's for refrigerator pickles vs. "putting up" pickles):
www.thekitchn.com/small-batch-recipe-cucumber-pickles-urban-preserving-with-marisa-mcclellan-173303

Mmmm....or this recipe for when your tomatoes and cucumbers are ready at the same time: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020212-salad-e-shirazi-persian-cucumber-tomato-and-onion-salad


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

Hey, I don't want to be the only one to upload photos! 

@SueC, please upload something from your veggie garden.

@jaydee , what about you? Connecticut is lovely this time of year. 

@lostastirrup , how about some balcony garden photos? That is how I first started eons ago, and it sounds like you're having better luck than I ever did.

@Knave ? I know you've got a good garden going, too.

@tinyliny , you also said you were interested in a gardening thread.


@SueC , right now we are just using municipal drinking water. I had mentioned that we were looking into having a grey water system installed, but it is illegal here. In the end, I am glad we did not. Since we have such little rainfall and it is very windy, the municipal waste system pipes can dry out in our area, and the wind pushes the smells into the house. We have traps, of course, but when those get dried out, ewww. So, yes, grey water (laundry and shower water) go down the drain to move things along.

Like @egrogan , I am also interested in installing a rainwater catchment system with gutters on the less windy (south) side of the house. @SueC , you have an enormous cistern don't you?



> It's lovely how you're living surrounded by nature. How much of that land is within your own boundaries? You don't seem to have any visible neighbours - what's the zoning that allows you to live as you do - near all that conservation land? *Actually, we have very little land, not even 1/2 an acre, because land here is ridiculously expensive (€250,000/acre). There are also very strict zoning laws for building homes (cannot build a home on agricultural land here). The conservation land behind us protects a waterway for drinking water that comes down from the mountains (2 streams & a reservoir), so no one will ever be able to build directly behind us.*
> 
> I love love love that decorative garden, and the natural-looking paving! It looks like it would be useful for birdlife and lizards too. Are many critters attracted to your garden? Are you a sort of oasis in the landscape for them? And do you make pesto with your herbs? * The paving is natural, a granitic rock quarried nearby, but it is not uniform in thickness, color or texture, so it is not used in urban applications (but I like the variation). An older friend of ours is a master bricklayer & paver, so that was all Pedro (his name means "rock"!). The "decorative" garden has lots of edible bits - sort of like an English cottage garden - with roses, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, spearmint, bay leaf, strawberries and lavender (basil is giving me a hard time). I think the only thing not edible are the irises and the fraxinus tree. The Spanish oak gives acorns, which are edible, and the dogs love those. Since I use no pesticides, it is a haven for pollinators, birds and lizards (and those dang shrews). We also have lots of small game here, so my back yard is often visited by rabbits, hare and grouse/partridges. On the conservation land, there is also larger game, such as deer & jabalí (a very large, aggressive wild boar), and we have seen foxes, otters and mongeese. But, our favorites are the birds of prey, including several types of eagles, falcons and owls. It's a special place.*


As for the poop emoji, isn't it suprising that HF doesn't have one? I mean, you have to admit that horsey people have a special relationship with poop!:rofl:

Speaking of which, I need tips for dry-climate composting.


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

egrogan said:


> @lb27312- since you like canning, I'd definitely throw in some pickling cucumbers. These have done really well for me in prior years:
> https://www.rareseeds.com/boston-pickling-cucumber/
> 
> This is the pickle recipe I've been using lately (though it's for refrigerator pickles vs. "putting up" pickles):
> ...


DOH! I do have pickling cucumbers planted also.... thank you so much for the recipe I'll definitely try it... I'm also looking for a spicy dill pickle recipe. A local produce stand cans their own and it's soooo good! but at $10 (no kidding) a jar I'm looking to do my own.

Thanks again!


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

Welcome, @lb27312 !

Please share pics! If you takes close-ups, no one can see the weeds! I would love to see your jalapeños when they turn red. Where are you located?

I do some canning here, mainly figs, but I would love to learn more. My FIL grows the best green beans, and my MIL just freezes them instead of canning. Don't green beans need to be pressure canned?


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

@Filou , sorry I missed your post. I have such an admiration for California gardeners because of your growing conditions, water bans, etc. You really have to get creative! I have been following a couple of California gardening blogs to get new ideas, but you don't have the winter freezes like we do, so all my plants have to be winter hardy.
@egrogan , one day I am going to try those pickle recipes. Can you believe the "pickles" here are made without pickling spices? Just soaked in vinegar (blech!). I MISS good pickles.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I'll sort out some photos when I have more time.
Gardening in CT was a whole new challenge for me after my lifetime of gardening in the UK that really started as a child, influenced by parents, grandparents and even a grt grandparent.
When we left a chilly dull UK at the end of August, nearly 12 years ago now, and stepped out of JFK in our winter jeans and jackets into a humid 90F I really thought that I'd be able to grow stuff in a more Mediterranean way. 
Our first winter here, when temperatures plummeted so fast and it couldn't seem to stop snowing and then the spring simply didn't arrive as it was in the UK, was such a shock!


Gardening here is far more like going into battle with weeds and climate and diseases and bugs and wildlife than it ever was in the little rural village we left behind!


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

I'm in Central Texas. I live on a quarter-acre plot that used to be the suburbs and now is considered "central." Between poor soil, terrible climate, and amazingly aggressive pests, it's really hard to grow anything here. I've been gardening for about fifteen years here, and what I've realized is that without putting really intense effort into things and/or using lots of chemicals, there just isn't a lot that will grow well here. But, what does grow well, grows really well. I have a perennial herb garden (fennel for the butterflies, parsley, marjoram, thyme sage) and a bay laurel that grows one to two feet a year. I can also grow sorrel, which is great because it's hard to find in stores. I planted cardoons two years ago because I had a recipe I wanted to use them in, but I never figured out when to harvest them, so now I have gorgeous enormous thistle-type plants in there. I rarely water, and everything does OK. I also planted some carrots two years ago that finally made actual carrots this year. 

Oh, and I planted two types of mint in my front courtyard, and shiso (parilla) as well (this was before I found out how toxic it was to horses. But they don't live with me so it's probably OK. Shiso is SO good). I also have blackberries in that patch, but we usually only get a few before the birds take them all. The fig in the front yard produces well, but the birds get most of that as well. This is despite using bird netting on both. And one lemon tree in the back that I planted several years ago that gave us our first lemons this winter. I have two pecan trees in the back, but they aren't very healthy and the squirrels take whatever they manage to produce.

Here in Central Texas, things will happen with pests that aren't supposed to happen. Roly polies eat living plants (especially strawberries), squirrels take your tomatoes just as they are starting to get ripe. They pull them off, take one bite, and throw away the rest. Just like they do with the pecans. I hate them. People who are serious about growing tomatoes in my neighborhood make cages of chain link fence (including a roof) then fully line the whole thing with chicken wire. Even so, the squirrels often get in.

I had chickens for ten years, but just a few nights ago we lost two of our last three (haven't had time to get more) to raccoons, so we gave away the last one so she would at least be safe. We hadn't lost many to predators before, and we need to re-evaluate our setup before we get any more. The great thing about chickens is that they eat stuff that can't go in the compost pile, they make great fertilizer, and of course there are the eggs. Between them and the gardens, it's like we had our own ecosystem back there. I'm sure we'll get some more, but we really do need to build a better enclosure for them first.

ETA: I can't wait until we move (back) to Seattle and can actually really grow food. But it will be a few years at least, even if things go according to plan.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Yay! Thanks for tagging me. I love your yard @Spanish Rider, and your house is just beautiful too.

Here are some before and afters of mine from 2011. I did start in 2009, so you can see I had grass established by 2011. 

I have to do last summer, because nothing has really popped this year yet due to the weather staying so cold.

I apologize that my pictures always seem to be of something or someone; I don’t take a lot of just the yard itself.

I included some winter gardening too for you.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Ooohhh....sunflowers! I can absolutely put some of those in now without a proper garden plot set up. My chickens love getting the heads at the end of the season. Beautiful pictures @Knave!

I am jealous of everyone who is growing figs. My lovely husband, who grew up in North Carolina, misses them tremendously. He grew up eating them off the tree and then as preserves his grandmother made. We've tried so many brands of fig preserves- some commercial, some from farmer's markets, some from other grandmas-but nothing that matches his memory of what he grew up with. Figs are nearly impossible to grow in our VT climate, though some people do keep them potted on a sunny porch and bring them inside for the winter. There is some history of digging them up and burying them in the winter, but I'm not that dedicated! :wink: https://hartley-botanic.com/magazine/growing-figs-northern-climates/

This thread is so fun.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*Spanish Rider* , I'm doing the Nigella thing of getting up to have a snack at midnight, so I can oblige you presently! ;-)

For fruit and vegetables, we set up a Woodrow style permaculture mandala here in 2011. I'd actually never gardened before, as I'd hitherto always lived in rentals where there was no garden / places where the garden belonged to the owners. I did have one false start at gardening as a teenager, after reading John Seymour's classic self-sufficiency book (that all true hippies will have heard of) and getting really excited about those possibilities, but didn't have much support from my parents... we were living on a farm (a feedlot really, since we didn't grow anything useful :evil and when I tried to start a vegetable garden, my mother kept letting the goat off the chain when I went to school, and the goat sadly ruined my efforts on a regular basis. Also, I didn't have any help making compost bays etc, so had to try to compost horse manure under black plastic, which of course doesn't make decent compost. I had to give up on that project before too long - and my mother was always saying, "I don't know why you want to bother, I can buy all that stuff from the nice man at the shop." :icon_rolleyes:

So when Brett and "I tree changed" when we hit our 40s, all that was back on the table. I chose to go with permaculture because I like the idea of making little self-supporting ecosystems, instead of intensive monocultures. Our general garden area looks like this:






...I need to break this post because I pressed some weird key before that posted everything prematurely and I'm running out of editing time...


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

@egrogan I never thought to give the heads to the chickens! Little girl tried roasting some, which was a bit of a pitiable result, and so I left the majority of them sitting and enjoyed bird watching. The birds ate on them for a long time, but still much went to waste. I will have to do that this fall.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Sorry about the technical glitch and needing to break the post as a result... so in that clip, you can see the bushland behind our house, the food garden, and some of our paddocks. We have an enormous rainwater tank you can see in the clip - it holds 110,000L and supplies the house, and used to supply stock troughs in summer - but not the garden, as that demands water just when we're getting into our 4 month+ summer drought in our Mediterranean climate here - and we need half a tank of water to get through the summer, for the house alone.

So we watered the garden by pumping from the farm soak initially, which was a laborious exercise involving a fire pump that had to be set up each time and supervised so the cattle wouldn't try to eat it, push it into the dam, play soccer with it etc. This soak also had a tendency to run dry in summer, so I couldn't plant as much as I wanted to. 



We used our greywater for flood irrigation of the lawn areas around the house in summer, to keep that garden area green. Since we have waterless compost toilets that feed back into our fruit and vegetable production, there is no actual blackwater coming from the house, just greywater.

A couple of summers ago, after a prolonged drought, we invested in a solar bore, which now supplies all our irrigation needs, and I've been able to really go to town with the summer crops.

More on the Woodrow mandala design:

It includes a chicken dome. We fully intended to have chickens when we set up our farm in 2011, and immediately built the skeleton of a Woodrow permaculture chicken dome. It simply needs covering with chicken wire and furbishing, but it's been standing unoccupied for years because we keep on swapping our excess honey for a friend's excess eggs, and at the moment, we still have our hands plenty full with everything else... You can see it in the background here, the white space igloo looking thing. If anyone asks us, we say it's our "meditation dome" and enjoy the consternation!


















One day we do still plan to have chickens. This particular mobile run is a day run for chickens that can be pulled over grass, or placed on the matching circular vegetable growing beds in the mandala, which is daisy-shaped with a frog pond in the middle for insect control (and yes, that works - we've got one set up, if you look carefully on the photo you can see it between the fruit trees). The idea is that the chickens do the digging and scratching and fertilising on any vegetable bed you've harvested, win-win for them and for you.










The mandala design actually reduces the amount of walking you do when gardening, and makes it more efficient - it's not just some hippie / UFO enthusiast pattern.




















The design is from Linda Woodrow's Permaculture Home Garden book: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-per...670865994.htm 


Like @*Knave* , I companion plant things, it's at the heart of permaculture. Unless I'm doing potatoes or a whole patch of broad beans, I never end up with everything pulled up at the end of the harvest, because most beds are companion planted and as one plant eventually has to be pulled out, a relatively advanced seedling from the mini-greenhouse will go in that spot. We grow all our vegetables, herbs and flowers from seed, using heirloom seed suppliers; so a mini-greenhouse has been really helpful.

You can see this in a journal post from last October (spring here), which I will simply cut and paste from my journal to give people a snapshot of what food gardening like this looks like.


*The Garden*

Well, these past 4 weeks I have been madly making up for 6 weeks of doing nothing in the garden after fracturing three metatarsals - something had to drop off the to-do list to make up for the fact that I was supposed to be horizontal with my foot up a lot. This, of course, meant I did more writing, and had a really productive time there, hatching a little baby I sent to one of my favourite international publications - as well doing more articles for my two regular magazine writing gigs, and taking on an editing/feedback role for one of my mutually adopted sisters, who is writing something _really_ fabulous, in book format. Those two "extras" wouldn't have happened without the bone fractures, so I'm beginning to think it was worth having those fractures. And there were other good things that came out of this painful thing.









As part of turning a jungle back into a vegetable garden, I've removed blossoming kale plants taller than me and on enormous stalks I needed to axe down that look like something out of Jurassic Park. Brett is doing all my digging, compost spreading and bed preparation at the moment, the dear; we're actually getting sunny days now and making the most of it. Things are slowly getting back into shape. My mini-greenhouse is now full of pots and punnets starting the summer crops before the frost risk in the open is over. This was from last summer:


Mini-Greenhouse At Christmas – Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr

Right now, I've got six varieties of tomato seedlings just "hatched", four varieties of pumpkins starting, four varieties of cucumbers, three varieties of zucchini; several trays with leeks and spring onions, capsicum and eggplant, spinach, 5-colour silverbeet, rhubarb, herbs and assorted flowers - everything heritage and from seed. The garden itself has recently received, from the greenhouse, young Brussels Sprouts plants, three varieties of kale, broccoli, silverbeet, celery, brown onions, and spring onions. I have direct-seeded radishes, coriander and peas, and have old stands of kale, silverbeet, parsley, mint, leeks, spring onions, lettuces, mustard greens, mizuna and fennel still producing. Garlic and rhubarb are carrying on as well.

This was the F&V mandala this time last year:


Mixed Mandala Bed – Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr

By summer it starts to look like this - from last Christmas:


Mandala Progress – Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr


Sweetcorn – Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr

The _Aquadulce_ broad beans are chest-high and beginning to keep us in lovely tender bean pods. Later in the season, I will harvest actual seed and make the most amazing lime-green hummous with it. Yesterday I cleared space for a big bed of Painted Mountain Corn that's going in within a fortnight - the progeny of the little corn plants you can see in the greenhouse photo above - these were grown from seed sent by kind _Grass Roots_ readers, because I couldn't obtain any in Western Australia, and quarantine regulations forbade Eastern states seed companies to supply me. It's wonderful corn and we love it - lower in sugar, higher in protein and antioxidants, tastier, and more frost and drought hardy that commercial sweetcorn.


Painted Mountain Corn – Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr

I also planted Calendula seedlings out under the lemon tree, as a companion plant - my first batch of these flowers grown out from seed. Here's Calendulas being grown under grapes in a vineyard (thank you to Pinterest):










It's a bee-attracting, medicinally useful and very beautiful living mulch.

Oh, and I have an iPod for gardening... I find it a wonderful productivity tool for outdoors work. Music to energise or podcasts to feed the brain... my husband got me into this, by encouraging me to use his iPod outdoors and pointing me in the direction of some wonderful podcasts, as well as his extensive music collection...


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

I love gardens but don't seem to have enough time in the day to nurture one  

I wanted to start a raised bed veggie garden in my yard but I don't think that I will have the time to keep the weeds at bay. I do have a nice above ground koi pool that has an artesian well continuously feeding water into it. It flows back out onto the ground and back into the earth. I was thinking that it would be great to run a soaker hose over to a garden bed to self water a garden. Maybe in the fall I will start a winter garden with cabbage, broccoli, spinach, kale, bok choy, lettuce, peas, radish, onions, garlic, and leeks

Nice photos of the gardens. This will be a fun thread to see what other people do with their gardens.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

@egrogan , I can trade you some fig preserves for pickles! You may not have figs, but you have apples! And sugar maples! And grass!
@ACinATX , fennel is something I would like to try, and it seems we have similar climates (although here we have winter freezes down to -10C/14ºF). Is it difficult to grow from seed? Does it self-seed?


> I've realized is that without putting really intense effort into things and/or using lots of chemicals, there just isn't a lot that will grow well here.


This. I have given up trying to grow things that don't THRIVE on their own (like @egrogan's indoor/outdoor fig). If it can't take a bit of drought, freezing temps, or cookin' under the sun, then it does not belong in my garden.

Do you let the marjoram self-sow? or do you plant it at different times? it has such a short lifespan here, and I'd love to have majoram longer. I was thinking of trying to sow some every 2 weeks or so? Never tried sorrel; never heard of shiso. You EAT cardoons? 

No squirrels or raccoons here, thankfully. Just the dang rabbits.

@Knave , beauuuuutiful photos! I can't beleve you have children - you look like you're 12! Oh, wait - is that your daughter?

Now THAT is a lot of land. Where are you located? What sort of trees are those? Hmmmm… maybe hollyhocks would work here. When did you plant your veg garden?


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

> I'm doing the Nigella thing of getting up to have a snack at midnight


Wait, whoaaaa. I assum you are not talking about _Nigella sativa_?



> Woodrow style permaculture mandala


googling now… definitely not W. Wilson. And I know zero about permaculture. Will there be a test later? (HA!)



> Woodrow permaculture chicken dome


Yes, now I have heard it all. This is hysterical. A dome for chickens. Better than a cloche, I suppose. I really need to read up on this Woodrow method - looks simply ingenious. Green hummus? You're speaking my language.

The amount of work you have done in such a short time is mind-boggling. I hope to be able to do half as much once the youngest is off at college. Isn't that sad: having time to produce food once the kids are already grown, instead of benefitting from home-grown food now.
@LoriF , sounds like your koi "tea" would have lots of nutrients for that winter garden.
.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

That is my twelve year old @Spanish Rider. I will pretend I look so young and fresh.  Sometimes I get accused of looking like my oldest’s sister, but sadly that is because she looks 23 instead of 13, unlike her sister who does look 12. We want to put a sign on her when she goes into public “I’m 13” is all it will have to say. Lol

They are simply elm trees for the most part. Like you I believe in growing things that will actually grow, and gave up on big dreams of crazy trees that just kept dying when the temperatures fell. Arbor Day zones can be wrong... 

Holly hocks seem to grow everywhere. I like that garden, in the spring it is all tulips and these big purple ball things, and then by summer it is just a huge wall of holly hocks. I do hate the clean up though, and they seem to sprout everywhere. 

I haven’t planted the garden yet. We have a very short growing season. It is usually safe to plant on June 1st.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I'm just getting to this thread, and haven't read all the posts, but just want to say quickly that I am just stunned at how beautiful @SpanishRider's garden is! Wow! you have a gorgeous garden, and from such challenging conditions! very impressive.




Where I live, the soil is rich and water plentiful, though summers are dry. We can grow practically anything as long as it does not need weeks and weeks of heat. My own yard has too much shade to grow vegetables anymore, so I just do flowers. I am in love with Oriental litllies, and tulips. Here are some shots from my yard;


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Speaking of things that grow easily, I love these roses in my yard. I planted them as sticks about six years ago or so, and you can see how they’ve done well! Some don’t care for them, but they are the same type that dislike the elms. 

I also love irises and I mentioned tulips.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Oh wow @tinyliny! Those are beautiful.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Spanish Rider said:


> @*egrogan* , I can trade you some fig preserves for pickles! You may not have figs, but you have apples! And sugar maples! And grass!



I would gladly send you anything maple and/or apple butter if you want to swap for fig preserves- just let me know :wink:


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

I have a large garden but due to the late snow and freezing we had mine is not yet full planted. I will get you guys pictures once it is fully planted. This year I am only doing potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, squash, raspberries, strawberries, some assorted flowers and leaks. Onions are so cheap at the store and grow really poorly in my garden so I am just going to buy them this year. Brussel sprouts grow really well for me but they take up a ton of room for what they yield so I won't be doing them this year, besides the organic ones are dirt cheap from Costco anyway. My girls like to grow flowers and sun flowers so I will have a bunch of them as well I am guessing. The sun flowers get fed to the rabbits, they love them. I have tried a lot of stuff over the years like radishes, swiss chard, lettuce of many varieties, beans, peas, beets etc. but this year I am only growing stuff that I know the kids will eat and that grows well up here. I need to add more soil to my garden next year too. I noticed it is getting pretty depleted this year when I dug everything up to plant.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

This is one of my favorite blossom trees because it was nearly dead when we came her and DH wanted to take it out. I spent several days digging out a horrible ground cover evergreen that was depriving it of water and it’s flourished ever since though still smaller than the other flowering crabapples


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Spanish Rider said:


> @ACinATX , fennel is something I would like to try, and it seems we have similar climates (although here we have winter freezes down to -10C/14ºF). Is it difficult to grow from seed? Does it self-seed?
> 
> This. I have given up trying to grow things that don't THRIVE on their own (like @egrogan's indoor/outdoor fig). If it can't take a bit of drought, freezing temps, or cookin' under the sun, then it does not belong in my garden.
> 
> Do you let the marjoram self-sow? or do you plant it at different times? it has such a short lifespan here, and I'd love to have majoram longer. I was thinking of trying to sow some every 2 weeks or so? Never tried sorrel; never heard of shiso. You EAT cardoons?


ir

I grew the fennel from seedlings, not seeds. But it's not the bulbing (clumping) type, so the only part we can eat is the fronds, and that's more for garnish than cooking. But black swallowtail butterflies love to lay their eggs there. And it does taste good. I don't actually think it self-seeds, now that you mention it, although it does make seeds and they are edible. But every summer when it gets brown and the butterflies leave, I cut it down, and every late winter it comes back, stronger than ever.

The marjoram seeds but doesn't grow from seeds. It keeps trying to take over my garden by sending out runners. I pull them up but then feel guilty about it, so I pot them, grow them into more marjoram, and give it away. It's been out there for several years. It doesn't even die in the winter unless it gets well below freezing. 

You eat the stalks of the cardoons, apparently. Supposedly they taste just like artichoke (since they are a related species) but you can eat the whole stalk, whereas with an artichoke you get all of those tough petals that aren't edible. Now that they've gone to flower again, they look really pretty. I guess if I can't eat them, I can at least look at them. I planted them two years ago, and like the fennel they just came back by themselves.

Sorrel is a green that has a lovely lemony taste. You can eat the young leaves in salad or cook the older ones, although they do turn brown when cooked.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Spanish Rider said:


> Wait, whoaaaa. I assum you are not talking about _Nigella sativa_?







This sort of thing was always at the end of her cooking shows... :rofl:




> googling now… definitely not W. Wilson. And I know zero about permaculture. Will there be a test later? (HA!)


Would you like one? :Angel: In which case, do you prefer multiple choice, or essay form? ;-)




> Yes, now I have heard it all. This is hysterical. A dome for chickens. Better than a cloche, I suppose. I really need to read up on this Woodrow method - looks simply ingenious. Green hummus? You're speaking my language.


Yeah, almost luminescent green! 




> The amount of work you have done in such a short time is mind-boggling. I hope to be able to do half as much once the youngest is off at college. Isn't that sad: having time to produce food once the kids are already grown, instead of benefitting from home-grown food now.


Life circumstances also prevented it for me for half my statistical life span. I think one of the reasons we've got so much on the ground is that I'm fulltime between here, and my freelancing. I wouldn't have been able to do all that otherwise. Also, once I begin something, I can get a bit obsessed about doing it well, completing etc (of course, gardening is _never_ complete :rofl. Plus, the climate here is quite conducive to what we are trying to do - except for the summer drought. Eucalypts grow like triffids, as you know from Galicia...

Great thread! Must catch up later, the sun has come out! inkunicorn:


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## ladygodiva1228 (Sep 5, 2012)

I always have the hardest time attaching pictures. If these show up they are all my plants that I have ready to go in the garden. I started seeds in February and ended up with a good amount.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

My garden was created when the house was built about fifty years ago. My mum's family had a large plant nursery from the late 1800s and we think that some of the gardeners had a say in the layout. My great aunt passed the house to me but there's very little of the original garden other than a couple of bushes and rose bushes. It was too big for her and over the years two lawns were replaced with stones and a vegetable plot with sheds (for tack and other equipment, so I'm not complaining:smile.

Now, it's a mixture of ornamental and herbs. The soil is great due to years of adding manure and there's plenty of drainage as it's at the top of a hill. I think the wind and frost would cause the greatest amount of damage.

Herbs and medicinal plants include lavenders, sage, feverfew, lemon balm, chives, rosemary, mint, spearmint, peppermint, thymes, wild garlic, cowslips, chamomile, echinacea and, until last year, a curry plant and fennel. The fennel took over and out grew everything , reaching over five feet.

The only trees are cherry blossoms and a Rowan, as no Scottish garden should be without one! It's not the original, although it must be one of it's descendants as it casts seeds everywhere and I've spent the last week trying to pull out little trees. They've a powerful grip on the ground. I can only hope that the folklore about damaging them and bad luck isn't true! 😄

I love to hear bees in the garden and I was lucky to be invited to a Bee Awareness day next month. Oddly, it's through my work, which has nothing to do with gardens and bees but they've a couple of skeps in their garden. I'm hoping to get my own colony at some point. 

At this time of year, most of the flowers range from white through the blues to almost black.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Nature is finally waking up- it only took until June for "spring" to arrive this year! But all of a sudden...

Apple trees are blooming

















We have beautiful ostrich ferns all along our barn and our house, and they are bursting with spores to make new baby ferns. I've never seen them this loaded up


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

> I am just stunned at how beautiful @SpanishRider's garden is! Wow!


Thank you, @tinyliny , but just look at _your_ garden! Even though we are in very different climates, I think our gardening style is very similar: plant everything dense to choke out the weeds!

But seriously, I am envious of all your shade (reminds me of my mother's garden in MA) and your ability to grow monarda, hostas and tulips. This year, I only had one tulip come up and zero daffodils! It may have been the shrews.

I have to ask: is that a garden ornament or a bowling ball planted amongst your tulips? I have always loved spheres, and bowling balls have that bit of glitter that must look great in the sun. 
@Knave , yellow roses are my favorites! I have at least a dozen yellow rose bushes, some large climbers like yours, but mostly the old English type by David Austin. Irises do well here, too - very drought tolerant.



> I would gladly send you anything maple and/or apple butter if you want to swap for fig preserves- just let me know


 @egrogan , I hope you realize that I was joking! Although I would love to bring you fig preserves (I have an extra jar in the pantry that I am trying to avoid since I'm back on a zero-sugar diet again for my lungs), I am sure I would not make it past customs at Logan. Sorry, you'll just have to come to Spain to eat them here. On an aside, so sorry about Delia. We also had to put down my cat, Luna, in January. I swear I cried more for her than when my dad died last year. Hugs.
@AndyTheCornbread , where are you located? What is it about kids and sunflowers? I think they like growing flowers that are bigger than they are!
@jaydee , beautiful crabapples. I remember my mum in MA had a large crabapple that I loved, but when I was away at college she chopped it down. Are those daylillies growing underneath? I LOVE that white fence!
@ACinATX , I am going to have to try sorrel. It sounds very interesting, and we seem to have similar climates so it should work.


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

@Spanish Rider I'm in NW Montana up in the mountains about 60 or so miles from the border with Idaho. I'm up high enough in altitude that I have to plant as much as a month later than folks down in the valley and I have a much shorter growing season. I had to get a guy with a back hoe to dig down 3 feet across the entire area where I put the garden and then I back filled it with cow manure and dirt from where a friend pens his cows every winter so it is very rich black compost, or at least it was when I hauled it up here. The soil that is naturally up here won't grow anything but pine trees and rocks and sometimes a little grass and hardy bushes..


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

@*Spanish Rider* , yes, I knew you were joking, though I would sure love to taste those preserves. (Now off to daydream about a trip to Spain...) And, thanks for the condolences- back at you for the loss of your Luna. It's so hard to say goodbye to our friends.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

@SueC , sorry, but no Nigella here. Actually, no English shows to speak of ever since Downton Abbey. We don't have cable, either.
@ladygodiva1228 , bravo and olé! You, dear lady, are one extremely dedicated gardener. I grew up very close to you (Marlborough, MA), my sister lived in Franklin and my son is going to college in Worcester, so I know full well how brutal your winters can be. Do you start the seeds under lights? When do you put them out in the greenhouses? And out in the garden? You must have your fair share of critters to deal with, too.

Have you been starting from seed for many years? Because you look very successful at it. It is something I would love to do, too, but I always spend my summer in the US, so there is really no point. 
@Caledonian , I love the story about the inherited garden. I have an inherited "garden", too, at our summer house in Maine. What looks to be daylillies come up every year, but never flower. I think it is because the pines are now so large that there is too much shade for anything to flower.

Beautiful flowers, and that clematis is AMAZING!!! What are those black flowers? They remind me of columbines. I miss fuzzy bees! Here, they are not so chubby and fuzzy.


Here, we are in the 90's (33ºF) and we have had no rain since April, so the backyard looks like a hayfield. The wisterias that we planted 2 years ago on the south-side pérgola have really not grown much at all this spring, and I was really counting on them to creat some shade. Maybe some extra manure? Anyone else with wisteria?


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

@*egrogan* - They're gorgeous ferns!


@*Spanish Rider* - Yes, the black flowers are Columbine. About ten years ago i was given one with lime leaves and wine red flowers, since then it's been trying to take over the garden. Every so often blacks/purples, wine reds or blues appear. I do love the black with its dark green, almost blue leaves. 

I've never had a Wistera but i'd probably add manure/compost as well, water if it's been extremely dry. They like moist but well drained and rich soil. It'll be too young to have bloomed otherwise i'd add fertilizer for them as well. 


We've had rain for the last three days and a chilly 17C/62F! Our winter was one of warmest and driest on record; over 21C in February but the weather has taken a turn for the worst! I planted my annuals a few weeks ago and I'd been struggling to find the time to keep them watered, as they're planted throughout the garden. While i hate the rain, the plants are looking a lot happier.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Spanish Rider said:


> Thank you, @*tinyliny* , but just look at _your_ garden! Even though we are in very different climates, I think our gardening style is very similar: plant everything dense to choke out the weeds!
> 
> But seriously, I am envious of all your shade (reminds me of my mother's garden in MA) and your ability to grow monarda, hostas and tulips. This year, I only had one tulip come up and zero daffodils! It may have been the shrews.
> 
> ...


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Finally seeing irises opening.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

@egrogan , love those irises! Mine have been gone for 6 weeks now. Here, we have the really big, bearded type, but I much prefer the taller, simpler irises like yours. I have tried to grow them here, but they need more water and seemingly colder winter temps.

So, inspired by our @egrogan, I thought I'd share what is going on in my garden right now (well, the front garden because the back is a hayfield right now - will post another day).

This first flush of roses has past (some varieties have already had 2 flushes), so I am in the process of pruning back before I go to the States for the summer. (Note bucket of clippings.)








The lavender is filling in around the side path to the back yard. Last year, it was impassable, so I pruned them back harder (bought myself a hedge clipper for my birthday!), and I think they look better this year. You can see how close my neighbors are on this side (like I said, land is ridiculously expensive here). This area is begging me to put in an arch over the path, don't you think?








The honeysuckle is starting to bloom, so I have brought some inside because I love the scent. Yes, it is invasive, but the area I have planted it in (on the fence next to the driveway) needs coverage.








Finally, I have an amaryllis that only has the energy to bloom every 4 years. Funny thing is, I bought it years ago to force inside for Christmas (note the candy-cane colors). It has never flowered at Christmas, though! Anyway, these double-headed flowers in Spanish are commonly called _la nuera y la suegra_ ("the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law") because they turn their backs to each other, as if angry. ;-)


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

Beautiful flowers and gardens all! Just beautiful all around. My garden is getting there... when I say garden it's not what you guys have, it's really just a small plot with your basic veggies.... got tomatoes on the vine as well as cucumbers, no peppers yet... c'mon peppers catch up. I picked green beans! Almost have enough for a nice meal. Nothing like a fresh veggie dinner! My neighbors son brought over zuchs, squash, cucumbers and a nice bushel of blueberries! Yum! The blueberries are good... Blueberry pancakes here I come! lol


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Love the lavender path @Spanish Rider! When we moved away from our house in New Hampshire, I was so sad to leave behind my "kitchen garden" full of herbs that were really starting to establish themselves. We had beautiful lavender, sage, and chives that were spreading and establishing. I hope the people who bought the house left it there. I haven't yet started a new kitchen garden at our current house because we'll be changing the front facade of the house later this summer when we get into kitchen renovations, so I think it will be next year until I get to do that.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

> when I say garden it's not what you guys have, it's really just a small plot with your basic veggies


@Ib27312 , oh that's what I wish I could have! But, there's no point for me to have a summer veg garden because I don't spend summers here, so I would never be able to harvest anything. I often think of trying to plant a winter veg garden, but I would need some sort of greenhouse/tunnel/protection at this altitude. 

Anyone have any experience with that?
@egrogan , when you say you are changing the facade, do you mean just the cladding, or are you tearing down walls & adding on?


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Spanish Rider said:


> @*egrogan* , when you say you are changing the facade, do you mean just the cladding, or are you tearing down walls & adding on?



We're tearing down an inside wall to combine the current very small kitchen with an awkward small "sitting room" to make it one bigger kitchen space. The sitting room is currently on the front of the house, and it includes what we call "the boob" (sorry to be crass)- an awful bay window that was tacked on in the 1980s and doesn't belong on the house at all. The house is a classic cape cod style that should have a set of two or three 9-over-6 windows on the front instead of this monstrosity. So "the boob" is being removed, as are some overgrown evergreen shrubs that cover the whole front of the house, blocking the light from coming in. We'll probably replace the evergreens with hydrangeas, and that will also open up a spot near the front door where I can do the herb garden. Theoretically the kitchen construction will be done before it snows, which probably means the replanting will have to be next year.


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

egrogan said:


> @lb27312-
> 
> This is the pickle recipe I've been using lately (though it's for refrigerator pickles vs. "putting up" pickles):
> www.thekitchn.com/small-batch-recipe-cucumber-pickles-urban-preserving-with-marisa-mcclellan-173303


I'm trying this today! Just picked a few cucumbers so glad this is for a small batch... can't wait to try them! Thanks for the link!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@egrogan, your house is having a mastectomy? You absolutely must write that up for TOB, boob word included. It will have prospective Aussie owner builders going :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: and besides, you have such history in your house...

@Spanish Rider, your lavender looks great.  My new lavender (>2 years old, from cuttings, I'm spreading that stuff everywhere) looks like that, but I've got some lavender that missed a pruning when I broke my foot last year. How hard can you trim back lavender gone woody? Do you have a tried technique for that, which I can adopt? I don't want to be so brutal that it dies - but as brutal as possible...

End-of-autumn garden produce here:

Painted mountain corn, which we love steamed on the cob with butter and salt. It's an heirloom variety, with way more protein and antioxidants and less sugar than hybrid sweetcorns, which is basically lollies in vegetable form, bred up for sugar. This stuff tastes to the hybrid modern stuff like proper homegrown potatoes taste compared to mass grown potatoes! Our guests love these. Two little girls took home seeds to grow their own, they liked it so much; plus they can make necklaces with the kernels! 



It wasn't a great summer for cucurbits - we had a huge drought, and many overcast days. Irrigation helped, but we couldn't make artificial sun for them, so cucumbers, pumpkins, spaghetti squashes were very much down in number and size on usual summer crops - and also, this was the first season since we got bee hives in 2010 that we had no honey harvest, due to the Eucalypts not flowering, due to the drought. The colonies had a tough time; they basically survived mostly on what we have flowering in the garden, which includes lots of lavender. Here were some pumpkins from autumn harvest though - Potimarron and Turks Turban:



It's the first year I managed to grow cooking variety tomatoes from seed - I've had lots of salad tomatoes since 2011, but the cooking varieties gave me headaches. This changed with the purchase of a $40 mini-greenhouse, in which I could start trays and pots of seedlings early:



So I got these guys growing early, and planted out early, and they yielded incredibly - I've been making pasta sauces all autumn, and the freezer is filled with excess tomatoes for winter cooking. We've still got tomatoes ripening indoors in the sun, in mid-June, when it's too cold outside for ripening...



So I made my first ever bottle of tomato sauce last week - the sort to have with cheesies and sausages and BBQs. @Spanish Rider, you were intrigued by the spices on my journal. One of the things that held me back from making my own non-pasta, BBQ type tomato sauce from bought farmer's market tomatoes before I grew my own is that tomatoes themselves simply didn't taste like that classic tomato sauce. The recipe I tried out last week, I found in a classic cookbook, but I reduced the added sugar from 2 cups (yegads!!!) to 1/4 cup, and it's wonderful, sweet enough and not sickly like so many sauces these days. It turns out those were the spices that make BBQ type tomato sauce taste like BBQ type tomato sauce. You don't see it on the labels of commercial sauces because they generally get imitation flavours from chemistry labs, or if they still uses spices, will just say "spices" on the label...

If anyone wants to try it:

*Real Tomato Sauce, 100% Local Tomatoes, Organically Grown, Re-Used Glass Bottle, No Artificial Anything, Low Sugar, No Substitute Sweeteners, No Corporations, No Exploitation, No Industrial Farming, Negligible Food Miles, Tastes Amazing
*
Makes approx. 1 litre – cook larger quantities if you are happy with the result, and have more ripe (or frozen) tomatoes on hand. If you don't – start some tomato seedlings by late winter, and make this next summer. It's not quite 100% Australian ingredients because of some spices, but that's a minor compromise.

1.5 kg ripe tomatoes – cooking varieties like Roma or Amish Paste – some Cherry types in the mix work too – supermarket tomatoes won't have the flavour
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tsp freshly ground peppercorns
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cloves (can use whole, then fish out at end)
1 tsp ground or finely grated ginger
1 tsp allspice / pimento
¼ tsp cayenne pepper or ground chillies
1 clove garlic, crushed
300mL white vinegar, or cider vinegar
1/4 cup (or less) brown sugar – tomatoes already contain sugar
50g tomato paste (optional, to thicken, add at end)

Place all ingredients except tomato paste in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring to the boil, cook on medium for 40 minutes with the lid on, then lift the lid slightly by keeping your wooden spoon in the pan and continue cooking around 40 minutes more (stir frequently to prevent sticking) until thick and pulpy. Add tomato paste if using, zap with blender stick until it's as fine as you want it, fill into pre-warmed glass bottle with a funnel while hot. Let cool, and refrigerate. If you want to store this in the pantry for later, use sterile techniques for bottling. This is a “wholemeal” sauce - I don't bother straining out seeds or skin; I like fibre and extra flavour.

Enjoy – while making a better world, as well as your own sauce.










It's great on steak sandwiches:











The young apple trees yielded well, and kept us in delicious apples all summer and autumn. We just finished the last of them a fortnight ago. The Sundowner was our champion yielder, and only its second apple season in the garden here! Bare-rooted trees do so well early, as they're older than potted trees for sale, and their root systems have never been confined to small spaces.




New garden and farm photos here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/

What's everyone been making, from their own gardens?


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## lostastirrup (Jan 6, 2015)

A bit late to the game, but here are the porch buckets. 

Cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, radish, kale, spinach, lettuce. And a potato tree. 

I've given up on cucumbers. The stuff in the round buckets are later starts.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I really admire your determination to garden even if you have to do it in pots, @lostastirrup!  You're such a Renaissance woman! :clap: I didn't really start until we had land of our own to garden with (not counting my attempts as a teenager which were destroyed by the goat getting let off her chain when I was at school).


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Well, we don’t have great weather yet @SueC. It froze last night, and I’ve avoided looking at my garden. I have the seed to replace the pumpkins, squash, herbs, peppers and tomatoes, but I’ve no more melon seeds. It was a stretch to try and grow them anyways. I’m not sure what will produce now with the growing season so very shortened. Often we are safe after the first.

Anyways, not much to cook yet. I did make rhubarb sauce, which I love mixed with cream. I think it must be something you’ve always eaten to love, and my girls and husband either don’t like it or refuse to try it.

Little girl and I have been harvesting the honey berry bushes. They are small bushes still, but they produce intensely. However, the birds steal them all... we’ve yet to eat one because of the birds. This year we aren’t waiting. Each night we go out and harvest any dark purple berries. They aren’t as sweet as we hoped for, with the name and all, but we are hoping to get enough before the birds to make a jar of jelly. 

Later we plan on making jelly with currants and plumbs, but they will later on.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

That's such a shame about the frost, @Knave. In Tasmania they have trouble with a short growing season, and a lot of our GR folk from there use polytunnels or greenhouse arrangements to extend their seasons. If this is something you're looking into, I can send you some articles from people grappling with these situations, and trialling these things! :hug:

And I wish I could :tardis: you some bird nets. We just took the last ones off our olives when we harvested those, and now all are back in their bags till next summer... just when you could use them!


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

I would be @SueC, but I don’t feel I can afford much in the way of that this year or next. I was looking at your little zipper greenhouse idea a bit curiously. $40 I can probably swing before next spring. I guess it’s only for starts, but I’m sure that is helpful too!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Some of those polytunnels they were trialling weren't hugely expensive. I'll keep a look-out for you for budget options. Some of these guys DIY, but you'd have to be able to get large sturdy transparent sheets of plastic cheap somewhere... hmmm... where from? I do know some people who've made mini-greenhouses and cold frames using old windows and glass doors they got for free from the tip, or for very little from auction. Also there's this stuff called frost cloth, which you cover your garden beds with on nights where frost is forecast... I'm looking into that so I can reliably grow potatoes through our winter... so far am using old bedsheets, bubblewrap etc... you can get large sheets of bubblewrap for free by the way if you talk to people building houses, and windows and glass doors usually come bubble-wrapped... ours did...


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

@SueC I usually cover the gardens when it freezes. We use blankets or straw. I didn’t rush to it this time because my garden is big now, and most everything is started. Often it is earlier and just one or two rows have sprouted that will be killed. 

I have seen all of those ‘do it yourself’ greenhouses with the plastic sheeting. We have tons of plastic sheeting, because we put it under the bottom bales in a stack. My dad always said the wind blows too hard for that to work here. I never was sure until I put up some plastic in the horse corral as desensitizing. It took two days for it to shred completely.

Even the tarps I put up later ended up shredded, but they did last longer, probably a couple months.

ETA: Potatoes are one of our reliable crops. I have heard that you can leave the straw covering on them to grow. I haven’t done it, but I’ve been told it works. My mother in law kept her carrots, not growing but usable, by covering them with a big layer of straw once winter hit. It gets really cold here, and she could still pull usable carrots.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

That sounds great, @Knave. One of my biggest headaches is our avocado tree. Six years old and a stick with a couple of leaves, and its three friends all died in frosts that weren't forecast. That's what you get trying to grow subtropical plants in areas with frosts, but people keep telling me that if you can get the tree taller than yourself and bushy, it will be OK with light frosts then. _If_... I bubblewrap it every time a frost is forecast. It was actually looking good this year until Ben got in the garden and ate all its leaves and little branches. Now it's starting from square one again...


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

We have a little garden, maybe about 200 m2 that is not in driveway, patio, deck, and house. I have a lot of large containers as well in various places. It was a traditional garden when we moved in (about 4 years ago), with lots of roses and decorative shrubs, and I am slowly converting it. I like to plant fruit and natives (NZ; for the birds), perennial herbs, and wild flowers that attract pollinators. 

Our climate is cool but not super cold. According to Wikipedia it is oceanic and temperate. Average highs in summer are around the early to mid 20s °C, and average lows in winter are around 5 °C. We get a decent amount of rain, enough to not usually have drought issues, and not so much that it is too wet. We live in a little warm microclimate for our city, so can grow some things that others do not (citrus etc.). Many other places in the city get frost and ice in winter, but it is extremely rare for us to get that where we are. So winter is not that cold. Our main limitations are that summer never gets super warm and it is short. Pretty much we have spring/autumn-ish weather for most of the year with a short summer and short winter.

So far we have: blueberries (10), pear (2), apples (8), lime (2), mandarin (2), lemon (2), fig (1), feijoa (4), grapes (2), raspberries (many), blackcurrants (2), redcurrant (1), various blackberry/logan berry plants (6? these are not fruiting, but I had better luck with them at a different property that was cooler, shadier, and wetter), strawberries (many), apricot (1, not fruiting, may need a pollinator or a different variety as it always seems to flower too early in spring and then gets hit by a cold snap), hmm, I am probably forgetting something.

Vege wise we grow potatoes, NZ yams (oca), darker greens (e.g., kale, bok choy, gai lan, spinach, misome), garlic. This year we grew tomatillos, which did really well. We will extend more on the veges that we grow once our vege beds are properly established, but we have some retaining walls to build in that area.


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## lostastirrup (Jan 6, 2015)

@SueC 
I over planted for my space, because we don't actually have a frost-free date where I live, so I counted on some deaths. So the cucumbers (RIP) were started and planted three times only for my last batch to succumb mid-june to freezing temperatures. The rest are doing okay. I lost 2 radishes, a carrot and a cauliflower to cold so far, but I'm hoping I'll have a serviceable survival rate at the end of summer.


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## lostastirrup (Jan 6, 2015)

Knave said:


> @SueC I usually cover the gardens when it freezes. We use blankets or straw. I didn’t rush to it this time because my garden is big now, and most everything is started. Often it is earlier and just one or two rows have sprouted that will be killed.
> 
> I have seen all of those ‘do it yourself’ greenhouses with the plastic sheeting. We have tons of plastic sheeting, because we put it under the bottom bales in a stack. My dad always said the wind blows too hard for that to work here. I never was sure until I put up some plastic in the horse corral as desensitizing. It took two days for it to shred completely.
> 
> ...


This last spring my pastors youngest pulled garlic's out of the garden in May. Still good from the year before. We had them with pasta and were pleasantly surprised


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

This is my first year with garlic @lostastirrup. I am super excited! 

I am thinking I will need to replant the beans, squash and pumpkins. I don’t know that pumpkins will have a long enough season now. I also lost my radishes, but I’ve no idea why. Maybe it was a bad batch of seeds (most I never saw germinate), or maybe it was the birds. The birds take a lot of my seeds. I thought of posting a dog there, but they are just as damaging to gardens themselves.


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

SueC said:


> One of my biggest headaches is our avocado tree. Six years old and a stick with a couple of leaves, and its three friends all died in frosts that weren't forecast. That's what you get trying to grow subtropical plants in areas with frosts, but people keep telling me that if you can get the tree taller than yourself and bushy, it will be OK with light frosts then. _If_... I bubblewrap it every time a frost is forecast.


I use a liquid/spray on wax "frost cloth". This one here. Can you source something like that where you are? It is super easy because you just spray it on near the start of the frost period for your area, and then reapply about every 6 weeks. I use it on my more sensitive citrus, like the lime trees, to cover the odd times that we do get a frost at our property.


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

SueC said:


> Some of those polytunnels they were trialling weren't hugely expensive. I'll keep a look-out for you for budget options. Some of these guys DIY, but you'd have to be able to get large sturdy transparent sheets of plastic cheap somewhere... hmmm... where from? I do know some people who've made mini-greenhouses and cold frames using old windows and glass doors they got for free from the tip, or for very little from auction. Also there's this stuff called frost cloth, which you cover your garden beds with on nights where frost is forecast... I'm looking into that so I can reliably grow potatoes through our winter... so far am using old bedsheets, bubblewrap etc... you can get large sheets of bubblewrap for free by the way if you talk to people building houses, and windows and glass doors usually come bubble-wrapped... ours did...


This is a NZ site to source stuff to DIY grow tunnels. Maybe you can find something similar in your location. They sell fiberglass poles, all sorts of cloth covers, and clips to attach the cloth to the poles, and it all seems relatively affordable. It is what we are planning to do for our vege garden area once we have the retaining walls built. I also have this site bookmarked for future reference. They sell kits to do the same thing. I like the idea of being able to change the cloth with the need for the season (frost, bugs, birds, etc.) compared with buying a greenhouse/glasshouse.

My mum used to use old windows etc. in her garden. My caution with them would be that they are really easy to step on by accident, particularly by kids, and the glass seems to be of a really easily breakable sort (maybe more brittle with age). I would also be a bit wary of lead-based paints on the framing with older windows/doors and that flaking off onto soil you are growing edibles in. But otherwise, it seems to work well.


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

Knave said:


> Anyways, not much to cook yet. I did make rhubarb sauce, which I love mixed with cream. I think it must be something you’ve always eaten to love, and my girls and husband either don’t like it or refuse to try it.
> 
> Little girl and I have been harvesting the honey berry bushes. They are small bushes still, but they produce intensely. However, the birds steal them all... we’ve yet to eat one because of the birds. This year we aren’t waiting. Each night we go out and harvest any dark purple berries. They aren’t as sweet as we hoped for, with the name and all, but we are hoping to get enough before the birds to make a jar of jelly.


I think that is true on the rhubarb. I love it because we always had it growing up, but it is an acquired taste. I find if I mix it with something like apple then it is more acceptable to those that have not grown up eating it. My mum used to make really yummy rhubarb and fig jam.

I had never heard of a honey berry. They look interesting! Like a weirdly shaped blueberry. The berries in my garden are always a fight to get between the birds (I use bird netting but some always manage to sneak in) and my 6 year old who stakes out in the garden and eats everything straight off the bushes. I just let her even if it means the rest of us don't see much of the produce. Some of my best memories as a child are of sitting under the bushes in our enormous blackcurrant patch and eating them off the bushes.


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

I had to go to something like this to keep birds out of my berries: https://www.amazon.com/BirdBlock-Bird-Netting-Reusable-Protection/dp/B00004RA0O


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

MeditativeRider said:


> I use a liquid/spray on wax "frost cloth". This one here. Can you source something like that where you are? It is super easy because you just spray it on near the start of the frost period for your area, and then reapply about every 6 weeks. I use it on my more sensitive citrus, like the lime trees, to cover the odd times that we do get a frost at our property.


Thanks a million for this tip! This is something I'd never heard of before, despite reading gardening literature. I'm going to give this a try for sure! 

Excellent comment about potential lead paint on old windows. I'm also going _eeeeeek_ when people use old tyres in their food gardens. Potential leakage of nasty chemicals etc...

Across the pond from you, I have to tell you I really wish we had your PM... can't you guys just annexe us? inkunicorn:


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

MeditativeRider said:


> I think that is true on the rhubarb. I love it because we always had it growing up, but it is an acquired taste. I find if I mix it with something like apple then it is more acceptable to those that have not grown up eating it. My mum used to make really yummy rhubarb and fig jam.
> 
> I had never heard of a honey berry. They look interesting! Like a weirdly shaped blueberry. The berries in my garden are always a fight to get between the birds (I use bird netting but some always manage to sneak in) and my 6 year old who stakes out in the garden and eats everything straight off the bushes. I just let her even if it means the rest of us don't see much of the produce. Some of my best memories as a child are of sitting under the bushes in our enormous blackcurrant patch and eating them off the bushes.


The birds don’t bother the currents much. This year we plan on making jelly with them. I’ve never preferred them, although I remember eating them as a kid too. There was a huge line of them on the property I grew up on. The birds are selective at my house now, leaving the currants for things they prefer.

The honey berries are super easy, although loved by the birds. They tolerate freezing very well. I had never seen anyone grow them, and it is difficult to grow things here, so I thought they wouldn’t make it. I ordered two from amazon, and I spent like $50. I expected these decent starts, and they were barely two inches tall. I was disappointed, until they surprised me.

They grew a ton that first year, and the two years since. They are the first things to come out, and their flowers are pretty enough. They produce as much as a currant, and seem just as hardy.

I don’t know how they will do as far as eating, but we are going to give it a try! They taste a lot like a blueberry, which isn’t my favorite, but should make good jelly I think.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

AndyTheCornbread said:


> I had to go to something like this to keep birds out of my berries: https://www.amazon.com/BirdBlock-Bird-Netting-Reusable-Protection/dp/B00004RA0O


I really should. Little girl begged me to, but I am such a freak about the yard and they are right in a center area that I want to look really pretty. Lol


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

This isn't pretty?  Don't you like giant spiders? ;-)



...you really could make up some giant spiders to go with the look!  A nice summer project for the three arty females of your family...


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Lol @SueC! If they were my favorite thing I might. I actually really enjoy the birds; like an old man I sit and watch them. I have these tiny yellow ones that come when the dandelions bloom! I call them dandelion birds.

Anyways, I love the birds until they eat my seeds and berries. Apparently a little doe decided to come eat off my starts that didn’t freeze. I like deer too, but I am sick of animals stealing my food! Lol 

One year a group of eight bucks kept coming into my garden at night. I was so mad at them! Two were nice bucks too, and I tried to convince my little cousins to come hunt one to kick them out of my garden (they drew the correct tags), but the bucks only came in around midnight. I ran them off a couple times, but I gave up and we all survived.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

@SueC , I did not realize that it was a barbecue-type tomato sauce! When don't eat barbecue sauces here, so I have never heard of that before. Must try. Love your little propagator, but we have a major wind problem here (think Don Quixote and his giants), so I need to figure myself out something more substantial.


@lostastirrup , brava!!! You are rocking that balcony garden. It actually reminds me of trying to créate a balcony garden in Madrid when I first moved here way back in 1993... it did not go well! Way too hot for anything to survive. Yours looks fantastic!


@Knave , I have no idea what honey berries are!? I hear you about the wind. Freezes everything in the winter, dries everything out in the summer, blows away everything that is not bolted down year long.


@MeditativeRider , your temps are amazing! We go from -7ishºC in winter to 45ºC+ in the summer. Today, it's 37ºC, with dry sandy air blowing up from the Sahara. I can't believe that your temps only vary 15 degrees, whereas our sometimes vary 20 to 25 degrees C IN ONE DAY!


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I have to net all of our soft fruit bushes to keep birds off and I think maybe small rodents eat them too. This year one of my two gooseberry bushes has just died and so has the big blackcurrant which is depressing because they were grown from bare root and I can’t find any local already growing replacements.
The deer have started eating the lower branches of the young pear trees but the spray seems to put them off.
Rhubarb is a big fail in my garden. 
I wish that Rosemary and Fennel were perennials here but they can’t tolerate the winters.


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

OK, as promised, I am posting photos of my back garden in summer mode. The Death Star seems to be hovering just inches over our heads, and the Sahara is kicking up lots of hot air and dust. Today is 37ºC (upper 90'sF) and we will be in the 40's (over 105F) starting Thursday. We have had no rain since March.

So, logically, my garden is in summer dormancy. Here our native plants completely dry out and look dead, and non-natives are only able to survive with drip irrigation. The plus side? Nothing grows, so weeds don't either.


Looking east (notice unfinished, abandoned house with no windows - thanks to our ongoing economic crisis):










Looking south, with Cookie and Trufa - you can see oleanders on the fence and two-feet-high olives trees towards the right:










Looking west, with sail on pérgola until wisteria fills in:










Also looking west, with my experimental drought-resistant garden in the foreground. "Experimental" because the plants are all drought-resistant and started from cuttings, so I have not installed drip irrigation, and we'll see what survives. I feel like you can really feel the heat in this photo.:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Spanish Rider said:


> @SueC , I did not realize that it was a barbecue-type tomato sauce! When don't eat barbecue sauces here, so I have never heard of that before. Must try. Love your little propagator, but we have a major wind problem here (think Don Quixote and his giants), so I need to figure myself out something more substantial.


Yeah, we live in a wind tunnel ourselves and often get gusts to 60km/h; in really bad winter storms it gets up to 100km/h. So I had to put my mini-greenhouse in a relatively sheltered spot, and tie it down really well - it tipped over frequently before I did that. So, I've siliconed the whole frame together at the stick-in joins, and the top arch is suspended by rope off the patio beam, while the legs at the bottom are securely roped to the main trunks of the lavender growing immediately behind. This has been most helpful in keeping things stable in winds up to 60km/h, but when stronger gales are forecast, I move the trays indoors and take the cover off the greenhouse for the duration. Thankfully that's only a handful of times every winter.

And precisely because our winds are so harsh, my garden does so much better when I start seedlings, including peas, in the greenhouse, and transplant them when they are relatively advanced, sturdy plants. It also stops bugs and slugs gobbling the seeds or sprouting plants before they have a chance to get off the ground.

By the way, I think the American term for something similar to the BBQ style tomato sauces is ketchup.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Saw the first of the wild strawberries out in the lawn yesterday. They are very tiny, about the size of raisins, but they are the most strawberry-tasting strawberries you'll find. So intensely flavored. It's rare to get to them before the birds do so it's a special treat to find them.


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

Since I'm getting buried in cucumbers I'm trying to make some Hamburger dill chips, I did them in a hot water bath so they last longer. I hope they turn out. And for good measure I did a jar of spicy dilly beans. Everything in the garden is doing good... I went to the feed store the other day and they were selling 4 packs of plants for 17 cents so I grabbed a few... they don't look too good but wanted to give them a chance.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I gave up growing cucumbers because we couldn't eat them fast enough, when we had hens in the UK I used to throw them in to them but we've never gotten round to having any here. 
I did try the pickled thing one year but it was an epic fail!
Asparagus has been good this year and I made 4 jars of strawberry jam last week


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

You've really made an oasis, @Spanish Rider, and in very harsh conditions. I love the photos!


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I love this tree but they grow so fast here my DH moans about it all the time because it creeps over the lawn and the little manege


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

What exactly is it, @jaydee, and where is it native to? And what's it like in flower?


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

SueC said:


> What exactly is it, @*jaydee*, and where is it native to? And what's it like in flower?


 Its called a Dappled Willow in the US, I think we just called it a variegated salix or variegated willow in the UK. Its Latin name is _salix integra_
Its Japanese in origin
The flowers are like a lot of tree flowers - non existent in terms of appearance! The beauty is in the colours of the leaves.
The one I had in the UK never grew above 4 feet and it took it years to get there but I'm pruning the two I have here back a couple of times a year, with help from Willow the horse who likes to snack on it when she can get in the manege, and they just rampage on, upwards and outwards!


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

Happy Friday all!!! Whew it's warm everywhere it seems. Been travelling for work the last few weeks, every since I got back from camping in TN.... so when I got home last weekend I saw I had a few ripe tomatoes, wish it was more! So raided it again this weekend and I see there are more becoming ripe. So last weekend and this one first thing I did was I made tomato sandwiches!  After saying hello to everyone! So happy to be home...


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

@lb27312- Now THOSE are tomatoes! Not those pale, dry store bought things. YUM!


Thanks for updating this thread. As the season has gone on, I've been pleased to see how much of the semi-wild cottage garden has come to life. This is a good reminder to organize some pictures I've taken over the past few weeks and post here.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Spring is just beginning in Australia, and this means I've been busy in the garden. Everything starts with compost - here's the current bin:



Ours is a permaculture garden, and this is a typical mixed bed; all vegetables grown from seed - mostly in our little greenhouse.



Greenfeast peas in front, mustard / salad greens, rainbow chard, radishes, potatoes, and calendulas.



The compost bin behind has the last lot of compost and is currently direct seeded with cucumbers, which should germinate any day now. Another two older piles are direct seeded with pumpkins. This way I get the best pumpkin harvests, compared to growing them in beds, and after harvest, there is a lot of mature compost left that can then be spread into the plant beds.



Here I've got Scotch Blue kale and broad beans sheltering new seedlings.



...these young salad greens grow so much better when planted in a "clearing" of harvested vegetables in a bed, compared to growing things conventionally.

I grow quite a few flowers amongst the vegetables for pest control, and to make the bees and me happy. These daisies are spreading, and I will transplant some of them to a location that could use them soon.



This is small celery seedings planted (again, in protectors) in a clearing in an existing bed.



Poppies, potatoes, fennel and broad beans:



Climbing peas, poppies, broad beans. Unfortunately, something is killing the stems of these peas at ground level, and I've yet to work out what the problem is. This only happens to the climbing peas, and a neighbour has given up on growing them altogether. This is why the plants are yellowing at the bottom. It's a shame, because they're lovely plants, and we like peas.



Leeks, potatoes and broad beans:



Old Brussels sprouts, new salad vegetables in protectors, peas. This was the first time I was able to grow Brussels sprouts from seed, and the plants are over a year old. Because there was too much nitrogen in the soil, the sprouts were too loose to harvest - something to learn from. Still, these plants are wonderfully decorative, and will shelter the next lot of seedlings before being removed to the compost bin when I need the space.



Protected seedlings include rocket, mizuna, cos lettuces, beetroot:



I've got rows and rows of seedling onions planted out in the mulch here:



This is a new lavender hedge grown from cuttings a year back; the bees love it, and it's a windbreak. The trellises will hopefully be overgrown with beans in summer, but it's tricky with the hot drying winds to grow climbing beans. I have to throw sheets over them on really hot days to stop them dying.


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## lb27312 (Aug 25, 2018)

Great pics @SueC! You have such a variety of plants.... I got a lot of cucumbers, peppers and jalapeno peppers but the tomatoes while they did good just didn't produce enough to do salsa.. so was bummed about that. I did make a lot of jalapeno poppers and put them in the freezer, so far the ones I've had are great! I did use my food save to save some bell peppers, jalapeno peppers and hot banana peppers in the freezer for winter soups and what not... I haven't had rain in a while and everything is soooo dry so garden has given up, I really hope next year goes better, need to figure out what went wrong with the tomatoes. The ones I got were super good but just not enough to do salsa and sauces.... 

Going to try to plant some garlic before it turns cool. And get my little pond cleaned.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I need to get some garlic planted this week and the new lot of daffodil and tulip bulbs I bought. 
My summer challenge was to clear a stretch of ground behind the pool that’s impossible to maintain as garden. It had become infested with invasive Asian bittersweet and other undesirables. It’s now almost finished and covered in gravel where I can use planters to grow things and easier to manage. Hopefully the remaining shrubs will survive.
The veg garden has done well, the early soft fruit suffered from the long dry spell.
Leaves are turning fast and won’t be long before we’re putting it all to bed for the winter
My greenhouse arrived yesterday, has to be put together but will be good to have one again.


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