Monday, September 1, 2014

In the garden: September

I am declaring the first of each month gardening post day, for my records if not anyone else's interest. It has been a slow winter in our garden as baby C's arrival meant we did only the essential. The roses got a later than usual prune and at times we have had not so much lawn as forest. This given, things are looking pretty good and I am looking forward to spring and hopefully a little more time to spend outside.

A quick summary of what is happening outside:

The blueberries are ready to ripen:

The lime tree is very happy - a bumper crop that has only just finished and in flower again. (Blueberries in pots to the left and right).



The orange tree is also blossoming and smells wonderful. We're hoping for a few more than the two oranges it managed to produce this year.

 

The pile of sticks you can see behind it is due to...


... this! No more sad and sorry Geraldton waxes suffering for lack of sunlight. I am now scheming what to plant here. The overhead shade sails means it gets very little sunlight - a few hours in the morning down the right hand end, almost nothing for the rest of it. Dithering between ferns of some kind which will look good without much effort and something like azaleas which will be brighter but require more care.

In the vegie patch...


... there is a broad bean jungle. And a few snow peas to the left.


Plenty of rocket at the front, plus self-seeded tomatoes at the back. They came up at the end of summer and I left them in as an experiment. Once they were large enough I moved them into slightly better spots than they had chosen for themselves and was pleasantly surprised they survived winter. I was even happier when little green fruit appeared and am quietly stoked now they are ripening! 


To the left of this photo are "purple" broccoli - planted from a Bunnings punnet in April (?) and yet to show any sign of being purple or of anything edible. Probably going to get turned into food for Grandma and Papa's many chickens sometime soon. The rest of this photo shows: a single artichoke, also planted from a seedling as an experiment - has grown significantly but no sign of flowers; more tomatoes; a squillion nasturtiums that have come up from the seeds I threw around last summer in the hope of enticing bees. Seeing as they only appeared recently they did nothing to assist with the pollination of the summer zucchinis and cucumbers and I fear I will be pulling self-seeded nasturtiums out of the rest of the garden forever more.

Last but not least, my favourite sign of spring:




Maybe this will be the year I figure out what to do about the blighty little fruit flies and we get more than three apricots.

1 comment:

Jo @ Country Life Experiment said...

I've started making my first monday of the month my garden day too! great minds lol.

Your garden looks further ahead than ours... I'm jealous about your blueberries!

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