Ah, @simplymike, I hope I'm not too late for the garden challenge! I've been away for a fortnight, leaving the garden in the capable hands of my son and a makeshift watering system which seemed to keep everything alive!
When I returned, there were artichokes! As I write this, I am steaming them whole with lemon, and I'll then cool them, slice off the outer leaves and marinate with olive oil, oregano and some vinegar, salt and pepper. They will be part of my birthday food platter when I camp on the weekend - seriously, shaved manchego and home marinated artichoke hearts are the BOMB!!!
The blossoms have been amazing this year - I'm so blessed to have had a European spring and now enjoying an Australian one! The quinces and pears have already set fruit, and my son's girlfriend and I are already planning manchego, baked quinces with spices and wine, and tarts.
There's other fun things happening all over the garden. The rhubarb's mostly been divided and sold (I make about 50 bucks each year from divided rhubarb, which I buy magic manure with - a gorgeous blend of fish, livestock manure and compost that I sprinkle on the garden), the mugwort is coming, the coriander is starting to grow, and the potatoes are bursting through the straw. I am trying the straw method this year, and crossing our fingers we don't get a late frost! The blackcurrants are in leaf and I've taken lots of cuttings this year. Seems I can never quite take enough, or be as prepared as I want to be. Maybe one of my summer jobs should be just filling some pots with soil ready to poke cuttings in for next year.
The raspberry patch was transplanted this year, and is doing well - I've actually put strawberries next to them and I might make a polytunnel/hoop house shade thing to go over the top, both against birds and the hella hot Aussie sun. I've been meaning to do that for years and now I have the time off work, I should stop procrastinating and just do it. A lot of my garden work this year is making good systems so when I do go back to work, it's not as labour intensive. Who am I kidding, right?
I've made a ton of wicking buckets for the greenhouse/hoophouse, as I found a source at a bakery that were selling them for a buck each. I'll write a how to later but they should keep the capsicum, tomato, chilli and eggplant well watered. I will plant them in the garden too but I wanted to see how early (and late) I could get these summer crops. I've also got turmeric growing in the beds and the other day I noticed my ginger sprouting! So I've planted that in the beds as well - if I can grow turmeric and ginger in the hoophouse I'd be thrilled.
Stupidly I forgot to plant eggplant as seeds - just overlooked it - so I will buy some seedlings this year. I've got some orange and chocolate capsicums, some mixed capsicums (oh, we call them capsicum here in Oz - most places call them peppers) as a few varieties of chilli, including a black one, and you can't get cooler than black! I have purple and green tulasi AND common basil, some yarrow, chamomile, mullein (yay @nateonsteemit), blue elderberry, white sacred sage all coming up, yellow butterbeans, spaghetti squash, luffa, lebanese cucumber, lemon cucumber, black midnight zucchini and romanesco zuchinni and a few other things I can't recall right now. It's all quite exciting. The good thing is that at this time of year, I can just grow them on in the greenhouse so they're big enough to transplant and not get eaten by bloody slaters and earwigs that cut them off at the stem. This time of the year is HARD to grow veggies due to bugs - coffee grounds, diachomatomeous earth and eggshells are all well and good but then it rains or the earwigs just go 'screw you' and next thing everything is lost anyway!
We've also been eating beetroot, garlic tops, silverbeet, broccoli, garlic chives, purple bokchoy and perpetual spinach, and tons and tons of lemons and limes - I've got both Moroccan preserved lemons and lime pickle on the go. I love have these citrus on tap. There's also the natives - check out this wattle with the flowers growing from the LEAF. Bizarre, but cool.
Well that is most definitely NOT it for my garden, but I don't want to bore you - I'm sure you'd rather be out there in your gardens! I'm sure I will wax lyrical in a month's time about how big everything is growing - it's so exciting to be at the start of the growing season, knowing how much of a glut I'll have this year because I've put the work in. Fingers crossed, anyway - you know how easy the tables are turned if there's a hot spell, the watering system fails or the bugs come in and ruin everything. Plus, we have rabbits up by the house for the first time in ten years - thank god the main part of the vegetable patch is fenced off anyway, but if those f&(&(ckers get in I won't be best pleased!!!!
Happy Gardening, Hive Gardeners!!!!
With Love,
https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmcGSZxvsXD8YbSCNAo6KWc4a9RjXyRCjWupZdPXJapkXk
Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account here
PeakD - The Best Way to Experience The Hive Blockchain
Join The Best Natural Health Community on Hive
Love the wattle flowers! How cool! And I wished you'd gone on and on about the garden, I was NOT bored! :))
Haha I will dedicate my next garden post to you and crap on for England!!
Yay!
Your garden is wonderful, I wish I had enough space to make a garden this big. Although my little garden is not bad either. Thanks for the pictures, they look beautiful! <3
WE dreamt of the space for years and years and years babe! Dreams eventually manifest if you dream them hard enough x
Thank you, as always very wise. You are the best. <3
Ugh, I miss spring already.
We're having the autumn burst right now. It's so damn hot in the summer that our plants don't grow then. They make a big push in the spring and a big push in the fall before frost. No frost here yet though, that would just be silly. It's only October.
I'll have to come make a post soon. Back at work and killing myself over the house, so I've had little time or drive to post. Probably squeeze one out this weekend though.
Lovely seeing spring soil and things blooming 💚
I know right - Spring is the bestest!! And Autumn harvest is cool too, but not the bit in between.. oh actually that's good too, I love the preparation and tidy up as well! I love all the seasons! Yay! For seasons, and for gardening - but not for home DIY - feel ya babe. xxx
Yeah, I feel the same. All the seasons rock lol
Oh how lovely to hear about all the abundance you have beginning! We tried to get a few things going for the fall, but seems like our timing was off again as we never really got anything to take off. Ahh well, I did find a wee little baby fig on our plant that has sprouted up from the cutting we transplanted in the beginning of the summer. We weren't expecting any this year since the plant was so new, but if we get a few off of it this year I'll count it as a win. At least my farmers have plenty. After being away last weekend I can't wait to get back to the market tomorrow morning to see what has popped up in my absence. I think the first of the kohlrabi and beets are coming around, so I can't wait for some new items for the season. And happy birthday! I forget what day it actually is, but it is one of these days past or coming up, right?
Oh timing is so annoying isn't it? Blink and the days go by and next thing you've missed the window! Sometimes ay garden is like a job - you need a diary and discipline to get shit done!!! Exciting about the fig! We once planted TEN - I'd call it a plantation! but they all died, so that plan went out the window lol. It's all a learning curve! OOOOh.... kohlrabi... you know how much I love it!!!! Have you tried a gratin from it yet? It'd need some creamy vegan sauce.. and a crunchy topping... yum. Yes, my birthday is tomorrow (Sunday 11th).. well remembered!!Ouch... I just remembered it's @vincentnijman's birthday too... I can't recall if it is after or before me! #badfriend!
Ooh, happy birthday to Vincent, as well! It's kind of nice to get well wishes for days before and after anyway, right? 😂 And a gratin sounds fab! Might have to give it a try soon!
Posted using Dapplr
Thank you for sharing this amazing post on HIVE!
Your content got selected by our fellow curator @rehan12 & you just received a little thank you via an upvote from our non-profit curation initiative!
You will be featured in one of our recurring curation compilations and on our pinterest boards! Both are aiming to offer you a stage to widen your audience within and outside of the DIY scene of hive.
Join the official DIYHub community on HIVE and show us more of your amazing work and feel free to connect with us and other DIYers via our discord server: https://discord.io/diyhub!
If you want to support our goal to motivate other DIY/art/music/homesteading/... creators just delegate to us and earn 100% of your curation rewards!
Stay creative & hive on!
Congratulations @riverflows! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPOh my god, your plants are so beautiful!! and you made me want to cook artichokes! which i have never done.
Thanks so much! They are really yummy!
Those Artichokes look so healthy @riverflows, enjoy spring/summer gardening, it's like everything comes to life again!
We've been having a couple of failures with our veggie garden; one being the monkeys getting into beans and peas as we still have not done any monkey-proofing; they also get hold of pumpkins before they've even started developing properly but I picked the ends of the pumpkin leaves and steamed that, was absolutely delicious! So I'm going to plant more pumpkins just for that.
I am in absolute awe of your surroundings and your lifestyle. That is my ideal setting. My heart jumps out of my chest realizing it may never happen.
I have never seen an artichoke plant. Wow how lovely!
@riverflow A synchrony of life, that good that the climatic conditions have favored to the species of your garden, one always this to the care and the expectation, without a doubt, is beautiful to see that everything leaves well.
I can feel your excitement over spilling with the abundance of new grow happening! It takes me away the the slump as the day light decline here and things begin to go dormant or have been killed off by the frost. Tends to put me in a bit of a hibernation mode except for our indoor garden which gives me a bit of a spark and keeps the fresh produce happening.
Here's to a good growing year with an abundance of produce!
You're growing quite a few things I haven't eaten in ages. Artichokes, I think it's possibly been years since I've even seen one.
Great update on the garden, beautiful stuff.
We live in the Northeast, USA so we just finished our harvest.
Banner year for us, our freezers are full, as well as our cold storage. Very pleased!
Would love to try turmeric, don't know if it can grow here, but gonna do a little research and give it a whirl.
Nice post, thanks for sharing. Here's to green thumbs, cheers mate!!
Bad NEWs My brother DIED...
please pray for my brother
we are in shocked
Sorry to hear this but do NOT post spam.