Season of Abundance

A little boy's harvest basket, full of acorns from Nana's house.

 I really love this time of year. From late summer into early and then mid-autumn, when the garden that we've worked so hard to keep going in the heat of summer rewards us with so much delicious produce. My little boy is absolutely loving doing the 'harvesting'. I guess he learned about it when we pulled out the first bed of potatoes, and his little eyes boggled at all the potatoes to be found in the ground. That was a good six weeks ago now I think. And since then, his mission every single day has been to get a harvest. So off he goes with his harvest basket, and fills it up with whatever he can find. Still-green tomatoes (that generally ripen after picking anyway), green strawberries, tiny beans, handfuls and handfuls of spring onions, the occasional squash (after I alerted him to their existence), peppercorns, not-yet-ripe olives, parsnips, beetroot. The only thing he doesn't get is the zucchini's because mama has to cut them off with a knife (best trick ever to prevent a toddler picking them) and the pumpkins, thankfully.

He loves it. Granted we've eaten about 5 beans in the house, and he's had probably a total of three ripe strawberries, but sometimes it's more important for the little one to learn. About growing food, about when to harvest (and when to leave things alone, we're slowly getting there), about eating what we grow in the garden. He loves eating food from the garden, and I love that he happily eats all his vegetables. 

Big zucchinis, after being away for a few rainy days.

I'm surprised by the volume and variety of food we've been able to produce this season, to be honest. If you asked me back in October or November, I probably would have said we'd be lucky to get anything growing for the summer. But after a while, the setbacks sort of disappeared and things started to grow. In little spots that we prepared very hastily (dig a hole, add compost, plant). A dose of rain here and there helped things along, and before we knew it we had a substantial vegetable garden (two, actually). I reached a point where I knew I couldn't plant anything more, even though I wanted to, as I simply couldn't keep up with the watering required, I just didn't have the time. Which was a good thing, really.

So we've picked all the beetroot, and corn, and potatoes (so many potatoes, yay!). And we've had so many little yellow tomatoes, despite so many tiny ones being picked by little toddler hands. I lost a pot full of leeks in an afternoon harvest frenzy, and a late planting of beetroots that were just starting to take hold nicely. The parsnips have recently come out, although I do have another group planted that little toddler doesn't yet know about. Zucchini's are coming in by the bucket load - I planted four plants. We probably didn't need four plants but I really do love having too many zucchini's. It's just a summer thing. From the fruit trees we had plums, nectarines and the odd apple. The low down apples were all picked very early on by toddler hands, and the almost ready high up apples were munched away by a horse. As was the lone pear on our little pear tree, and half the tree for that matter too. 

I had a hard time harvesting the beetroots in this wine barrel, they just looked so pretty.

So I need to wise up in years to come to make sure some of the produce actually makes it into the kitchen. But really, I'm happy with everything for this year. I've had my hands full dealing with everything that has made it's way into the kitchen and I don't know that I could have dealt with much more this time around. And now the silverbeet is finally starting to produce wonderful things for us (how I have missed having a constant supply of silverbeet), some broad beans are starting to grow from a recent toddler planting mission, and some cabbages and cauliflowers are doing quite well in the bed we first harvested potatoes from. And my mind is turning to the autumn jobs, pulling out all the tomatoes, thinking about planting peas and broccoli and more broad beans. I think we will plant a lot of broad beans this year, I still don't really know where things will find their permanent home in the garden so I figure I might as well plant lots of things that will improve the soil. Potatoes to break up hard packed areas over summer, broad beans for a bit of extra nitrogen during the cooler months. 

I really do love this garden toil. And I'm seeing just how much my little boy loves it too. And this is the season to enjoy the abundance, and that is what I am doing.

How is your March looking? Are you enjoying the autumn garden or gearing up for the summer to come?

Garden Share Collective: Slowly Coming Together

It's time again for the Garden Share Collective. I missed last month, mainly because I was feeling pretty low about our garden and couldn't quite bring myself to write about it. But things are on the improve, the battle against the earwigs is not entirely won but we're getting somewhere, finally. Linking up with Lizzie from Strayed from the Table and a bunch of gardening bloggers from around the world.

So as I mentioned, earwigs. Little blighters have been eating everything, everything! To the point where I was starting to wonder whether we'd even get any vegies growing this season at all. But finally we have some plants in the ground and going well. Apparently earwigs aren't keen on onions, spring onions, tomatoes, parsley, and corn, all of which are now growing well. What they are keen on is beetroot, silverbeet, basil, broccoli, eggplant, potato, pumpkin, and I'm sure the list is longer but that's all that we've lost (which is actually quite a lot, I think). I did get a good bunch of potatoes growing despite the earwigs, and they're about to flower. I have some beans in the ground that are so far doing ok… but it's close, there are plenty of holes eaten in the leaves so I'm doing all I can to help them grow fast. We'll see. I've also got basil and strawberries in pots now, they are also doing well and mostly earwig-free.

Herbs are doing well, mostly flowering now and I'm happy for them to flower like mad. It's bringing lots of bees which is lovely. Marjoram, flat leaf parsley, curly leaf parsley, coriander. A sea of coriander is flowering, I'd say we'll have plenty of coriander seed to grind up this year. Also flowering is my celery - have you seen this before? Is it likely to self seed? I'm hoping so. It's become a garden must-have for me, a constant supply of celery for soups and stocks.

Planting

A few things on the list for December. Leeks, zucchini (should already be in the ground but oops), lettuce, beetroot, rocket, carrots, mint. I'll just see what I can get in the ground and see what of it survives. 

Harvesting

At the moment, it's mainly herbs. Parsley, oregano, basil. Waiting patiently for potatoes, tomatoes, onions and strawberries. 

To Do List

Hill up around the potatoes.

Stake the tomatoes.

Create more garden beds (not an easy task - it involves scraping back a thick layer of orange gravelly stuff from the former driveway to reveal the soil underneath, then adding compost and mulch) for the above mentioned plantings.

Regular feeding with weed and manure tea. Sounds lovely doesn't it?

And just our daily watering and caring for the garden.

So overall I'm happy, so happy to finally have something that resembles a garden growing. I've taken over the space right outside our house, which was probably once designed with ornamental plants in mind, but I love having most of my vegies growing right there. At this point in my life, I need fast and easy access if there is to be any successful vegie growing and that is exactly what I've got.

And that's me for this month. Pop on over to the Garden Share Collective page and take a look at the other lovely gardens on display.