Garden Photo's

Thought it was time for another walk through my garden.



Red Cabbage (I have no idea why it isn't called purple cabbage but anyway...). This one I picked not long after I took the photo. It's still a bit on the small side but tastes really great.



Broccoli. My broccoli this year has done a little better than last year but still not brilliantly. This area of dirt is a bit tired and needs some compost added to it. Once the broccoli is finished, we plan to build it up a little higher with a trailer load of compost.


Farmboy got the fruit trees planted out. My idea of buying them and then he'd get around to doing the preparation work pretty much panned out. Originally I was going to wait for him to dig the holes before spending the money but realised that would put it on the never-never plan.

This is the Pink Lady Apple. We still need another apple for pollination but we couldn't get one at the time. I figured we'd start with this one and find a second one when we get a chance. I'm thinking I'd like a Granny Smith. According to the label, I can cross-pollinate with a Granny
Smith and they do make a nice cooking apple.


This is the apricot tree. I hope this goes well because we REALLY like stewed apricot, dried apricot and apricot jam (among other things).

The orchard is located outside the main backyard area. As you can imagine, we have plenty of room (being on a farm) but it's a matter of convenience and location of water supply as to the best place to put the orchard.

We've chosen the opposite side of the yard to the house. Which is close to where our Ozzi-Kleen waste water system is.


This is the only section of the Ozzi-Kleen you can see. The rest is buried below the ground. If you look closely, you can see the green backyard fence behind it.

ALL of our household water goes into this unit where it is treated. It then gets pumped out through a hose onto whatever section of the garden we choose.

Water is our biggest gardening challenge right now. Since we've moved here, we haven't had enough rain to even fill the rainwater tanks we currently have. Every summer it's touch and go whether or not we'll run out of water. So whatever the Ozzi-Kleen produces is about all the water I can have during summer.

Now that the front garden is pretty much established, I'm hoping that we can use the Ozzi-Kleen water on the fruit trees. It's considered safe to use on fruit trees but not so much for vegetable gardens (in case something gets into the food). Although I do tend to use it in the establishment phase of the vegetable garden.

And that's about all that is of interest in my garden right now.

Tomatoes Out & Cabbages In

Today I pulled out the last of the tomato plants, making room to plant out the second half of my punnet of red cabbages.

The garden is starting to look a little less "feral" now that the dying tomato plants have been removed.

While I was out there I also yanked the last zucchini plant out - only to find 2 zucchini's attached!!!! Glad I got to them before the bugs. That was a rather nice surprise. One is nice and large too!!! Yeah, apparently the big ones aren't CALLED zucchini's but you know what I mean. :)

I'd noticed one of my cabbages had been chewed a little but today the damage hasn't increased.

Is it true that they say to put egg shells around cabbages to dissuade the cabbage moths? Something about them thinking another moth has already set up a nest there?

I know, I could google it. But I figured that's what I have you guys for!!!! Answering all my questions when I can't be bothered doing a google search. :) Do you feel all nice and wanted and useful now???? Very good!!!!

It was a nice day for being out in the garden. Not too hot and not too cold. Probably just what the doctor ordered in actual fact.

I would like to know one thing though....

How does dirt get under your fingernails when you're wearing gloves??????????

Braving the Jungle

I can't believe what a jungle my vegie patch turned into this summer. I've been waiting for the tomatoes to "finish" so I could pull them out and plant something else. It's unreal how the plant can look pretty much "dead" and yet still seems to be producing fruit!!!!

I decided to get out there today (now that it's gotten a little cooler again) and start cutting the stuff that is dead away from the plant so I could see which plants really were finished and which were still producing. That's made some room for a little planting with just a few tomato plants left to finish off.

The pumpkins are continuing to take over the backyard. Fingers crossed we'll get LOADS of fruit from the. I LOVE Jap Pumpkins!!! We've been eating the Butternuts regularly and I can't believe how SWEET they are. In fact, they're a little *too* sweet for my liking. But they're going down a treat with the kids!!!! :)

So today I've planted out a punnet of garlic chives and half the punnet of red cabbages. I'm determined not to make the same mistake I did over summer and plant stuff too close together. So once the last of the tomato plants come out, I'll be able to plant out the other half a punnet of red cabbages.


Cabbages take up a fair amount of room don't they? I've never grown them before but we much prefer the red cabbage to standard green cabbage and it's always more expensive to buy the red cabbage. I'm hoping they're not more expensive because they're harder to grow. Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained right? We'll see what happens.