September: verdant -- Greening it up

[Dave Riley]

Greening it up.

[Dave Riley]

So it goes...

I've been crippled by the flu for some time and --given the weather -- the garden got away from me. Some may say that that is its normal state -- but as the local navvy, after turning my back on it ever so briefly in millennial terms, it took off.

So I spent yesterday hacking back its verges with a sickle, harvesting the green pigeon peas and marking the spuds where they had died back. 

Still, I have heaps of more work to do so that I can catch up and play god again. Fortunately the grass clippings are arriving on my doorstep and once renovated I'll need to mulch the exposed ground.

While watering -- filling up my pots -- I suffered from not being able to find two of them among the undergrowth despite their coloured shade cloth lids. The dogs are ever keen to chase the creatures of the night and are falling into some of the clay pots as they chase the visitors below my aerial rigging.

Last week a rat hung itself on one of the cables. Weird. Dangling in space over our heads. The rodents and possums use the rigging as a freeway so they don't have to deal with the dangers of ground transit. 

Unfortunately two neighbors next to me have at the back  as I do, and a new neighbour is planning on having some too so the 'hood is sure to become rodent central. Poultryville. 

[Dianne Caswell]

Do you have any of Alys's books. Abundance  is the latest one I got of hers. I love her, she is my kind of gardener. She also has a new book coming out next year.

[Dave Riley]

Larkcom's most stimulating, I reckon, is The Organic Salad Garden which I knew, and read, back when as The Salad Garden. 

She also has a very useful work on Oriental Vegetables.

[Andrew Cumberland]

I like Alys too, mate.  I didn't know Joy, so I'll check her out tonight (cheers for that). Yep - 2 cherry toms today and heaps in a week or so, over here at the Manor as well. 

[Dave Riley]

Self sufficiency wasn't my intention, but... I now suffer from fewer excuses to go to the Caboolture Markets.

Currently I buy carrots and potatoes and garlic and bananas...and I don't eat much fruit -- although we are currently gormandising  on mulberries with yogurt.

I am also experiencing  a tomato lull -- prior to being drowned in them. 

Of course the consequence of self grown and harvesting what's there is that you eat differently than the supermarket supply. However, I do buy stuff when cheap & in season (from the markets) -- sweet peppers especially -- and ferment it up then use that in cooking as my own supply is a bit of a dribble.

Over the year I never have to buy greens or spring onions.And maybe one dozen eggs per year.

However, I have so much stuff coming on we cannot eat it all so I share it about and plan my next fermenting option.

[Dianne Caswell]

Your garden is looking fabulous Dave. Do you ever have to go into the fruit & veg isle at the supermarket or go to the fruit shop. I don't think there is much you don't have in that lush paradise of yours. What a credit it is to you.

[Dave Riley]

Just on gardening perspectives. The most stimulating commentators I've come across are Alys Fowler and Joy Larkcom. 

Totally inspirational -- both.

As for messy logical cottage gardening --  Alys Fowler's POV is great --see interview: Alys Fowler is a Punk-Rock Gardener . But I reckon her best resource is the television series- The Edible Garden  --which can be watched online or downloaded from HERE.

I think it is great. Takes you away from all the 'design' fetish. And anchors you in the dirt.

No shibboleths. 

Fowler makes a wonderful muse. 

[Andrew Cumberland]

Looking very lush mate. 

[Dave Riley]

'Much in a small space'

Too much in fact. I'm losing it. I've got so much stuff growing I can't maintain the inventory. My 'groundcovers'  are mixed in among the edibles and aside from being besieged by chickweed all that mix is being left alone except by rodent creatures who are chewing on my Roma tomatoes.

Not much in the way of insect greedies.

I've 'almost' run out of planting space. Spent part of  today planting artichokes,

huazontle  and cucumber seedlings.

Squeezing them in.  

But the great thing -- touch wood -- is that all the pigeon pea bushes seem ready  so that I can harvest the green peas in the one exercise.

Best way to shell the pods is leave them a few days after harvest so that the pod casing dries  a little.

The thing is, come tea time, I never know beforehand what I may find.

Not so much  harvesting but foraging.

In the months ahead when the frangipanis shoot forth and bloom; and the daylilies take off; (touch wood) when the Jockey's Cap sprout...i'm gonna get the edible magic I'm after --according to Lewis Carroll -- and the plants will start talking to me

[Mary-Ann Baker]

that is an incredible garden ! such a variety of food plants !