Monday, September 10, 2012

My Garden (and a brief update)

Update
So I've been really slack and haven't posted in a while. I got a high distinction for Hebrew last semester and passed Church History satisfactorily. This semester I am continuing Hebrew and I am doing the second Old Testament unit which is prophets and writings. I expect to do an essay on Proverbs which I shall post once I have my marks. I did an essay on Jan Hus last semester which I will post sometime soon.


My Garden
We have put in two veggie boxes with a variety of veggies, a small herb garden and I have scattered some edibles through the garden beds as well.


In the veggie patch I have tomatoes (hidden from frost), chives, kale, parsnips, carrots, broad beans, dwarf butter beans and lettuce. I planted most as seeds so there isn't really anything to see but I noticed yesterday, when I watered in the evening, that the lettuces were just peeking through. Rather exciting considering we couldn't see them at lunchtime when we showed Craig's mum around the garden. The only issue I've noticed is the broads grow up to two metres. I thought I got dwarf broads and I didn't realise my mistake until after I had planted the seeds. I did some research and it looks like I can make a little frame for them to grow up and if I pinch off the tops that will keep the plants to about 1 metre and apparently there should be more beans. I'll just have to wait and see. I also have some seedling trays and little pots in which I am trying to grow celery, cabbages and chillies. I plan to keep the chillies potted but I will transplant the celery and cabbages into the main veggie patch when they are stronger.


I have a sunny herb which contains rosemary cuttings and sage, thyme and oregano seeds. I haven't seen much progress there but the rosemary looks alive which I think is a good start. I have a sheltered garden bed where I will put dwarf sunflowers and basil. I have put my mint, parsley and nugget pumpkins in a damper and shadier regular garden bed. There were a few bulbs around and some dead shrubs so I thought it would be nice to have some greenery as a ground dweller. I also want the mint and parsley to become weed-like because I desire to harvest regularly. I have ideas of relaxing in the shade in the hammock drinking my own iced mint tea, then munching on a home-grown salad.


While I was out and about with the camera this morning I took a picture of the nectarine blossom. We have five fruit trees: nashi, nectarine, apple, greengage and cherry. I think they're all starting to bud. I'd like to add a lemon tree to our collection. If we lived in a warmer climate I would definitely want oranges, limes, mangos, bananas and avocados too. 


There is something so special about being able to see God's creation coming back to life in spring. I heard bird calls today which I haven't heard in months. I saw young steers gallivanting around the paddock and enjoying the sun (and obviously unaware of what will befall them once they fatten up). And there was the smell of flowers and freshly cut grass. Ah! what joy it brought me.

So aside from study and indoor housewifery, this is what I have been doing of late.



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