The organic backyard

I'm not sure what causes it to happen, but every so often we get an influx of new readers. Now is one of those times so I welcome all the new comers, I hope you find information here you can use in your life.

We had a really busy day at the Centre yesterday. I was tired just driving home so when I got here I took a walk through the garden to sharpen myself up. Hanno was still outside pouring buckets of water on plants and generally fine tuning things. We had some wild weather in the past week and it's taken a toll on the garden. Nothing's ruined but there are torn leaves and general wind damage, my large potted elephant ears on the front verandah has fallen off its stake which snapped in the wind.

One of the big changes that has happened since I took you through the garden is that Hanno stripped the tomato bushes growing on the lattice, and then removed the bushes. They were past their prime so they've been replaced with new compost in the soil and new sultana white grape vines. We put the lattice up to help protect our bedroom wall and windows from the harsh western summer sun, the tomatoes were only in for a quick crop before we planted the shade vines. We only plant food or useful plants now so a grape vine that will give us shade and grapes in the summer, and drop its leaves in winter to let in the warm sun is just what we wanted. In the middle of the two grape vines is a yellow banana passionfruit vine that will twirl its way through the grapes. It will be cut back when the grapes lose their leaves.

Replacement tomatoes were planted out a few weeks ago in the vegetable garden, so in this home, where fresh tomatoes are eaten every day, we will not be short of a tomato all through the summer. These are Grosse Lisse, not my favourite tomato, but mighty tasty just the same.

One of the victims of the windy weather was the corn. It's ready to pick now but you can see here that the leaves have been damaged. I'll pick some of this later in the week to have for dinner. Corn is one of those vegetables, peas are the same, that should be eaten as soon as it's picked. The sugars in corn start turning into starch as soon as its picked, so if you want sweet corn, make sure you pick it at the last minute, and have your water boiling when you walk back inside with your corn. If you can't do this, or if you have a lot of corn, blanching and freezing it is the best option. Store it in plastic bags or containers suitable for your family size. Can you see eyes and beaks behind the corn?

My girls came over to see what I was doing! LOL

Out in the front garden, where we planted rosellas last summer, golden nugget pumpkin are growing. These are just the right size for Hanno and I, although that's not the reason we are growing this type of pumpkin. Hanno can't stand pumpkin vines rambling all over the garden, I love that mad aspect of pumpkins. I love that they're untamed and wild and go wherever they want to go. But as I don't mow the lawn and have to cope with mad pumpkins, Hanno didn't want to grow pumpkins again. We compromised with the golden nuggets as they are a bush variety and are well contained within their garden. No mad pumpkins = happy Hanno. Fresh pumpkins from the garden = happy Rhonda. Win/Win.

On the far eastern side of the garden, in full sun, we're now growing luffas. We'll use these in the house for showering and cleaning later in the year and if, as I expect, we have an abundance, I'll sell some with my soap. I've written about a previous crop of luffas and how to clean them here.

Right next to the luffas we are growing bananas. We let the chooks out to free range every day and this, my friends, is what they do to the bananas almost every day. We use the old banana leaves as a mulch and the chooks love to get in there and scratch it out. Hanno, ever patient, rakes it all back in when they go back to their coop.

And for those of you wondering about the lone pineapple, here it is as of yesterday. It's still growing slowly, I doubt now that it will be a Christmas day treat for us. But whenever it's ready to eat, we'll be grateful for it and pleased we planted it.

In the rest of the garden, we have removed the zucchinis and button squash and replaced them with lettuce, bok choi and beans. Beets have been harvested, along with many kilos of tomatoes, capsicum (peppers), leeks, chard, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers and herbs. Ours is a year long garden so there is always work to be done and harvests to gather but eating organic vegetables fresh from the backyard every day makes it all worthwhile.