What are you growing this season?

We are waiting for rain to fall. Our tanks are empty. There was thunder and lightening last night but only about five minutes of rain. We are using town water on the vegetables to keep them growing and each time I do that I think that we should get another tank. I thought 15,000 litres/4,000 gallons would be enough for us, our annual rainfall is 1200mm/47 inches, but it is apparent that if we are to produce backyard food on an ongoing basis, we need to store more water for these times of drought.

Click on photos to enlarge them.

But despite our water shortage, the garden is growing well and producing some nice vegetables. At the moment we are growing cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums (peppers), leeks, lettuce, sunflowers, radishes, zucchini, bok choi, celery, silver beet, the last of the kale and cabbages, beetroot, wild rocket (arugula) carrots, corn, eggplant, Welsh onions, parsley, chives, oregano, curry plant, marjoram, yarrow, comfrey, thyme, bay and a selection of fruit.

It's the first time we've grown this variety of cucumber and we haven't eaten any yet but they look like real winners. I'm definitely going to save some of these seeds for future years, and for a seed box swap over at the forum.

The first of the eggplants. These are heirlooms, Black Beauty.



Tomatoes and lettuce, all we need is the bread.

Our constant companions - the chooks. This is Cocobelle, the grand matriarch of the flock, with Heather, our little feather-panted Faverolles. Chooks provide nitrogen in the form of their manure for the garden, they catch bugs we don't even see and they provide us with hours of entertainment.

I have just harvested about a kilo (2 pounds) of ginger and a small amount of turmeric. They're still outside because I haven't had time to do anything with them yet but the ginger will be used in cooking and for ginger beer and the turmeric will be used in curries and as a tea.

These sweet potatoes will be planted soon. I'll take photos when I plant them. Basically you just need a couple of sweet potatoes that have sent out shoots. Waiting for them to shoot is the hardest part, the rest is easy if you're in a warm climate.

These are follow up tomatoes, beans, silverbeet and those tiny spots on the back tray will be little daisies. I always plant flowers in the vegetable garden. They bring the bees in and provide some colour amidst all the green.

Every time I walk through our garden I remind myself how lucky we are to live were we do. With the call of the wild ducks and geese, a wall of rain forest to shelter us from wind and prying eyes and our vegetables to keep us going, there is no other place I'd rather be.

What are you growing this season?