A small vegetable garden

I had a sore back yesterday so all I did was make bread and butter cucumbers, rye bread and some sweet potato soup for lunch. In the morning and late afternoon I walked around the vegetable garden and took some photos. It's not much to show for a day but my back is feeling good now so I think it was a wise investment.

Morning in the garden, looking south.

My afternoon walk, looking south west.

Most of you will know that in the past couple of years we've gone from a very big vegetable garden to a small one. Our current garden is about a quarter of the size of the old one. We struggle at times with it but we keep going because both of us love gardening, we love the fresh, organic produce and gardening has been such a big part of our work for years, it doesn't feel right to let it go completely.

Hanno is bringing in some organic sugar cane mulch for the nests.

You can see Hanno above with some of the chickens.  We have rare breed chooks and at the moment we have Barnedelvers (my favourites), Light Sussex, Plymouth Rock, Wyandotte, Rhode Island Reds, Australorpes and one farmyard cross.  They have a large enclosed area to run around in but we let them out most days to graze on the grass, catch insects and to add interest to their days.

We have a lot of fruit growing in the backyard. Strawberries are growing in hanging baskets and we have containers with youngberries and raspberries. Planted in the ground are two Washington navel oranges and one Lane's Late orange, two Eureka lemons, a Brazilian cherry (Grumichama), a few passionfruit vines, banana, loquat, elderberry and pecan.

We grow a lot of herbs, which, along with being a great way to add flavour and nutrition to our food, are a great money saver. We also grow comfrey, it's one of the herbs I'd never be without, and we use it as a fertiliser and mulch for the garden.  

Above and below: comfrey that I picked and cut up to add to the potted tomatoes (below). It makes a great mulch for tomatoes and potatoes and when it breaks down, adds high quality NPK fertiliser and minerals to the soil.

And next to the comfrey is out compost heap.  You can see the rich compost that Hanno has started to dig up in the corner of the heap.  It is added to garden soil most of the year and always when we replant.

We can't grow tomatoes in the soil anymore because we have a wilt problem so I bought these Cherry Falls tomatoes which grow extremely well in pots.  Unfortunately they're not an heirloom variety but give a superb flavour and yield nonetheless.

Here we have a sea of parsley and below, curly kale and garlic.  Hanno's been eating kale all his life and curly kale is his favourite.  It's a great vegetable and grows well here both in winter and summer.

What would any garden be without flowers.  These salvias, stocks and society garlic attract a lot of bees and the salvias - these and many others in the garden, are in flower most of the year.

So that was my day in the garden. It's good to go out there and wander around. When I'm in a place that is covered in plants, with trees growing, vines climbing over lattice and birds and insects buzzing in and out, it always relaxes me.  There is a running creek at the edge of our garden and along its banks remnant rainforest grows, a reminder of what once grew here before it was all cleared for "development" a hundred years ago. I think it's our responsibility to look after this land and to provide a safe haven for the wildlife that live here with us. Most of the time we don't see them, but they're here and while we live here, they're always be welcome to share the land with us.