The rain over the past few days has been wonderful. I love seeing the vibrant green of the plants, like they are smiling and showing their appreciation for the cool and wet.
We have had around 33ml over the past few days, giving the ground a nice soak. It's times like these that my weather station gets a real work out as I am continually checking the rain fall in our yard so I keep track and calculate how much water is going into our tank. Unfortunately we are still waiting on the pump for the big tank that we installed earlier this year...
Today the rain has cleared and we are off to do more exploration of the garden than we can under an umbrella!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The beans have been amazing this year!
We started with a winter planting of broad beans we had great success. After the frosts finished it was only a matter of weeks before we were harvesting broad beans! Having never eaten broad beans it was exciting, yet we didn't quite know what to make with them. Searching recipes we found and tried a few, but gave away a lot of beans too. I discovered a very tasty broad bean dip that I'll be growing them again this year for. I also discovered that when shelled, cooked and shelled again they can be frozen and later added to a recipe when needed. Time consuming initially but a good way to deal with the excess.
After a slow start in Spring the runner beans really took off. We have been continually harvesting beans for months now - green beans, purple beans, bortolli beans and the February planted butter beans are full of flowers. I judged my succession planting beautifully and had cross over harvesting of a week or so between different crops.
But now comes the time when my largest planting of Purple King beans have given me a big container of dried beans for planting next year and the leaves are dying off. The landscape of my garden is changing once again and I feel myself a little saddened by the change. Those plants provided us with up to 1kg of beans a day and were often played in by my littlies, snacking as they played.
We still have more beans producing, which will continue to be eaten raw (possibly while still attached to the plant) until the frosts hit. I was wondering yesterday what our children will do once bean season is over. "Broccoli season" was my husband's response. How could I forget broccoli season and the sneaky eating of broccoli whilst still growing... I love it!
PJG
We started with a winter planting of broad beans we had great success. After the frosts finished it was only a matter of weeks before we were harvesting broad beans! Having never eaten broad beans it was exciting, yet we didn't quite know what to make with them. Searching recipes we found and tried a few, but gave away a lot of beans too. I discovered a very tasty broad bean dip that I'll be growing them again this year for. I also discovered that when shelled, cooked and shelled again they can be frozen and later added to a recipe when needed. Time consuming initially but a good way to deal with the excess.
After a slow start in Spring the runner beans really took off. We have been continually harvesting beans for months now - green beans, purple beans, bortolli beans and the February planted butter beans are full of flowers. I judged my succession planting beautifully and had cross over harvesting of a week or so between different crops.
But now comes the time when my largest planting of Purple King beans have given me a big container of dried beans for planting next year and the leaves are dying off. The landscape of my garden is changing once again and I feel myself a little saddened by the change. Those plants provided us with up to 1kg of beans a day and were often played in by my littlies, snacking as they played.
We still have more beans producing, which will continue to be eaten raw (possibly while still attached to the plant) until the frosts hit. I was wondering yesterday what our children will do once bean season is over. "Broccoli season" was my husband's response. How could I forget broccoli season and the sneaky eating of broccoli whilst still growing... I love it!
PJG
Welcome to my garden
Welcome to my garden!
My husband and I have a 1/4 acre block in Canberra and with this we are trying to achieve a great number of things. With a 1 year old and a 3 year old, play space is a must, somewhere to entertain when we have friends over is useful, but what I spend the most time doing outside at home is pottering in and around the vegie gardens.
Over the past few years my vegie garden has grown, from one 1.5 x 3 metre bed to around 40 square meters of kitchen garden. This is greatly thanks to my gorgeous non pyjama gardening husband, his faith in my vision and his muscles! We are currently growing beans (4 varieties), corn, pumpkin (4 varieties), lettuce, zucchini, cucumber, onions, beetroot, carrots, radish, tomatoes (4 varieties), eggplant, chili, potatoes, blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus, herbs and companion planting flowers.
Seeing my children garden along side me, or stop playing for a bit to munch on some strawberries, beans or broccoli is the real reason why I garden. Their knowledge about growing their own food is wonderful, and eating from the garden tastes so much better! If they grow it, they'll eat it!
PJG
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