Hands photo

This is my 'hands' photo. On my hand is much loved and well worn gardening glove holding seeds, one of life's great wonders.

Words photo

The words in this photo are on the label of the chili plant that my 3 year old bought me. He bought it when he was with his Gran, she said he insisted on it. He waters it, cares for it, shows us the progress and growth every few days. He is very proud of the plant and I am proud of him.

My view today photo

My view up the garden path as I'm hanging out the washing.

Photo a day challenge

A friend of mine is doing a photo a day challenge for the whole year. I thought I'd do it for this month and based around my garden.

Here is the list of what I'll be taking and posting photos of this month.

Growing time in the garden

Last year was a busy year for me. With study and extra work I was pretty busy and my family was too, to make it all possible. With my study complete and a mortar board waiting for me in March, my work load has been reduced. I realise now how much time it took up. I'm not saying I didn't like it. I loved my study, it was personally and professionally rewarding. But it took up so much time! My garden was getting just the basics done. Beds were being dug over and plants or seeds going in. Some seeds were raised in the green house. Occasionally some seasol would be watered in and a few weeds were pulled. But the glory of this year's January garden does not compare to last year. There have been gaps in my planting/seed sowing for successive crops. Some things haven't gone in at all. It's getting late in the summer growing season now and I'm wondering how many pumpkins we'll get - not whether it will be over 60, but whether we'll get 6. So over the past few weeks, my time in the garden has been growing. I have been able to get back in there more and it feels great. In my garden now, not so many things have been grown from seed. I have bought more seedlings or plants to go in and really, I have to be okay with that for now and look forward to the growing time that I have in the garden and the growing that will come from it. Looking outside, I can see it's a nice day here for gardening...

The lilliums are flowering!

They are some interesting carrots!

After a few weeks away from my garden, I spent all day pottering in the garden today. I didn't mean to, a few minutes turned into a few hours and before long my children were covered in mud from playing in the mud patch and it was time to start dinner.

But what to cook? As I said, all day in the garden, so no post holiday grocery shopping was done...

Luckily there was some frozen fish in the freezer. Added to that, home grown and freshly picked potato, zucchini, beans and carrots. Check those carrots out!