finalmente

This is kind of the conclusion of our Veggie Box Garden.

It was a warm day, and Tim and I were out in the back yard.  With great ceremony, I led him over to the Veggie Box Garden and demonstrated what happens when we pull a carrot out of the ground.  He was quite awestruck, which was great cos that exactly the reaction I was going for - as in, Wow! This is where our food comes from!

Then we tasted the thing, and it -

it -

it ....

it wasn't nice!  It was small, hard, and bitter!

Not what I was going for at all.

slow gardening

Just documenting the (slow) progress of our Veggie Box Garden.  Despite conscientious watering, the carrots and tomatoes have not grown very much.

As we're going away for ten days or so (for Christmas), I'm wondering should I just pull up the carrots now, to show Tim what's been growing underground?  There may not be anything at all to come back to if the weather's hot while we are away.

Gosh, gardening is so much fun to do, but so boring to talk about!  I wonder why that is?

garden grows

One thing I like about hanging out with kids - Tim in particular - is that not everything we do needs to be on an enormous scale.  Our activities can stay on the small side and stay fun for anyone with a short attention span, yet still be a great opportunity for learning new skills and new things about the world.  

This, for example, is our new Veggie Box Garden.  The old wooden box was sitting in a neglected corner of the yard, filled with old dirt from past gardening experiments and beginning to attract a load of springtime weeds.  I wanted to keep the box, but I was sick of looking at the weeds, so with a very small amount of digging and raking and some (oldish) seeds from my stash, it has become Tim's very first, tiny, veggie garden.  

We planted a row each of carrots and tomatoes.
Conveniently, the two kinds of seeds I had on hand are two of the veggies he can readily identify in pictures and in the flesh.
Not that he likes eating either of them (yet).

Planting a seed really is an act of hope, isn't it? I don't suppose that Tim understands what any of this is for, and of course it may not eventuate into anything - those seeds were rather old, after all.  But Tim loves to water our garden box every day, and he'll bring me the watering can if it's slipped my mind or if I'm even contemplating skipping it.  It's the first long-term project we've started together.

And you never know, one day soon we might see some little green shoots pointing up out of the earth.

zucchini carbonara

zucchini carbonara_1104, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

I don't cook dinner often, but last night I was quite excited to cook for Hayden with some of our very own produce. I finally plucked this big old zucchini from the garden, and decided to give it the Jamie Oliver treatment. He calls it Courgette Carbonara. I call it Zucchini Surprise.



I started by chopping my enormous zucchini into little rectangular blocks. I fried up chopped onion and bacon, then added the zucchini to the pan.

In a separate bowl, I mixed up one egg yolk for each person (2 in this case) with a dash of cream and a good handful of grated parmesan cheese.

Then I mixed a load of cooked pasta in with the veggies, and stirred through the creamy cheesy egg mixture. A spoonful of the pasta water added a bit of starch, and the whole mixture looked shiny and delicious.



Ready to serve and eat!

reflections

kitchen garden 1, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

reaching for a longer, fluffier robe this morning instead of my usual light cotton wrap, I thought about the changing seasons and reflected on the best and worst of the growing season which is coming to a close here in the South West.

The summer here is baking hot and parched; so different to the conditions we had back in north Queensland where we had more heat in fewer hours, and absolutely no water restrictions (in fact it was more likely, in Townsville, that I would need to protect my plants from the destructive force of a tropical deluge in January / Feb). Learning to cope with longer sunlight and much less water required a real change in my approach.

failures and lessons learned:

Next year I’ll do more to protect my tiny seedlings from the sun. The sun can so easily - in a single hot afternoon - scorch and kill the little green leaves of growing plants such as baby basils, rockets and chives. I was glad to learn that tomato and zucchini plants are tough even when tiny, but I’ve got to do more next time for the ones that aren’t.

composting. Hm. A non-event this year. One of my aims for the coming autumn-winter period is to set up my compost heap properly, and to get it going well. I’m wishing for a big (meter cubed?) wooden box with a hinged lid. I may have to set about fulfilling this wish for myself.

successes:

I was happy with my haul of cherry tomatoes. The basil plants and the rocket were more a mixed success; but I was very happy to confirm the companion planting book's prediction that basil plants would keep the houseflies away. I now have pots of basil at every doorway - being pretty, aromatic and functional.



The rocket I did harvest was really delicious and tender. I lost a lot of the rocket seedlings during a one-off 36˚C day back in October, but those I did manage to save grew prettily - under cover, naturally, from that point on - into tasty peppery leaves.

The mint and parsley I transplanted into pots near the house grew well; I planted rosemary and sage in a garden bed near the house (and I started to develop a secret plan to eventually convert that entire bed into a dry garden … shhh don’t tell our landlords). The apricots from the tree were really tasty but I can’t claim credit for those, the tree having stood in its same spot for many years. Now that I know the apricots are worth it, I’ll do more to protect them from the parrots next year, even though it is pretty funny watching a parrot trying to take off with an enormous apricot wedged in its beak. I was proud of the apricot jam I made. I gave myself one big Farmer’s Wife Tick ✓ for that.



on the whole:

I think I understand more now what the summer sun is capable of, and I’m ready to continue learning - piece by piece if necessary - which plants can handle it and which need to stay whimpering in the shade. So I’ll say sayonara to carrots and spring onions in the veggie patch but welcome back the sage, rosemary, tomatoes, basil, zuccini and parsely next year.

olives

Olives, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

yes, I really did label this post "growing our food".

I am determined to one day eat these two olives - or at least one of them. Hayden can have the other, if he likes.

small harvest

Small Harvest, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

I'm quite chuffed with this little harvest of tomatoes. This is by no means the whole of it - just a small bunch I was able to pick and carry up to the house in my hands. There are many more to come, just waiting on the vines.

The tomato plants came up in the garden all by themselves; I didn't plant a single one. A couple of weeks ago I found the packet of tomato seeds I'd bought at the end of winter, lying unused and completely forgotten on the floor of the big shed. The plants which produced the tomatoes above were all self-seeded, most probably from the compost I lovingly mixed and hoed into the garden beds. I did a top job spreading that compost out. The plants are everywhere.

Apricots From the Tree

Apricot Harvest 4, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

Strawberries

Strawberries 2, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

Olive Tree

Olive Tree, originally uploaded by &Naomi.

My small olive tree has started to flower. I'm really loving the green of those olive leaves ... and I hope that fruit will follow the flowers.