It wasn’t that long ago that I would go to the gym on a Saturday morning, or go out for a tasty brunch and read the Saturday newspaper. You know, normal stuff! There is one thing about having a bit of land … it is hard work. Especially when you also have developed a ‘green thumb’ over the years. What am I alluding to? Well it just so happens that we were really busy last weekend. Did we go out for lunch? Not likely …

Still, all grumbles aside, our garden is still looking beautiful.

They look hot don’t they? Wish I could remember what they are …

Our raised bed no. 2  is looking particularly flash, well the chillies are as they are finally showing red hues. I can’t remember the variety now – but I think they may be cayenne. In this wonderful jumble of garden is also, silver beet (just delish), parsley, sage, carrots, and a host of flowers – companion plants.

I opened up my cloche on the weekend – shock horror! Something had been munching on my cauli seedlings. Upset? You bet. So when I had a chance I sped indoors and made up some slug stuff … yeast, water, sugar and some flour, mixed it together and then I popped it in a container in the dirt just outside the cloche. Did I catch any critters? No!

Broccoli .. thankfully this hasn’t been munched on yet!

The pic above, is of one of my broccoli seedlings. You can see the cloche fabric in the background, which once the pic was taken was dutifully popped back over those hoops and secured.

Bananas. I thought it was interesting when I read that a banana isn’t a tree, not even a palm, but is actually a perennial herb (guess you won’t be keeping these in pots on the balcony).

Growing nicely …

This year we happen to have 4 lovely hands of bananas. The pic featured shows  the ‘bell’ at the end of the bunch. We will remove this so that the banana plant won’t waste its energy on growing a stalk. Being novice banana folk, we didn’t know that once a stem produces a hand of bananas, it won’t do so again. So the idea is, once the fruit is removed, cut the spent stem off at the ground. This wonderful material can then be chopped up, used in situ or put it elsewhere as mulch. Must say, our banana plants need a tidy up and some good tucker (fertiliser …) They love rich soil and TLC which ours haven’t been getting much of lately.

Wonderful lupins … germinated and skyward bound

I had to include a pic of my lupins! How wonderful are they? I love the way they flip themselves over .. they look for the world like they have hats on. As mentioned previously, they will be fantastic as a cover crop over winter, and feed the soil below into the bargain.

At long last … olives!

Yay!  Our olive grove is finally producing. Well in saying that there is only a very small crop – ok tiny in fact. But at long last those trees are bearing fruit. We will be sharing these though, with the birdlife of course. Our trees are too big to net and in desperate need of a haircut.

Well that’s it for me for another week – but actually just a wee bit longer. I’m off to Aussie tomorrow, Toi Toi meetings and the likes – so I will be having a break from the vege garden this very weekend.

Happy gardening in yours!