Harvest time baby!

Tonight for dinner we were lucky enough to have a lot of stuff that was ready in the front raised gardens to be eaten! We had fresh local gold band snapper with a side of fresh grown rainbow chard sauteed with garlic, lemon and chilli. A fresh salad of lettuce, radish and tomato (the tomato sadly wasn't grown but everything else was). We also cracked our first gluten free cider that we brewed a few weeks back and so far it's tasting nice! Needs a bit more brewing, but so far it's tasting good! All in all it was a very tasty dinner!! 

Pictures, enjoy. :)  

The haul!

radish and chard on the left, lettuce on the right

radishes! They turned out really big and in really pretty colours!

Cider

Home grown salad

Dave enjoying his rainbow chard :)

Update as Promised

Sorry about being a little slack on the blog updating lately. Going back to uni lately has taken up a large chunk of my time which leaves me little time for things like blogging and general fun stuff. But, I figured it was about time to put a quick little update about what's been happening around here.

Most notably is the fact that we finished irrigating all the beds, including around the pond and the herb spiral which means I don't have to go out there every single day and water everything which is nice, as I can spend that amount of time doing other garden tasks like fertilizing, weeding and replanting of seedlings that got killed off by the heat.

Yesterday Transition Town Guildford held a very successful event, a bicycle treasure hunt through Guildford. Teams of both adults and families gathered to receive their clue sheets, and then headed off to search out the answers found in and around Guildford and make it back within an hour. The more questions biked to and answered the more chance to win some of the $500 worth of prizes we had on offer! We had a first place prize for families, adults, and a best dressed bike. We had a great turnout of nearly 50 people and everyone had a great morning biking around searching out clues! Best dressed bike went to a family who all dressed up as pirates and even decorated their bikes into pirate ships. Great effort!

Ok, on to the pictures! Enjoy :)
The uploader thing only seems to let me upload these two for now for some reason, more to come once it settles down.

L to R: Kohlrabi, Broccolini, Radish, Kale

Eggplant, Chillis, Peas

Final Front Garden Bed

Last weekend Dave and I put together the final raised bed for the front yard, and this weekend will be the leveling and filling. After this last bed is in then it's onto irrigation and laying down the pebbles in between the raised beds, then the picket fence and the front yard will be all done! Yay!
Once the front yard is all finished I'll have some more time to work on my back garden beds and fruit trees, and also to work on other things like canning, cheese making and fun stuff like that!
But for now here's some photos of the building and placement of the newest bed.

Herb spiral growing steadily

Top to bottom: Lettuce, tomatoes, chives, parsley & coriander

Top to bottom: Fennel, carrots, parsnip, beetroot & rainbow chard

Top to bottom: Kohl rabi, cabbage, broccolini, radish, kale

Peas, beans & hot peppers

Newest garden bed placed but not yet leveled or filled

Front yard ramblings

 After losing my dedicated staff of slave labour (mostly my parents) back to Canada, I have been forced to toil away in the garden day after day alone. Woe is me... *insert dramatic arm gesturing to forehead here* but alas I have been making slow but steady progress towards total front yard domination. Since their departure I've managed to pot and hang my three strawberry hanging baskets along the front porch, and Dave and I acquired a nice cafe setting to arrange on our front verandah so I can watch my plants grow. Another new addition is the front flower bed consisting of a couple of hibiscus plants and a variety of ...colourful flowers. Flowers really aren't my thing, so don't ask me what they're called other than purple (which Dave's mom seemed a bit taken aback when I didn't know all the botanical names for them all, apparently 'ones with flowers?' didn't quite cut it). But I'm hoping they will attract more bees into the veggie gardens which is always a good thing.
I also just finished making the little bed at the back of the herb spiral to hopefully disguise the ugly fencing in time with creeping mandavilla (hah! I do know some flowery names, although apparently not how to spell them as my spell check keeps whinging at me no matter how I spell the damn thing). Anywhoo... that's what's been happening in the great land of my front yard. The great dump truck full of soil is nearly gone and I haven't even started building my last raised bed, so another trip to the soil company at some point may be required. Dave will be so pleased. My blueberry tree is steadily coming back from the dead now that it has been moved up onto the deck so I shall name him frankenberry!
Now for the photos...

Cafe setting, hanging strawberries and frankenberry looming in the corner

Front flower bed under construction

Finished with flowers aplenty

Start of back flower bed behind the herb spiral

Finished back flower bed with plants in place. More to be added as it looks a bit sparse still

Herb Spiral & Pond

While my parents were down visiting us this summer we got up to a little garden DIY'ing to create a herb spiral and pond in an unused area around the side of our front deck. First thing first we had to clear all the garbage and junk that had accumulated along the side of the house we never used. Then once it was clean(ish) we pulled up all the bricks that looked to have been half layed and then forgotten about by previous owners. (see pile in first shot behind me)
Dad had done a bit of planning on his computer ahead of time and worked out how to lay the bricks down, how big it needed to be around etc, and then it was time to start a buildin'! It actually went much faster than I was expecting, with it being completely built by afternoon of day two. Once the bricks had been finished we piled some sand and crappy soil to build up the level in the middle where it was highest, and then filled the top layer with our nice soil we got from the Good Soil Co. in Midvale. Once we had everything in place mom and I planted all our herbs and pond plants we got for around the edge of the water feature. The very last shot is what it looks like as of today. Filling in nicely I think!!
Enjoy the photos. :)

First row of spiral, figuring out the spacing

Dad and me digging the hole for the pond

Placed!

Proud daddy filling the pond

Dave approves!

Progress so far.

...aaaaaand we're back!

Sorry about the long pause in posting. These last seven weeks have been hectic to say the least. A very brief catchup of happenings:
1. Family came down to visit for the first time :)
2. Celebrated my moms birthday
3. Celebrated my nephews 5th birthday
4. Got married!
5. Had a very merry christmas
6. Quiet New Year with family
7. Went down to Margaret River
8. Many many evenings of good food and good company
9. Got lots of help working on trnasforming my front yard into a wonderful sustainable vegetable garden! (more on that in the next post)

But here a few photos from the wedding for those of you who haven't seen any of the shots yet. :) 

Parents and I about to leave for the ceremony

Vintage Holden ride to the ceremony

First kiss

My favourite photo from the ceremony. Dave telling me it'll all be ok when I was a bit nervous before reading my vows. He's a good boy. :)

One afternoon, two garden beds

After working to create a brand new veggie garden for Men of the Trees yesterday it inspired me to get working on my own garden here! Earlier in the week Miles and I staked out where all the raised beds will go in the front yeard, but one bed placement was being impeded by my kaffir lime tree (the little tree in between the two shrubs in the top photo). So I decided to reuse one of the square raised garden beds I had at the old Yokine rental house, to fit in between the kaffir lime and where the other raised bed in planned to go.

Here are some photos of the process...

Before I started. Ground slopes up in two directions so some shoveling was required

First attempt of leveling the bed by raising up one corner to be higher, but I was worried soil would leak out the bottom over time, so I decided to dig in the one corner into the hillside instead.

Final bed placement properly leveled, and filled with soil.

Seedlings planted! Spaghetti squash & pumpkins

I had a few too many seedlings for just the front yard, so I planted the leftovers in the second square bed that Dave filled up with soil round the side of the house that was just sitting there. So there, everything planted!! Time for a drink.