Saturday in the garden...

Its that time again.... when I bombard you with photos of the vege garden!  As I mentioned earlier this week, our summer crops never seem to go right - we get a LOT of rain here in Queensland over the summer, and its always very hot and humid - the rain always seems to come on weekends, and so its very hard to get out in the garden.  Consequently, weeds flourish, vegetable plants get rained into the soil and turn to sludge, and eventually we find we have something like this to contend with:

OMG weed fest!  And would you believe these two in the middle are rocket and basil? 

Out of control....  the rocket was very bitter though and the basil tasted like aniseed - they'd been let go for too long and just no longer really edible!

This past fortnight, it all came out!  Every last weed was ripped up, and the whole bed was topped again with some lovely, rich organic soil.  (It had been a couple of years since we filled it up, so the soil had compacted quite a bit).  We repinned the liner again (as it hard started to fall down in places) and also put newspaper between the old soil and new to try to stop any new little weedies from getting through (as several had gone to seed).

With the bed all fresh and new again, we wasted no time in getting some seedlings in!  Last weekend Mum and I actually got out in the rain (well, showers mostly) and planted - so as of today, here is how our garden looks:

This garden bed is quite large, measuring 11m in length and 1.2m deep - its also at waist height which makes for really easy gardening, as we don't have to bend :)  The only problem is that the height of it makes it difficult to reach all the way to the back of the bed - but actually that has worked out really well.  Because while a waist height garden bed is great for us, its not so hot for the littlest member of our family - so the wasted space at the back has become a pathway of sorts, for Alex to wander through the garden, water things, harvest veges and generally dig wholes that I have to fill in later :)

And in case you're wondering what we've actually planted, here is the list:

•  Fennel (didn't look at the label and thought it was dill... turns out I am the dill!)
• Baby broccoli
• LOTS of sugar snaps (they always do well and are my favourites - plus they look so pretty when they grow and flower!)
• Snow peas
• Zucchini (yellow patio zucchini - my last one went crazy but produced no actual zucchinis, so I'm starting again, but smaller)
• Baby spinach
• Sweet capsicum
• Dwarf beans
• Lots of lettuce
• Bok choi
• Mini cabbage
• Sugarloaf cabbage
• Cherry tomatoes
• Shallots
• Coriander
• Flat leaf parsley
• Basil
• Sage
• A transplanted birdseye chilli (its unkillable!)
• And the aloe vera plants that have been there for ever
• And a partridge in a pear tree the metal turtle that Tim's Mum gave us as a housewarming when we moved in:

So there you have it - our newly planted vegetable garden...  I only wish my Nanna was still here to see me gardening - I talked about doing it one day when she was still alive and living with us, I wish I'd got to it then - having once been a very keen gardener herself, I know she'd be very proud :')

And to end my little gardening post, here are some pretty pictures of flowers growing in our pots out the back - I'd love to say I pay them lots of attention and they are flourishing but I can't take credit, I neglect them terribly and they've done this all on their own!  Please excuse the dead parsley in the background! LOL

Bye for now :)