8th March 2008

I am taking a break from clearing out a huge shrubbery (how had they managed to grow so big in just 18 months?). I am growing ever more enthusiastic about growing my own food ... and need space for some peach and cherry trees, as well more soft fruits.

The shrubbery simply had to go.

So, talking of growing my own food. How has my experiment in self-sufficiency gone this past growing season? Better than I had hoped! All I have bought in the way of fruit and vegetables this past 6 months has been a bunch of celery and 2 bags of apples. My apple trees are yet to fruit, but I made do with the soft fruits - strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries.

I grew and ate: capsicums, pickles (gherkins), tomatoes (50 kilo!), potatoes, leeks, beetroot (beets), silverbeet (swiss chard), spinach, peas, beans, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, rocket, sundry other saladings, pumpkins (such a huge harvest!), onions, shallots, the soft fruits (raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries), squash, all my herbs, garlic and I have no doubt I have left many things off the list. All of which I have grown enough to feed me over summer and put away enough for winter and through to next spring.

I have also just planted out my autumn and winter crops - more leeks, cabbage, beets, peas and have ordered in more seed from a local heritage seed seller, The Lost Seed.

You have no idea how enthusiastic I am! It has been so much fun, and the feeling of being to eat out of your own kitchen garden is incomparable. The lady at Coles (local supermarket) asked me where I'd been ... had I been ill? She'd not seen me for ages ...

Anyway, I am awaiting with desperate impatience the local nursery's fruit tree list to come out, and have contented myself in the meantime with five or six currant bushes to go in. I may pop down there later this afternoon to see what other soft fruits they may have left.

And cooking and preserving! I have spent days and days dehydrating, cooking and bottling. I'll have to start a new section with my favourite recipes.

It has been a new way of life for me, eating what I have on hand rather than what I suddenly decided I wanted to eat. Another big plus has been the savings in grocery bills - I eat more vegetarian meals now.

Excuse me - I must get back to clearing out that shrubbery.

Later: a bit more work done - two more huge shrubs removed and cut up for compost and mulch - woody bits left out to season for firewood. I went down to the nursery and came home with two blueberry bushes. I haven't had much luck with them in the past but will make a more determined effort this time.

26th March 2008

Finally it is raining here - a cold front has swept through and it is raining steadily outside - yay!

I have spent Easter cleaning out the garden beds, either prepping them for their winter crops (kale, collards, onions, garlic, beet, carrots etc, all save the garlic already started in seed trays) or bedding them down for the winter to rest for spring cropping. When I was digging out one of the compost bays to spread over the beds, I found an extra 10 kilo of King Edward potatoes nestling in there - a nice surprise. Also a nice surprise were the extra 10 pumpkins I found when I ripped out the vines. So ... I am set for potatoes and pumpkins this winter.

The walnut crop is in and the walnut stains now almost completely gone from my fingers. The fruit tree list from the local nursery is still not out. *sigh*

I am still in the process of grubbing out that shrubbery. Four big shrubs to go - I have been taking a break from it since my last entry, spending the time on the vegetable bed preps instead. Also today I cleaned out the greenhouse for the winter - I have the capsicums still in there producing yet more peppers, and seed trays for the winter crops. I hope I haven't left them too late.

In a bit of spare time I have been working on crop rotation schedules - it should be as easy as ... the schedule I am following is:

Year 1: Legumes (peas, beans etc.)

Year 2: Brassicas (cabbages, Kale, collards etc.)

Year 3: The Nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes etc)

Year 4: Curcubits (pumpkins etc)

Anything not in those four families goes wherever, just not in the same place again for four years.

This should be easy enough to follow, but ... all my beds are of different sizes, and I grow different amounts of different crops ... so it is proving impossible to neatly swing them around from bed to bed. So ... tomatoes will always be grown in pots, and two of the four years I'll be planting potatoes in containers as well, or wire cages which can be placed just about anywhere ... and if I do that then I have a hope. I think. I still have to check for companion planting, and then I hit those crops and beds which will have two or more crops in per year ... ah ... it is all too much ...