Thanks and a garden update

Just wanted to say a warm welcome to all the new visitors and followers . It's wonderful to think that others are interested in my little life.

A very big thanks also to those lovely people who left comments following yesterdays post. I was feeling a bit down and your comments made me sit up and think. Thank you :)

Now on to the garden......

The lovely Sonya from Permaculture Pathways has been doing a series of blog posts called 'Get started growing your own food'. Almost like a mini permaculture e-course. Me being the beginner gardener that I am have been following along with great interest. I'm pleased to say I finally have some progress to report.

Home grown sprouts have becoming a regular feature in my kitchen. As a child we always had sprouts growing. My Dad had one of those multi level growers, silly me sold it when we moved house.

A few weeks ago I got Tony motivated and we built two garden beds. We filled them with lots of layers of wonderful organic matter, then they were left to settle for about three weeks.

The beds were covered to keep the dogs and the cats off. We now have that section of the yard fenced, so now we only need to find a way to keep the cats out......any suggestions?

We decided to make raised beds and use the no dig garden method. The ground here is heavy clay and has poor drainage. Hopefully in the future all the goodness we have added will result in a lovely friable loam. Ideally I would have like to have made the beds deeper but money is a bit tight at the moment so we've made do with one layer of timber. We can always add another layer after this first crop is finished. Over the next few weeks we intend building maybe three or four more beds.

I had intended raising seedlings for these beds but that hasn't happened so far. Today we went to the Caboolture markets and purchased some, not the cheapest or the organic option I had planned, anywho it's a start. My intention was to plant them today however it became very windy this afternoon so I thought it best to wait it till tomorrow. I'll plant some seeds then too.

Rainbow chard, fennel, two types of parsley, peas, basil, eggplant and some corn (I know its most probably too late in the season for them but we'll give it a go). I'll raise some beans, tomatoes and a few other veggie seedlings and have them ready to go in the new beds.

My good old mandarin tree is loaded with fruit again, looks like another bumper crop. I've got a banana to plant out and a dwarf mulberry in a pot that looks a little sad, that will be planted in the yard as well. I even did a little housekeeping on the worm farm and moved one of the compost bins last week.

Thank goodness the weather is finally cooling down to a more civilized temperature. I'm now eager to go outside and play in the dirt! I only hope that I've inherited at least a smidgen of my Nana's green thumb.

Here's to happy gardening

Cheers Lisa