It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

With the impending OS trip, my family decided on a no presents year and Mr T and I decided that instead of Christmas gifts we'd treat ourselves to a night of decadent food and wines in the new year. Of course I'd bought a couple of gifts during the year before we'd made the arrangement, so there will be a present or two opened.

However in my household, no Christmas is complete without homemade food gifts. Beer & Chili peanut brittle and Irish Cream (sans almond essence).

I will not let the fact that on the eve of Christmas eve our olive tree was stolen for the third time (this time I reported it to the police). My neighbour noticed first thing this morning and gifted me another replacement tree.

The week in green

We have 1000 thread count sheets, but I much prefer the feel of basic Ikea cotton sheets. We got a new set, there's something about the green that reminds me of my childhood.

The basil is sitting happily on the kitchen windowsill getting the morning sun, while the homegrown garlic behind it is four weeks away from use.

And sadly I ate the last of our green tea kit kat supply. Sweetness from the white/green 'chocolate' and the slight bitterness of green tea, a perfect combination!

This week in the garden

...I am lamenting another stolen olive tree. I bit the bullet and replaced the one pilfered previously, it had been in the ground for about a month before it was taken out on Saturday night. Again I'm left with a gaping hole in my garden.

That said, my snowpea plants are producing at a rapid rate and they're absolutely delicious.

Promising

A whole free Saturday stretches before me. That my friends is a luxury not indulged in recently what with Grand Finals; a draw and the replay. Sunday sees 120+ km on the bike before next weekend's 210km for Around the Bay. The fact that the weather is going to be glorious helps tremendously.

Oh and if you ever wanted some bright colour in the garden, I highly suggest planting ranunculus. They really are super easy to grow.

It's so nice to have you back

For the past two years both my Hippeastrum plants have failed to flower. Maybe taking a stance against the West? Or perhaps just not placed in the right spot? After a repositioning, I'm delighted to see one of the plants flowering again.

This week in the garden

... I came out to discover someone had stolen one of my olive trees! See that stake, there used to be an olive tree tied to that. Some opportunistic individual couldn't part with $9 at a Nursery for their own tree and decided to take mine. Dug it out of the bed on Sunday night. A great way to start the week, no? No!

At least I'm getting to enjoy the flowering ranunculus.

This week in the garden

The winter planting is about to payoff. The freesias are close to blooming. I'm excited by the prospect of potted colour in the garden this year.

Quite a bit of the rocket (and there's a whole lot) has flowered. I'm going to let it go to seed and hopefully reaps the rewards all summer.

This week in the garden

With spring just around the corner I can't help but think about getting back in the garden again. In preparation I gave my seeds a head start. Last weekend I put some basil, thyme and baby cauliflower seeds on some paper towel. I moistened the paper and placed it in a ziplock plastic bag and left it on the window sill (not direct sunlight) for a week. Now I have germinated seeds ready for planting. I'll start them off indoors and move them out to the beds when they're established and the weather is warmer.

Late Harvest

Over the past few months my Saturday mornings have involved long runs. But with the half marathon run last weekend, I opted to take a break, and got to spend my Saturday morning in the garden; harvesting passionfruit!

This week in the garden

I'm seeing the fruits of last weekend's planting already! Given that almost everything is at a standstill in the garden outside, I decided to bring a few pots inside to see if I could raise some herbs, mini cauliflower and baby beetroots amongst others. This is the start of the rocket. I shouldn't lose this lot to caterpillars and snails!

Guilfoyle's Volcano

This garden is situated in the Royal Botanic Gardens at the top of Anderson st. Running regularly around 'the Tan' I watched this develop and was keen to check it out. It was a vision that started in 1876 and was only finished recently. It's a water reservoir that's surrounded by low-water use plants and is really quite striking.

This week in the garden

I harvested a Passionfruit early. I can't even begin to express my disappointment as I went out to the garden to find three of my slowly ripening passionfruit taken from the vine before their time. To later find that they'd been thrown into my neighbour's yard.

This one was a little tart, but still pretty good. I didn't want to risk leaving it on the vine to sweeten only to have it disappear into grubby thieving hands!

This week in the garden

The passionfruit vine is putting on quite a spread. I've got several flowers, quite a few young fruits and one that shows promise of ripening. I can't wait to try the first harvest.

The first soup of the season

It's been a little bit quiet on the blog front. So I thought I'd a meal with you from last week. A bowl of Jamie Oliver's Prawn and corn chowder sans bacon from his Ministry of Food cookbook. All the while gathering inspiration for my Autumn plantings reading through Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion.

The warmer weather this week as seen a multitude of new growth in the garden. I hope it's all the rocket that went to seed and not weeds.

This week in the garden

The eucalyptus are coming into bloom. This pretty specimen is on our neighbour's lawn.

Others on the job

No busy bees here, took it very very easy today after a full week. Plenty more where that came from this week. Should fly! The count down to holidays is on.

This week in the garden

Yet another harvest. I sowed some more seeds. Here's hoping the weather stays mild and doesn't kill off this lot of seedlings like it did with my last lot.

This week in the garden

The harvest continues. Every couple of days another one or two strawberries is ripe for eating. They seem to be sweeter than last year.

Harvest

The first of the seeds sown in autumn has come to fruition. This mini beetroot had almost pushed itself out of the ground. I used the leaves, wilted, amongst other veggies with some udon noodles. And grated the beetroot in a salad sandwich.

Here's hoping the forecast rain for this weekend actually comes. The garden and tank are desperately dry.

My how you've grown

This week marks the anniversary of moving into Mr T's house. We've been living together a year now. I'd initially taken a week off to do Yoga, drink lattes and find my inner calm. But I spent a hot week driving back and forth over the bridge to move my small apartment into his large house. It could not have been more worth it.

It was just prior to moving in that I helped Mr T tear down his previous garden and build the new fence that doubles as raised garden beds and a bench. The previous garden was full of thorns, fake plastic flowers and spiky things.

Now we've got a lemon/lime tree, rocket, basil, beetroot, carrots, strawberries, coriander, potatoes, parsley, passionfruit, oregano, sage, rosemary, garlic, mint, rhubarb, olive trees, and an avocado tree all doing their best to make it in the West. Just like me.