Spring has sprung - more like pole vaulted!

It's been an incredibly dry winter with little rain at Upsidownimal Farm. Spring then lasted about three days and now we're into summer. It's still be very dry but thankfully last week we got some decent rain and everything brown is green again.

My gardens are, well blooming. I'm having to spend at least a few hours every weekend to keep on top of things and if I don't harvest every week, I'll lose things.

Some veges like BokChoy and a few of the lettuces just bolted but I've managed to be really lucky with most things so far. There is plenty of silverbeet, the spinach, pak chop and mizuna were a real success. And the sugar snap peas dwarf beans were devine and plentiful. I've now planted another crop of peas and will drop in a second row soon so that I don't run out (you can never have enough peas in a garden!).

Eggplants galore (and there's about 6 plants - this is only one)

There's lots of mixed salad leaves to harvest from and we are eating fresh salads quite a few times during the week.

I'm hoping to focus pretty heavily this year on three main plants - tomatoes, chilli and basil. I've planted about 40 tomato plants - all of different varieties but mainly heritage ones - and I think we'll have our first harvest in the next week or so. Although I appear to have a bit of competition from possibly a bandicoot so I'll be pulling out the trap in the next few days to convince him to move on. It's a catch and release trap so he'll just be finding a new home - far away from my tomatoes. The chilli and basil has been planted in the bath tubs and I also threw some chilli and basil seeds in the ground a few weeks ago that are starting to pop their wee green heads through the soil.

Chilli and basil in old baths surrounded by bricks

The coffee trees are blooming again and still growing. I'm not sure how big they'll get but they're only two - three years old and a good 4 metres tall. Gonna' need a ladder this year...

Coffee trees flowering

I also recently started bringing home the used coffee grinds from a coffee shop next to my work (thanks to the guys and girls from Tonic). These are really high in nitrogen and grubs hate it so I sprinkle it around the lettuce and, if I ever have another crack at brassicas I'll have it everywhere. I also bring home a big box carrot peelings every Wednesday from a local Vietnamese Deli and that got to the donkeys, a neighbours horse and a friends' two cows (one who was previously called Sirloin - you might remember him, although he's not so miniature now...).

I've got big hopes for these wee beans

The donkeys are still contributing with their contribution to the weed juice container a few years ago. The stuff in that bin is gold!

We've also got ourselves some bee hives, so I'm planting more flowers and flowering herbs like borage amongst the veggies to encourage them. The bees love the water fountain. Everything does seems to be growing better since they arrived.

Wild dogs are a bit of a problem this year again in the area, they seem to surge in numbers every few years and this year they are everywhere. It's not much a problem for us because we no longer have chickens. I really miss not having them but I refuse to feed the local fox and wild dog population. On an upshot, I don't need those ugly fences around my gardens anymore. But I miss the chooker moles...

We'll also be running some more dog fence around another large section of the bottom yard in a few weeks time. This will mean the dogs have more space to run and play. Bella still has to stay inside during the day and be supervised whilst outside - she's little enough to be eagle fodder around here.

I've planted corn too, a couple of varieties including a blue corn (can't wait to see how that comes out). First harvest will be next week.

Seed saving

MOTH is making pesto right now. The basil has been prolific the last two weeks... love it! I'd eat it every day if I could.

There's also been a few introductions and trails that I've always wanted to have a crack at. I bought a pepper vine and, after a bit of a slow start, he's off and running. He will grow along the fence between the top and bottom garden beds. I've also grown my my first pumpkin. It was nice. So, have dropped some more seeds on the far side of the compost to see what we can grow. I'm also planning on trying to grow some loofahs (something different), tamarillos (or tree tomatoes if you're from NZ) and my ultimate  challenge - a vanilla plant.

Pepper vine

I think the garden is finally looking like I'd imagined it to be way back when I first started planting it. It was looking quite destitute about six months ago but there's a wee story about that. In March I injured my ankle and had an ankle reconstruction in May. The garden was suffering from my lack of attention and so I found the most amazing woman to come and help me out. Without Tab's help I wouldn't be writing this blog today, it would have all been made into lawn. She's a breathe of fresh air and has done wonders for the garden. We're back to producing food for the house and plenty of extra for friends - all part of why we do it, right? There is nothing more satisfying than taking a bunch of fresh veggies to a friends place and saying that you grew it.

At the end of the day, I love getting covered in dirt - I think I really am an Earth child...

Top garden

Bottom garden bed

Top 4 garden beds

Bottom garden bed has an urn feature you can look down to from the house 

Alternative view of top garden beds surrounded by bush rocks

Fat fish, coffee beans, lots of lemons and lots of compost

Another weekend ended, another sense of achievement. 

Special thanks to our neighbour, Mitch who popped up on his tractor this morning to do some tractoring (his has a bucket, ours doesn't). Unfortunately he broke when he was helping unload the trailer and has hurt his back. Wishing you a speedy recovery Mitch.

But his handy work was well appreciated. He took out an unsuccessful garden bed to open up the patio outside the downstairs apartment. I'm going to drop some turf on this next weekend.

OK, first dilemma - fat fish. A few years ago I put about 30 fingerlings (the edible kind - sleepy cod, silver perch and eel tail catfish) into our water fountain pond. They were less than 5 cm long. They're now plate sized but, because of too many fish in the pond, general consensus is that they're over nitrogenised and potentially toxic to eat. So... what to do with the fishy wishys. Options are to drain the pond and try and catch them, then relocate them to a neighbours dam where they can live a long and happy life (Lord knows how, our driveway if very very steep). Negotiations will include fishing rights. If we do this, I'll be able to clean out the pond (read cattle trough) and start again with less, ornamental fish. Apart from begin a really nice focal point on our driveway, the bees love it and I'm more than happy to make the bees happy. I would love love love to have some bee hives but am very allergic to  stings.

Harvest time today for the turmeric. I got about 1-2 kilos and several rhizomes for replanting and sharing. That's more than $100 of turmeric. Seriously worth looking at planting, it's a lovely plant with really pretty flowers. We will chop it into 1cm chunks and freeze. 

A bit of planting... (actually, there was a lot of planting)

Some boasting (check out the size of one of my parsley)

And the gum trees are flowering (makes me think of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - overseas visitors will need to Google this)

Oh, and Lots of Lemons they said... (tick), dwarf tree (not so apparent) 

All this gardening, of course, means excessive compost. Woo hoo!

Exciting news, out first harvest of coffee beans is nearly ready for harvesting. MOTH (man of the house) is very excited about this. Four more coffee trees being planted next weekend.

I previously posted about a couple of old baths that I mounted in old red bricks. The intention was to use them as strawberry beds (which is going really well and am expecting our first crop next season). Have also added some chilli bushes to the baths and, good news, they're going great. Never thought this companion planting combination would be so successful.

Next weekend, I'm harvesting our significant ginger crop (about 2m squared). Keen for ideas of how to preserve ginger.

And, the roses need a good pruning - they're out of control and very unattractive.

Another quiet weekend in the country - can't wait to get back to work tomorrow for a break.