............................Blue Sky: Life Update

I haven’t been on line for quite some time. That’s because it has been such a good summer. The weather has been so fabulous that I have spent a lot of time outside in the garden.

We almost have the vegetable garden the way we want it. The vegetables we harvested this past season didn’t live up to my expectations but they never do because I always picture a cornucopia. We did well enough because the next step from growing is cooking and I have been very busy in the kitchen producing dishes to freeze. It’s been great fun cooking the old favourites and trying new recipes.

This year I have been propagating my own plants. The first thing I do when I get up of a morning is to check the seedlings, just like a doting parent. Pathetic right? We had success with a new (to me) plant, a Trombone zucchini. I picked the last of them yesterday.

The Trombone zucchinis are the pale green vegetables. The dark vegetables are the ordinary zucchinis. You can see my sunflowers and marigolds in the background. This bright cheery patch was the first thing I would see when I came out my backdoor. You can’t help but be happy when you see those flowers.

My husband has constructed two wickering beds at the property in Colac. That is to keep the plants watered even if we aren’t there on hot days to do so ourselves.

We have also been attending gardening workshops at St Erth, Blackwood (approx 90km from Melbourne). During the gold rush Blackwood had a population of about 13,000. Now it is probably about 300. St Erth is a homestead built 1863. It is now part of the Diggers Club which is committed to sustainable gardening and heritage seeds.