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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013." Che and Fidel.

Cohen and Emerson: It's the little things

I love this time of year in the garden. The weather is beautiful, there is much to harvest and Winter veggies are giving way to Spring planting. While I weed, pick, dig and plant, my little helpers play around me, push each other in the cart and 'work' with their wheel barrow and shovels. By far their favourite things though are the watering cans. A little water in each keeps them occupied for quite some time. And there is nothing cuter than a toddler pottering around with a watering can.

Winter Gardening Checklist

Mulch garden beds - to protect the plants roots from the cold

Prune Mulberry Tree - early Winter is the best time for this

Liquid fertlise - to strengthen plants against the cold

Create new garden beds 

Dig in compost

Plant seeds every two weeks 

Plan for Spring

Tidy up garden edges

Extend cut flower garden

More indoor plants

Add pot plants to front deck

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Some gardening love on the internet -

A useful resource for what to plant when in Australia.

Top five reasons to garden in Winter.

Ten kitchen gardens to visit before you die.

Sustainable Gardening Australia blog.

Home life Gardening blog.

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What are your Winter gardening plans? 

Colour and life

1.Self seeded cherry tomatoes
2. Chilli - I planted two varieties of seeds, I think this is a rainbow chilli
3. A mass of baby chrysanthemums
4. Self seeded Black Russian Tomatoes
5. The sweet faces of violas
6. Potential
7. There will be another Rosella jam day soon
8. Pumpkin vine loving the compost pile

Autumn in the garden and there is much colour and life. Dahlias bloom in profusion  Sunflowers nod their large heads. Buds appear on the camellia - such a long wait until they blossom. Self seeded tomatoes have been left to their own devices, some undiscovered until their red fruit give them away. Eggplants grow heavy. Rosella continue to fruit. The odd strawberry can still be found. The runners spreading. The watermelon vine is dying back and one small melon waits with uncertainty as to whether it will ripen. The beds have been mulched, nut grass still sneaks through, seeds wait to be planted.

Long shadows stretch across the lawn in the afternoon. Emerson sits with the basket of pegs and upends it as I take the clothes off the line. Cohen finds sticks, kicks his ball, then follows me as I potter. I love this time of year. Not too hot and not too cold. The perfect time to be in the garden.

An abundance of seeds

Our first sunflower seed harvest!

Yesterday Cohen and I removed the many, many seeds from the largest of our giant sunflowers, all the while discussing seeds, flowers and cycles. He was fascinated and only stopped his work in order to crack open the seed cases and eat their contents. With more sunflowers in the garden it's a process we shall be repeating again soon. 

I intend to save some seeds for planting, roast some for eating, store some for baking and try this cinnamon vanilla sunflower butter recipe too. 

Do you have any other suggestions?

In the garden

Next stop on the garden tour are the beds along the other side fence. The house was a rental property before we brought it and the gardens had been left to fend for themselves. There wasn't much worth keeping, so we cleared the beds as much as possible in order to start with a clean slate.

This is the second garden bed as it is at the moment. Rows of veggies at different stages and more room for the seeds and seedlings not yet planted out. The green rain gauge in the corner of the bed allows us to keep an eye on the rainfall and water accordingly. 

Eight Roma tomato plants and four sweet potatoes - grown from cuttings from a friends plant.

Two rows of carrots, my first. I can't wait to harvest them and see how they have grown.

Rows of eschallots and onion seedlings. The escahllots were brought as a bunch from the supermarket. I used to keep them in a jar of water to prolong their lives, but I found that re-planting them worked perfectly and we just cut off what we need as we need it.

Four black Russian tomato plants at the front and rows of silverbeet, beetroot, potatoes, experimental garlic and snow peas in a frame. I'm not sure our region if cold enough for garlic. I have grand plans to have numerous and various tomatoes plants this season, in the hopes of fulfilling my dream of bottling tomatoes for use through out the year.

My first potato sprouts - these were potatoes from the kitchen that had sprouted. Another experiment.

Snow peas

The third garden bed, which is home to the worst part of the fence and full of tree stumps.

This is how this part of the garden looked originally.

A mulberry and strawberries in the third garden, and just out of shot a gooseberry and pineapple. The palm stumps should rot down eventually, in the mean time I am planting around them.

In the garden

The first of our three veggie garden beds at the moment.

The garden bed when we moved in, empty except for weeds, a stump and some palm trees.

Parsley, violet, basil and mint

Strawberries, lettuce, egg plant, capsicum and a dwarf mandarin 

Cherry tomato, snow peas and the compost bin

Self seeded tomatoes in the lawn.

Yesterday our mortgage broker sent us an email to congratulate us on the first anniversary of buying this house. It was a few months after settlement that we actually moved in, because we needed to undertake some major renovations. I remember I couldn't wait to get started on creating a garden, despite being pregnant. That excitement remains. I thought we'd take a wander in the garden today, as I've had a few requests to see photos of the veggie beds.

There's a lot going on in preparation for Spring, so I'll just share the first of the three beds today. I started work on the first veggie patch in November last year, but it was destroyed by falling branches during tree lopping. I began again in this corner instead, watching the garden grow as my tummy did. Tottering back and forth with a full watering can because we didn't have a hose long enough to reach. Eventually there were as many weeds as intentional plants, as I could no longer bend my pregnant body over for long enough periods to weed, but still there was a harvest and I was incredibly pleased.

This is the second incarnation of this bed and it is currently full of strawberries in flower, the first green fruits showing, thus the bird netting. Along the front, violets have recently been added for colour, alternated with the herbs. A practice I picked up from a friend. The cherry tomato plants are looking much healthier than my last lot of tomato I planted, which succumbed to disease. They also succumbed to a possum, who would leave the half eaten fruit scattered on the lawn. When I noticed two tomato seedlings coming up in the middle of the lawn I encouraged Dave not to mow over the small plants by staking them. They are now in flower, the clever things. (There are more tomatoes in the second veggie bed.) I threw in a few snow peas in the place of the cherry tomato seedling I did loose. Since starting the garden we have had a year round supply of lettuce and basil, which I have only just cut back.

It may not be the most beautiful veggie garden, but it is slowly growing in to the kind of garden I envisioned and I can see it's charms. I love spending a little time here each day checking the plants, pulling the weeds and day dreaming about what Spring will bring with it.

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In the garden...

The first tomatoes are appearing

The lettuce are ready to be picked as needed

The watermelon vine creeps on

The corn grow taller

The potato is in flower

More basil, awaiting more pesto making

Purple beans climb

Several snow peas are ready for picking each day

The weeds are taking advantage of my pregnant tummy's desire not to allow me to bend over.

More lettuce and pea seeds have been planted. 

Carrot and celery seeds are ready to go in this weekend.

What's growing in your garden?