Beautiful one day .........

“Beautiful one day – perfect the next” as a politician liked to say about Queensland.

Yesterday was perfect.  Neither hot nor cold.  Marrow-warming in the sun, refreshing in the shade.  A cup of tea accompanied by chooks clucking and an occasional loud announcement of the arrival of an egg (5 by the end of the day).  Lunch eaten with clean hands but grubby fingernails – evidence of digging in the soil.  A quick meeting to catch us up on the happenings in the garden  - what was harvested, what was planted, how much money was taken at the “honesty” stall near the roundabout.

The stall at the roundabout.

At one point a young hawk sat on top of the duck house, eyeing off the young ducks.  Marking out future meals.  John got up to chase him away but there’s not much danger really since Joe has put a roof on the duck compound.

In between cups of tea and lunch we weeded and harvested and planted and built.  Janet and Jenny weeded a large patch of nut grass.  Shocking stuff it makes a web of “nuts” under ground and pushes up spikes of bright green grass.  It has such a strong life force I always think it must be good for something medical.  Anita hoed and sowed – beetroot I think.

 Janet and Jenny dealing with nut grass.

John and some visitors built some more of the new shade area outside the shed.

 You can just see John with a hammer in hand - although you might need a microscope with this size picture!

I collected eggs and harvested kale, lettuce, bok choi, rocket (aragula), onions, mustard greens (purple) and coriander.  Janet picked some silverbeet and we found some small sweet potatoes left over from the harvest.  My little gardening soul was in heaven!

Really putting their backs into that weeding!

 That tiny figure is me, standing over a bathtub (literally) washing the vegies ready for the stall.  The peas in the foreground are nearly ready to pick.  They're quite delicious eaten very young too.

Here in Australia we have a gardening show called “Gardening Australia” and until recently it was hosted by an 85 year old chap who could easily have passed for 60!  He swore that his vigour was due to eating lots of kale.

The purple mustard greens (!) we grow have large purple leaves which are a bit rough – like nettles.  They don’t look appetizing to me but Viv swears they are fantastic in a sandwich.  Jenny said they were awful eaten raw but an Indian friend cooks them and swears they are delicious! 

Stay tuned to this blog for recipes in future.  Our Nameless Chook is still nameless – enter the contest to name a chook (chicken) and win a lovely poster (oh, and support the garden of course).

Cheers for now

Norid

Coriander in flower, spring onions and white radishes.  In the background, the girls still weeding!