October 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, Garden, magic, vegetables
When I planted the cauliflowers in June in the first vegetable bed, I didn’t think they would grow much since it was fairly late (if not completely out of) season. They grew lots of leaves and got to be big plants, but there were no heads forming so I thought I would have to just pull them out the the ground come summer. However, secretly forming and growing were some cauliflower heads that really appeared when I came home from Quezon City. Yay! We have cauliflowers! The magic of the garden – that we could have VERY late season cauliflowers forming in every plant. The heads are even of a reasonably size. Magic.
Just look at that beautifully formed magical cauliflower! 
August 17, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, chinese celery, gardening, lettuce, marigolds, peas, vegies
The peas are still growing and now have some stakes and jute string to climb along.
We were given this plant as a little seedling at our housewarming. It was labelled as Chinese Celery. It doesn’t have much of a stalk, but it’s leaves are huge and going everywhere. Maybe it’s not celery after all? It’s really huge.
The cauliflowers are also growing, but only leaves. I’m pretty sure they were put in too late to grow heads. We’ll see what happens.
The rogue marigolds are everywhere. They came up from mystery seed in the potting mix and are crowding out the little native in the middle and the daffodils around the sides. Mr Gnome is doing okay amongst the marigold crowd.
Meanwhile, the lettuce (from seed) in the pot, along with the potted parsley, is doing fabulously. The baby spinach, strawberry and coriander are suffering from the cold, I think.
Time to start thinking about spring/summer seeds…
June 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, Garden, no dig, peas, raised beds, vegies
With the help of some old bricks from mum and dad’s house, we have started a raised bed vegie patch. Eventually we hope to have a 4 bed rotating vegie patch.
I started by lightly digging up some of the big bits of grass, but I think this was a waste of time.
Then we laid one row of bricks. About 8 bricks by 7 bricks.
Then we put down some newspaper. We only had 3 messengers so I think we’ll have to save up more paper for the next bed. The paper was put down 2 pages thick and overlapped onto the bricks. We put the second layer of bricks over the newspaper edges to secure it.
Then, I put down 2 wheelbarrow loads of a mixed assortment of mainly old leaves and grass clippings. On top went some seaweed from Brighton and then a light sprinkling of lime and dolomite for sweetness. This is what it looked like.
Then mum and dad brought some more bricks and we put a third layer of bricks down.
I did a layer of sugarcane straw, a layer of compost mulch, a dusting of lime/dolomite, a layer of sugarcane.
To plant, I added Marion council organic compost (compost made from Green bin ‘waste’ collected in the Marion council) and planted directly.
There are 7 cauliflowers, a chinese celery, a daisy and two rows of peas (covered in mesh which is held down with some bricks so that the birds/dog/cat don’t dig up any seedlings when they grow.)
Then it started raining. Here’s what it looks like now.
