Self care by growing a garden

[Smc]

@Sophie1, in all honesty, most of my garden looks a mess. But it's a productive mess, and I'm hoping to make it more so this year than it's been for a while. (More productive... not more messy. 😛 )

I've had a few years lately when I haven't had "the heart" to get much done. Too burnt out. And too many times when I've been away at my parents house at the times when I really needed to be preparing and planting garden beds. But this year, "stay at home" has meant we've had less pressure on us, and it's feeling great getting stuck into the garden in a big way.

Years ago, I was growing a lot of our fruit and vegs. With a mind to the unpredictability of life, I put a lot of perennial and self seeding food plants in, along with a lot of tough perennial ornamentals and flowering bulbs and self seeders. These have kept ticking along, producing fruit, herbs, flowers and a small but useful range of veggies, when I had little choice but to let the rest go, and ask Hubby to slash down the weeds. Sometimes I've been so down that seeing the "toughies" in full flower made me feel like crying, as if my emotions didn't know how to go towards happiness anymore so just amplified the sad instead....

This year, I'm glad to say that I'm finding the garden a genuine pleasure. 🙂 So to that end, I've bought some more seeds today... and some more protective wire baskets to keep the rats from raiding them!


Rodent proof seedlings. 🙂

[Smc]

Put the first of my tomatoes in yesterday, and made a rustic trellis for them from garden waste. 🙂

[Adge]

How inventive @Smc I like your rustic garden Trellis.

Adge

[Smc]

@Adge, there will be a few more of those around the garden by the time I've planted everything. 🙂

I love looking at that kind of thing online, and it's fun making them too. They get dry, brittle and unstable after a year or two, but by that stage, they're perfect kindling for our woodstove.

[Former-Member]

Back in the garden weeding today and have a full green bin and a left over pile of weeds. Am thinking of asking our friend if he would be so kind as to bring his trailer around to take a green load to the tip for composting. 

We moved a large flat rock that seemed to be an unusual feature in the garden and transplanted some sparaxis bulbs into a desirable spot (plants had died back).

We also planted a punnet of petunia "antique" flowers in one gap. The love in the mist has started to flower and it is white.

[Shaz51]

Sounds good my @Former-Member 

Hello @Smc , @Adge , @Bow , @Sophie1 , @Anastasia , @Emelia8 , @Appleblossom 

Pur new hedge plants are growing even though the  cat next door has been  digging in  the garden 

[Bow]

Full green bin- last month since moving into our new place. Currently full with a large pile waiting and a few big bags to empty into it too. 

I put some veggie seedlings in yesterday and repotted some plants. 

[Former-Member]

Yikes @Shaz51 my Mum had a lot to say about some unwanted feline visits to her yard and in particular one neighbourhood cat who didn't "dig and bury" but regularly left a calling card. The family moved so it is no longer a problem for her.

@Bow  what veg did you get in?

[Bow]

@Former-Member few different lettuces, cucumber, tomatoes, beans, snow peas, spring onions, capsicum, carrots (littles ones choice). Hopefully they will of survived the downpour we had yesterday arvo and the heat wave we are suppose to get early in the week. 

[Former-Member]

Sounds lovely @Bow  the harvest potential is palpable.