April 2011

Vespa walks through the pumpkin plants

March 2011

Bannana Bread

Made tomato sauce out of these

Feb 2011

early morning shot of veggies

Cherry tomatos

Vespa gets in the garden shot again

Back corner pumpkin plants

January 2011

Vespa at the corner of the veggie patch

abundance of strawberries

suculents on standby

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Green progress

Herb pot featured earlier post

Vespa sniffs plant

Hi 2011

Miss one and a half with her watering can on the 1.1.11

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.       Helen Keller

Prepare 2011

1000 steps Dandenong Ranges photo by Ern Mainka

As I said before, new years rock.  The year that was 2010 was indeed huge.  When I began this year I had been a mum for 6 months and being a mum has pretty much defined the year for me.  I've had some very low points and some very beautiful moments that filled my soul to the point of bursting its banks.  Now that my girl is a toddler there is so much energy about her. I marvel at how fast she is learning about her world.
The second half of 2010  began our "fun day", day or 2 that my husband and I get off work.  Yesterday was such a day.  We did the 1000 steps....whoah ! hard work but wonderful setting and a great way to recharge the soul.  We then hit our favourite cafe ...the smoothest coffee the most unexpected meals made from local produce.  Art, ambiance, a place where i feel most like myself apart from home.  I speak of Ripe in Sassafras.

Ripe Cafe

The year as a garden bed

just had a drink from the watering can

The Christmas season has been super and in a few days we will enter 2011.  I get a kick out of moving into a new year.  It's like preparing a fresh garden bed.  By the end of the year it will be full and abundant...but with what?  The key for me is mental preparation and organisation so i end up with a fruitful year and some great surprises thrown in.

Happy plants

The down pour across Victoria has been great for ou gardens and water catchments. This artichoke flower is HUGE.  The plants are looking a little triffid like, i think.  You can tell its part of the thissle family.  The plants have been put too close together so this end of Summer maybe Autumn i am going to make it my bussiness to move 2 of them and see how they go in a differnt location, give them a bit mor nutrition and i might get a better crop...we shall see.

Feels a lot like Christmas

In the Colby house we set up our tree about 1 month before Christmas. This year it was time for a new tree (that did not look like a giant pipe cleaner) and we had our daughter "helping".
It looks splendid.  This 7 ft Hudson will be our family Christmas tree for many years to come.  Our little girl enjoyed all the weird new objects and boxes.  She got into every thing.

The night before summer

From my driveway.... splendid

Incredible display.  It had it all,  motion, colour, magnitude and presence.  The artist who set up this epic instillation, God.  I Love his work.  I guess you had to be there with the smell of summer in the air, the breeze moving the clouds.  We held each other and gazed at the sky.

Pumpkin Patch

since writing my last post i have noticed lots of pumpkin seedlings popping up in random places.  Those places were already spoken for.  As you know pumpkins take up large amounts of real estate and need to trail of into areas that aren't in use.  So I made a  pumpkin patch at the end of the veggie bed where there is lots of unused soil where I've chucked kitchen-scraps dumping ground and a small spot left for a flowering cabbage and a slow chard.  The pumpkin seedlings transported well.

Next surprise seedling were a bumble of tomato plants...there are too many and they are already to big to move well.  I will let the drama play out as it may.  I might end up with a barrel full and have to make my own tomato sauce, a nice dilemma to have.

Summer is a week away

Jane watering the parsley

The cabbage

A large chunk of my veggie patch is inhabited by some very practical veggies.  I've already written about the tomatoes, mizuna and lettuce seedlings.  Now I've planted 2 punnets of mixed lettuce, peas, and  capsicum.  Also some basic herbs, (since i lost most of mine when we got a patio done) sweet basil, flat leaf parsley, sage.  I put them in  a pot for now.

Fish, i can't help but like them

Go on .... feed the fish