Little green things

I have been guilty of neglecting my garden for a while. The summer before last I broke my ankle and last summer I was settling into a new day job (and had been thinking about doing some landscaping that got put on hold for various reasons) so didn’t really do much. But this summer, even though I still haven’t done the landscaping, I figured I needed to at least revive some pots so that I remember to step outdoors occasionally and potter around. Might even help with the Vitamin D deficiency. (Pale celtic ancestry skin needs to avoid ozone lacking laser beam Aussie sun as a general rule but this results in sad Vit D levels).

I have no claim to a green thumb but I do like plants and flowers. And love fresh herbs for cooking, so am focusing on growing herbs and a few tomatoes and lettuces for now and seeing if I can get a couple of dwarf citrus going (I have had no luck with citrus in the past but hope springs eternal…). I’m going to try some potatoes in a grow bag if I can get some seed potatoes (December is about the latest to plant them where I live). Oh, and some succulents. I’ve managed to keep the terrarium I made earlier this year mostly alive and I love the colours in succulents, so need to try those.

So far my first batch of herbs are still alive (as is the tomato and the lemon trees) and I’ve just planted a few more things, so we’ll see. There was a minor hiccup with the first lot of basil I bought..I thought I’d try something other than sweet basil but the one I picked tasted distinctly like soap to me. Hardly a taste sensation. So it’s been replaced with some good old delicious sweet basil.

Gardening is relaxing and given my other attempts at hobbies lately have been thwarted as I had three short courses booked and they’ve all been cancelled! One is now rebooked for January and another I’m waiting to here if it will be rescheduled and I’ve decided to re-use the refund from the third to do a one day watercolour course in February (I have no claims to being able to draw really either but I’ve always been intrigued by watercolours and wasn’t a total flop at art class in school so who knows). I don’t usually knit much in summer (too darn hot). In fact, I’ve barely knitted this winter due to the vertigo (which is thankfully mostly gone), so gardening will have to tide me over on the feeding the muse side. Maybe one of my heroines is going to end up with a garden….

The only downside is my Virgo brain always wants to buy ALL THE REFERENCE BOOKS on new things I try. So there have been a few new container gardening books winging their way to me but I think I should have enough now. Though I’m a sucker for the pretty pictures of beautiful gardens all those clever clever real gardeners have. So I may need one or two on succulents as well. (PS Gardening ebooks on iPad = good).

I shall try to report on my progress on keeping things alive. And take some pictures as proof. Here’s some from today and about four weeks ago.

Multiple herb planter…4 weeks ago (Italian and curly parsley, lemon thyme and some jalapenos)