It’s been said that every cloud has a silver lining.
That’s especially true in the garden. Here are the happy endings to some of our early failures.
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We attempted to convert an old fish tank into a mini glasshouse. It didn’t work particularly well – most of the seeds didn’t germinate, and those that did frizzled and burnt…
Silver Lining…
…this inspired us to fix up the enclosed verandah. It’s north-facing, airy and light, and the perfect place to raise tomato plants during winter. We have chilli seeds germinating on top of the warm fish tank, and when they’re ready, we’ll start them off in our new conservatory…
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After an initial flush of success, sage has steadfastly refused to thrive in the herb garden…
Silver Lining…
…we’re replacing the sage with lemon thyme, which is already establishing well. It joins the jungle of rosemary, regular thyme and oregano. The new herb has opened up a world of culinary possibilities for us…
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Last year, our peas developed powdery mildew and we ended up pulling out the entire crop mid-season.
Silver Lining…
…a very kind lady from a large seed distributor took pity on me and sent me a handful of peas to try. This variety is known simply as “Willow”, and it’s doing brilliantly in our garden, despite the six inches of rain we had a couple of weeks ago…
We’ve just picked the first pods of the season!
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Late last season, all our tomato plants developed a viral wilt and died.
Silver Lining…
…a few self-sown plants appear to be wilt-resistant and have produced fruit despite the cold weather. We’re busily collecting seed for next season before the winter chill does them in completely. All appear to be roma-cherry crosses, but each has produced slightly different fruit. The one below even had different shaped tomatoes on the one branch…
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We’ve run a little short of time in the past few months to maintain the garden to schedule, and the seed raising and planting programmes have fallen behind.
Silver Lining…
…we’ve discovered that for some plants, simply scattering seed works! Below is a bed of spinach, bok choy and kohlrabi, all broadcast as seed…
There really aren’t any disasters in our garden – just opportunities to fine-tune, evolve and improve.
How are things going in your garden?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Nothing like eating directly from your garden, is there. Mine is slowly thawing and I am always surprised in summer when I see what pops up, we never know …
Cindy, at the moment, much of our garden is self-sown – the broccoli, some of the potatoes, the tomatoes and all the perennial leeks. It’s lovely to be able to forage for what feels like free food! :)
Oh how I love silver linings! Since being home the only thing that is happening in our garden is lots of catch up maintenance.
:-) Mandy
Mandy, having your folks staying with you is surely the biggest silver lining of them all! :)
It’s hot in the garden and the bees are rampaging all over the leeks that flowered, so even though we won’t have the leeks to eat for us we are doing our bit for bee kind, so that’s a definite disaster turned to good :) It’s a mad ramble of twisty sweet peas and all sorts in our garden right now, and the judas tree is very poorly. All its leaves have turned brown and papery and we don’t know why…. :(
I’m sorry to hear about your tree! Honestly, if only we could share our seasons – we’ve had so much rain and it’s been quite mild – I wish I could send you some of our weather. Good to know the bees are out in force! I wonder if you’ll get a squllion baby leeks coming up now that they’ve flowered?
Glad you’ve managed to find so many silver linings – it’s a good way to look at things. CT wonders if sowing tomatoes directly outside (after the last frost – assuming you get them) might work better for you in your climate.
Choc, please thank CT for us. We will be trying to grow tomatoes outside when spring comes, but probably only the wilt-resistant hybrids that we’ve been collecting seed from. The wilt seems to be in all the beds, so we’re still trying to decide if it’s worth planting regular plants next season or whether we should just wait a year. In the verandah we’re trying some bigger toms (grosse lisse etc) which just wouldn’t survive in our unsprayed garden – we had problems with fruit fly last year. The “conservatory” might be way too hot in summer, so we might have to move the pots outside – will have to wait and see how it goes. :)
love your attitude..i am looking forward to getting my spring crop in having missed out on the usual autumn/winter plantings..except for garlic..it will be interesting to see what weather challenges we have this summer! jane
Jane, with the weather so unpredictable, it’s always a challenge isn’t it? We’ve had three days of mid-20C temps. In the middle of winter!
That’s what happened to my tomatoes. I love the throw the seeds and see what happens method. Your spinach, bok and kohlrabi look great.
My bok is growing like a weed I can’t eat it fast enough. My tomatoes aren’t looking too good but I’ve cut two little heads of broccoli and just this morning noticed heaps of flowers on my beans and snow peas.
I actually saw a beautiful cloud with silver lining today. Such a pretty thing!
Claire, it sounds like everyone’s tomatoes suffered last year. I wonder if it was the unusually wet weather and subsequent summer humidity…
This weather we’ve been having makes you want to stick fingers in soil doesn’t it! Your enclosed verandah sounds like a wonderful little spot to have a drink and a little ponder about the world while listening to your plants grow…
Brydie, we have a little day-bed in there, and it’s the nicest spot to be on a sunny winter’s day…
Oh crikey Celia, sign me up for that day bed!
Anytime, Brydie! :)
Celia, you are definitely a “glass half-full” kind of girl, and we love you for it.
Sage has refused to thrive at all in my garden for reasons that remain obscure to me but I have golden oregano that covers enormous patches, I have tried to grow tomatoes in three different spots and ALL have developed wilt but, nevertheless, we will be trialing a new spot this year, and it has been so very cold here that nothing much has been happening.
However, we have just had 3 very mild days so I feel that we are getting a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Amanda, thank you! The sage is a right bugger, which is a shame as it started out so promising. It’s just limped along ever since – I suspect the patch is too damp for it. Wouldn’t change a thing though, since the other herbs all seem to be going gangbusters!
I love the idea of trying to utilise the old fish tank as a greenhouse. Shame it didn’t work. My girls and their cousins, when young, would have had a wonderful time converting that into a time machine! I’ve not had any luck with Sage either – it seems to promise great things, but then just stagnates. I’ve just planted kohlrabi too, I love them when they are young. We’ve also had problems with tomatoes and wilt, but my silver lining is burgeoning kale and sugar snap peas. I’ve started using Seasol and I think that is what is giving my garden a boost.
Jan, the mini greenhouse might still work – I don’t think we’ve completely written it off yet, but we just have to find some way to manage to temperature and humidity in there. Thanks for the Seasol tip!
I agree with you about self-sown plants (tomatoes especially) being the most resilient to disease and pests. Plus, saving seed is a great way of moulding the plants genes to your specific garden micro-climate over time.
Well done on enclosing your verandah! What a useable space this will be. A neighbour has a similar glass box to your fish tank in their garden, although it looks almost ‘telephone-boxish’..or shall I say it..Tardis like! They have it smack bang in the middle of their backyard with a citrus tree growing inside, love it! ;)
Chris, the verandah has always been enclosed, it just wasn’t particularly usable until recently, as it was completely full of junk (remember I mentioned I was cleaning out the sewing room? :)). A tree in a phone box – how’s that going to work in the longer term?
We’ve had yellow jackets (wasps) take up residence in the garden and had to burn them out. The deer and rabbits are still eating the leaves off the cucumber vines and squash plants, the tomatoes look very healthy but only have a few smallish tomatoes (and no- we didn’t fertilize them.) The herbs still look very good, although the cilantro bolted and the curly parsley has failure to thrive. BUT- a new farmer’s stand opened up just a mile away from us and they have the most delicious corn, blueberries, cukes and tomatoes. That is a golden lining. :)
A new farmer’s stand within walking distance is definitely gold, Heidi!
Oh your an inspiration Celia. Love the fabulous attitude. I don’t have a garden, we live in an apartment. I live my fantasies of having a giant veggie patch through my bloggie buddies. Hope your having a fabulous week. X
Anna, thank you! And I’m definitely going to let you know if my tomatoes grow indoors.. :)
Hope you’re feeling better, love. x
My pineapple is still growing, but not much else.
Deb, that pineapple is going to be a work of art by the time it’s ready… :)
What an admirable attitude of gratitude Celia! It’s great to see tackle these issues as challenges instead of disasters.
I much prefer thyme to sage anyway, and the different self sown tomatoes look fantastic- like a salad lucky dip!
My garden is hibernating through winter, there’s not much point doing much for another month as we can still get big frosts throughout September. I ‘ll just need to fertilize and mulch in the next few weeks to prepare for a bumper harvest next season :)
Becca, thank you! The self-sown toms were really mad, some looked like baby romas, others had wedges like a mandarin, really wacky stuff. Now if we can just get them to grow without wilting next year! It’s so cold in Canberra, I’m not surprised your garden is hibernating!
It’s so nice to see your garden looking so good in spite of the crazy weather.
One of our local tomato gurus buys bags of potting mix, puts holes in one side and a slit in the other and grows his tomatoes in the bag. The spent potting mix then goes into the garden.
Lettuce and rocket are about the only edibles in my garden at the moment. I think I planted my leeks too late and they are very slow.
My silver lining is the wild peach trees blooming along the creek–such a pretty sight!
Sigh…Liz, even those words are beautiful…wild peach trees blooming along the creek…I can only imagine how gorgeous they must be in real life!
Thanks for the tip about the tomatoes, I’ll pass it on to Pete!
Looks fabulous!
Thanks Lee! :)
what lovely silver linings! The peas look wonderful :)
Tandy, they’re so sweet! And each pod has lots of peas in it. It was so funny – I searched the internet and then rang a seed supply company to ask to buy some mildew-resistant seed. The lady who answered the phone told me that their minimum purchase was 25kg(!!). I think I must have sounded quite crestfallen, because she was so kind and said, “oh don’t worry, I’ll just send you a few peas…”
Definitely a silver lining when something leads to a conversation with a kind stranger who does you a favour! :)
I love this post! Makes me wonder what silver linings I can find in my garden…your tomatoes look so good already, I really had better hurry up and plant some seeds!
Mrs Bok, the indoor ones are growing so fast! I’m surprised! Last year at a friend’s house I saw a fully grown tomato plant, laden with fruit, growing inside by a sunny window. I figured it was worth giving it a go!
We are in the hotty, hot seat of summer. Our tomatoes are hanging in there. We have tons of zucchini and a smallish pumpkin we hope keeps growing.
Marilyn, one of these days you’ll have to come over and teach us how to grow zucchini. We seem to be the only people in the universe who can’t make it work! :)
I will send you the picture of my garden..it consits of one pot with mint and basil….New York City living…you are so blessed and I am so jealous…LOL
Norma, I’m sorry, I never meant to make you jealous! But if the tomatoes grow inside, hopefully you’ll be able to plant some as well.. :)
Ooo yes, your tomato plant is weird! Have you had any of the fruit yet??
ps how do I get a photo on here? With my comment I mean… I wanna photo!
Ali, to get a photo on your comments on WordPress, you need to get a gravatar – http://en.gravatar.com/
Tried one of the tomatoes from the mad plant – quite thickskinned, but sweet!