“Mum, have you ever set fire to a leaf with a magnifying glass?”
“Sure. Should we go and give it a try?
Oh, and put on some shoes in case you have to stomp out the fire…”
Daylight Savings Time started in Sydney last Sunday. It was the perfect excuse to spend a lazy day at home, enjoying the sunshine.
I baked savoury slices for lunch, using leftover bacon and Grana Padano cheese…
After lunch, we headed into the garden and moved the chook dome. The girls are now happily chomping and scratching away at the bed on which our winter peas and celeriac were grown…
We harvested all the carrots before the dome was moved. We’ve been planting the “Gigante Flakkee 2” variety from Franchi, and can highly recommend it…
A large clump of self-sown celery was dug up, and divided into three smaller bunches for sharing…
We were overjoyed to harvest nearly five kilos of potatoes from the bed next to the fence! In previous years, we’ve bought expensive seed stock which always grew poorly. This year we purchased virus-free Sebagos from Enfield Produce, for just $4/kg.
Of the half a kilo we bought ($2), we planted just five potatoes in the side bed (about $1 worth). Those five returned a kilo of creamy white spuds each…
In the newly renovated back bed, the dwarf beans are coming up…
Once the potatoes were harvested, we could reach the fat beetroots that were growing in front of them…
And our kohlrabis have grown large in the spring sunshine…
I love the way our garden is evolving. We’re constantly experimenting, and figuring out what grows in our backyard and suits our lifestyle.
We’ve found varieties of peas, carrots and potatoes that will grow well here. We only plant cos lettuce, because they’re easy to harvest, keep well in the fridge, and the boys love them.
We’ve learnt to cook the leafy greens that thrive in our beds, and now grow rainbow chard and broccoli rabé instead of spinach, as we find the latter much harder to manage and harvest. Our beds are no longer as densely planted as they were under Linda’s original plan, but they seem to produce ample for our needs nonetheless.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson we’ve learnt is this: some plants will grow brilliantly in our backyard, and others won’t. We no longer try to grow heirloom tomatoes (too many fruit flies) or apples (too warm). And whilst our aim is to grow what we love to eat, we’ve also learnt to eat what we can grow. After a couple of years of trial and error, it feels like we’re finally in tune with how our garden works!
. . . . .
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Let us cultivate our garden.Candide (1759), by Voltaire
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
You are a true inspiration Celia! Your are very successful at your gardening endeavours and I would have loved one of your savoury slices for my lunch – delicious.
:-) Mandy
Thanks Mandy! I don’t know that we’re there yet – it’s still a learning process – but we’re having a wonderful time! :)
Those savoury slices look great *tummy rumble*
You are doing much better at growing veggies than us, Green by name, not by fingers it would seem! :)
Sue, honestly the chooks do most of the weeding and hard work. We just have to raise seedlings and figure out what to plant! :)
What you plan to do with those beautiful potatoes, they look delicious :)
Tes, we ate a few of them straight away – they’re absolutely glorious just picked. The rest will be used over the next week or so – probably very simply, so as not to mask their flavour!
Celia, what a success with your potatoes! I’m so glad that worked out for you. Your carrots and celery look divine. I’m sure you will be preparing some yummy dishes with all of this beautiful produce :)
Emilie, I never realised until we grew spuds how different they are when they’re just picked! They’re creamy and tender and cook in about half the time! The celery was a bit stringy (we’d probably left it too long), but the carrots have been delicious – we used some of them in a stir fry tonight!
And this is exactly why little Peter asked his favourite grandma for “a big magnifying glass” for his 10th birthday. It was a very good summer after that, particularly when smoking the dried, hollow stems of cow parsley with the other boys in the gang.
In our land of bushfires, small boys don’t get to wander about setting fire to dry shrub with magnifying glasses! :D
I love it when you photograph your garden. Isn’t it wonderful when you discover which things thrive but a little disappointing to realise that some things will never grow. And of course always a bonus when the things that grow well are the ones we enjoy eating.
Anne, we’re rarely disappointed, it’s all part of the refining and honing process, although I have to admit to being just a wee bit annoyed at the celeriac which took the better part of a year to grow and then had barely a bulb we could eat! :D
It’s interesting how gardens tell us what they like.. for some reason, celery was the one plant my garden grew just beautifully.. now what to do with so much celery, lol?! Yours looks much more bountiful!!
Smidge, it’s a hard veg to use in any quantity, isn’t it? We usually only keep one plant in the garden and then pull of a couple of stalks whenever we need them. The big bunch in the photo above was self-sown and got away from us! :)
That sneaky little celery;)
Beautiful so beautiful… I can feel the ambience of your sunday garden! And also made me hungry too :) looks so delicious…. Thank you dear, love, nia
Thanks Nia! It was a lovely day! x
I have discovered I am not a good gardener. I am much better at harvesting and using up the overflow on someone else’s garden. It’s a good thing there are good gardeners like you out there- especially since one can always barter with some baked or knitted thing. Can you tell I’ve been helping my niece clean out her garden beds?
Heidi, our chooks are good gardeners, we’re really kind of good garden managers. ;-)
I felt like I was basking in the sunshine too.
Thanks for joining us, Sally! PS. I’ve started Antonio’s biography! :)
Oh lovely. I sure it will always evolve. It is so great that the boys will eat the things you grow. It makes me want to grow things too. Wowa…oops you got me dreaming and I don’t have time for growing or dreaming …so sad.. You keep growing and I’ll keep reading
You’re so busy love, when would you find the time? The boys are now happily eating leafy greens, which is great!
Live and learn! Your garden produce all looks so divine. I love the beetroot, potatoes and carrots. And I love how the girls get rotated around the garden – such good workers! xx
Charlie, they’re good little workers – they’ve made short work of that bed!
I love watching your garden in the opposite season to mine! At the moment, we have just 3 butternut squash left to harvest – everything else has finished and we will soon be tidying up and digging over in preparation for winter. Our garden is in the wrong position and the soil isn’t really suitable for the sort of crops which can overwinter.
Suelle, we’ve never had much luck with squash or pumpkin. I’m keen to try again, but Pete thinks we don’t really have the room…
My neighbours invited me in to see their 3 new Silky Chinese Bantams, they are so adorable, they sweetly asked before they bought them if we minded them having chickens? Of course we did not object.
Did you say, “ooh, if you have an excess of eggs, you know where we are”? :D
Lovely pictures. You’re veggies look so nice. How does broccoli rabe compare to spinach?Do you also eat the leaves? Never had it before, but if it’s easier to harvest than spinach and tastes similar I might give it a try!
Manuela, it’s more bitter than spinach. We eat the leaves, the flowers and most of the stalks (actually, I prefer to take the leaf stalks out, but Pete leaves them in). It grows in a bunch, so it’s easier to harvest, although the leaves are a little bit spikey. I’ve got a recipe going up soon for the pasta we make with them – we boil the leaves first to remove most of the bitterness. The boys love it!
We found we had to harvest spinach leaf by leaf (separating them from the weeds), and that it tended to run to seed really quickly.
It’s fun finding out what works where isn’t it. I’m not familiar with broccoli rabe so I must look that up.
Rose, it’s also known as rapini and cime di rape…
How wonderful Celia! Those potatoes and carrots are just fantastic. In a way they’re even more exciting than everything else because you can’t see them grow and have no idea what you could be digging up. What a surprise!
Claire, you’re so right – the potatoes and carrots were a really great surprise! They’ve been delicious too! :)
What a great harvest Celia, it really does take a while to feel the rythym of your garden doesn’t it? I’m still suprised sometimes though- like the berries I wrote off last summer that have been sneakily hibernating all winter and have snuck sneaky tendrils of hope around my garden beds, here’s hoping! :)
Becca, our tiny fingerlime tree is trying to make fruit! I still have no idea how to predict how our fruit trees will do – I think the learning cycle for those is much longer than for veg! :)
Looks great Celia, especially the beans and potatoes! Trial and error is the key isn’t it?
Jane, trial and error is both the key and a great source of fun! We love experimenting, although we have to be patient for the results, and sometimes they don’t work! :)
Your garden, Celia, is a real treasure! I cannot believe its yield so early in the season. And now that you’ve learned what plants are best suited for your space, the yield can only improve. I can’t wait to see more.
Thanks John! This is actually probably the best time of year – it just gets hotter from here on, which brings with it other issues to manage!
What a bountiful harvest! I hope in a year or so my garden will be as organized as yours. The slice/buns look delicious. Burning holes in stuff was one of my favourite science experiments!
Liz, I’m sure your garden is wonderful! Small Man had a blast with his magnifying glass. :)
Great observations. We live on a mesa, which means the soil is adobe and we grow most of our veg in pots. For your tomatoes, try cherry tomatoes and spray with dish soap. Grow on! Maz.
Maz, we’ve tried everything! There are just too many fruit flies in the neighbourhood – a product of all the fruit trees planted decades ago by our Italian neighbours. C’est la vie – we can grow cherry toms in winter (if the weather is mild), but once it gets warmer, the bugs arrive en masse!
Wonderful garden, Celia. I haven’t come across broccoli rabe and will look out for it.
Jo, we probably eat it a couple of times a week! It’s been a hit in our garden!
What a beautiful crop! Next you can task the boys to use a jug of water to start the fire :)
Ooh Tandy, don’t give them ideas.. :)
I did Candide as one of my French A Level books :) Lovely crops you have going there, we are rubbish at carrots and good at tomatoes but have much shorter growing season than you do. Love all your gorgeous photos !
Jo, we’ve been rubbish at carrots until we discovered this variety – now they’re producing a decent, non-hairy crop! We really are fortunate to be able to grow nearly all year round!
Wonderful Celia, as it is every month.
Thanks Glenda! x
What a lovely garden you have! It is so true that you have to focus on what will thrive. We have trouble with spinach as well, particularly in the summer months. When it’s hot, I grow edible amaranth instead. It makes for fewer disappointments! Your carrots are beautiful, too. I always hold my breath when I pull carrots up, because I never know what they will look like. I’d be thrilled to end up with a basketful like that.
Siobhan, that is sooo true about carrots! We go through weeks of “are they big enough yet, do you think?” before we actually pull one out! :)
Beautiful harvest, that purple kohlrabi is just gorgeous. Looking forward to reading about your bean harvest soon.
Norma, we’ve been eating the kohlrabis over the last few days – I like them best in a stir fry!
I think your garden is absolutely remarkable Celia! As a lucky recipient of your produce, I marvel at how tasty and fresh everything is! :D
It’s nice to be able to share with you, love. xx
I am loving this post, what a great garden! I wish I could grow veggies, but here in Florida it’s such a fight. Now tropical fruit is another story! The savoury slices look so good…I want one right now for my lunch! :)
thank you for bringing back childhood memories of setting fire to things with magnfiying glasses, with mybrother! and i love the chook picture. i love the chooks!
celia, just to let you know i’ve listed you on my blog under ‘favourite things’. however, please let me know if you don’t want to appear. sorry for letting you know thru here.
Not at all, I’m honoured, thank you! :)
Wow, your garden n its produce is just amazing! And the 5 kilo potato harvest, is sooo awesome. Wish I could sample some of the spoils.
Thanks Soy! The potatoes were such a nice surprise – after growing almost none last year, we didn’t know what to expect this time around!
Hooray, lovely post Celia. Your garden always looks fantastic and you’ve had some great harvests. Gardening isn’t generally a short term project and it takes a while to figure what works and what doesn’t.
Choc, I was thinking of you when we were in the garden and looking at our measly garlic plants – we’ve now taken to planting them to keep the bugs away rather than with any hope of growing corms. How are yours going this year?
Wow!