Our garden is pretty messy at the moment.
Over the last month we’ve been both busy and sick, and as a result, we’ve neglected the beds a bit. Many of the plants are flowering and going to seed (which is not a bad thing)…
The rainbow chard has been the backbone of the garden, and continues to produce a constant supply of bug-free leaves…
We were late planting cucurbits, but the zucchinis have settled well into the old potato patch…
Linda kindly sent us tromboncino seeds, which we planted into the empty space next to the garage…
Pete finally relented and allowed me to plant butternut pumpkin in the same patch…
The new side bed that Uncle Steve built is going gangbusters. The climbing beans have already reached the top of the trellis…
…and we’re harvesting our first snow peas…
The next bed along still has plenty of curly kale, but most of it is now covered in cabbage moth eggs. Interestingly, the moths have been so taken with the kale that they’ve left the rainbow chard and lettuce alone…
The newly renovated back bed is thriving – such a difference to the poor performance we’ve had from it in the past…
The dwarf beans are growing well…
Our purple and pink potato plants are flowering…
The girls have moved onto a new bed, and are trudging through the tall plants like African explorers…
Our mad cherry tomato tree – which has given us hundreds of tomatoes – is producing fruit again this season. We’ve taken off at least another fifty toms since the weather warmed up. The plant looks terrible, and it’s right next to the house, but it’s hard to pull it out while it’s still feeding us…
On the potted front, we’ve replaced our bay tree with a lemon verbena. The bay was always covered in scale, and never grew particularly well…
The potatoes in the laundry tub produced a small harvest, and have now been replaced with Little Gem lettuces and a jalapeno chilli plant…
It’s nearly summer here, but the weather has been quite mild, which has extended the growing life of the leafy greens. At the moment, we’re eating the last of the beets, rainbow chard and lettuces, and looking forward to our first big harvest of beans and snow peas.
How are things going in your garden?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Messy, but gorgeous and thriving with life and produce – brilliant :D
Thanks Nick! :)
Celia, I think your garden is lovely. You should see what my house looks like after a little neglect ;) Looking forward to seeing what you will make with all of your veggies.
Notice I didn’t offer any photos of the inside of our house, Emilie! It’s pretty messy – housekeeping isn’t really my forte. :) We’re having fun with all the veggies! :)
Messy in your garden looks good. Awaiting your creations.
Thanks Norma!
Hope you are feeling better. I like messy gardens (not that yours is that messy) especially when full of such good things.
Sally, thanks, much better. It’s nice that the garden is messy – once we got over trying to keep it meticulous, it’s a much more relaxing place. :)
Your garden look great, mate:)
Cheers, Glenda! Can’t wait to see what’s happening in your new beds too! :)
I always love a good walk through your garden, I’m glad we got a little peak at your chooks too. This is everything I wish I had growing my back yard!
Barb, at this time of year, everything is growing well, although we’ve had a few cool days which has slowed them up again. Strange weather we’ve been having of late…
My tortoise ate my beans! I’ve got cauliflower growing which is amazing as I didn’t plant any seeds which means my gardener likes surprising me :)
Tandy, that’s very clever – we never seem to make cauliflower work well in our garden, so we’ve given up. Broccoli, on the other hand, always seems to do really well!
I’ve got nothing but large old clay pots in my garden. And those will soon be emptied and put into storage.
Thanks for sharing yours, dear, it is nice to see a thriving garden this time of the year, here!
And a peek at the chickens was very nice, as well! :)
Heidi, thank you! It was nice to take you through our little garden with us!
All I’ve got in my courtyard garden is lettuce, spring onions, green peppers, tomatoes and some herbs. The other veggie garden is Himself’s area and he’s got precisely nothing planted!
You’ve got a LOT growing in your yard, Sue! Onions, capsicums, tomatoes and herbs are the basis of almost every Italian dish! :)
Hope you are feeling better by now… I’ve been suffering from stomach problems for a while, and it’s not fun, particularly not with the holiday season upon us, and Thanksgiving in a couple of days… (sigh)
Your garden is amazing as usual, I can only look at the photos and wish… wish that one day I can follow your example! :-)
Take care, Celia!
Thanks Sally, it was a bit of an up and down month, but we’re well and truly on the mend now. Hope you’re feeling better soon, love. xx
Oh how I wish I had a lime tree! Your garden is lovely. It makes me excited for our next growing season. Only a few more months.
Anna, the first photo is from our lemon tree, but we’ve planted limes – might be a few years before I get to show you photos of them though! :)
You have a mini farm going on there, Celia! Well done.
Thanks Lizzy! It’s nice to be able to walk out the back door and pick something for dinner! :)
I love gardens to be a little messy – yours is wonderful, and what matters is it’s productive. I’m storing away for future use so many great ideas, and you’ve made me feel better about the bay tree I have in a pot which is covered in scale… :)
ED, thank you – the bay tree drove me bonkers, so I’m actually quite glad it’s gone. We’ve been drinking lemon verbena tea and loving it!
I don’t think that your garden looks messy! It looks great & your produce is triving too! Waw! My summer garden is over & my + 150 figs didn’t ripe anymore because of the freezing weather: ( Maybe next year!
Sophie, I’m so sorry to hear the figs didn’t ripen! Fingers crossed for next year!
:)
I’m so worried that one lonely snow pea is in the same situation as your lemon. Please tell me that’s not the case! Your girls sure do have a lovely life! The rainbow chard looks so good. That tomato tree looks rather dead except for all the beautiful tomatoes on it. Lovely tour, Celia xx
Charlie, did you see the top photo? I have THREE lemons now. :) We harvested about a dozen snow peas yesterday, so it’s not lonely. :)
I have officially fallen in love with your garden, and it doesn’t look messy at all compared to ours! I just squashed dozens of cabbage moth caterpillars that had taken up residence all over our bok choy and kale. It makes me feel like a bit of a Blue Meanie to be scowling at white “butterflies” but they can be a real nuisance.
Siobhan, thank you! We swat the white moths with a racquet – works well!
Sounds like a great job for my son — I’ll put him to it.
So vibrant and alive! Don’t pull up the cherry tomato Celia, it’s trying so hard! :) You can see I’m a soft touch, can’t you? I’ve planted some okra this year for the first time, and I’m about to empty my potatoes into a wine barrel so they have more room to grow. Love the glimpse of your little ladies thanks Celia, how are the eggs going since it’s warmed up?
I hope you guys are feeling better sweetie, lots of pots of Green veggie spring soup to put some spring back in your step xox
Becca, you always were a softie, darling. The egg situation isn’t great – we’re down to one or two a day, but the girls really have put in a good innings over the past couple of years, so I can’t complain. I’ve just adjusted our baking accordingly! We’re all better now, thank you! :)
Dear Celia,
If only I had a garden with so much wonderful fruits and veges, it would justify my carnivorous craving for more of those juicy, blood-dripping steaks. Those cherry toms, beans and sugar snap peas would make such an awesome salad for my rib-eye :)
Chopinand, maybe a backyard garden can be your next project? I’m sure you’d be brilliant at it! :)
Yay, some of my tomatoes look like that too and I thought it was through neglect but they must just turn ugly sometimes.
What a luscious garden you have as always Celia. Good thing the Kale is distracting the bugs for you.
Those bean stalks climbing up the trelis are amazing. So big!
I don’t know how you choose what to have for dinner each night!
Claire, honestly, it’s the ugliest tomato tree, I’m not sure how much longer I can look at it. It’s producing like mad at the moment, almost saying, “go on, I dare you to tear me down”.. :)
This is our first year of growing climbing beans, and I can now understand where the beanstalk fairytale came from! :)
You inspire me, Celia! If your garden is messy then mine is total chaos. I’ve been busy scrounging a couple of small tank that my darling husband cut in half and some old iron to make raised beds. Lots of things in but not much to eat yet!
Liz, messy is good – it takes the pressure off gardening. :) The raised beds sound fantastic!
Our climes are so different. Some of your plants have gone to seed and it’s not even Summer yet. Here, Spring is well underway when we start planting or bringing seedlings outdoors. I do enjoy these walks around your garden, Celia, and will love them even more as our weather chills. Thanks.
John, it was amazing how quickly some things went to seed – the second round of raab bolted straight to seed without really forming leaves. Every time we plant a new crop, we learn something new!
So many good things Celia and I sometimes think a bit of mess helps in the vegetable garden! That tomato is amazing. I always have plans to keep mine orderly and it rarely works…especially in the summer. Have you planted trombachino as in zucchini? I grew these last year and they literally took over the vegetable garden and grew enormous if not picked very regularly! Just a thought. Love your garden updates :)
Jane, thank you for the warning! We’ve never grown the trombachinos before – Linda sent us seed – but it’s been exciting to watch them grow. We might pick most of them, although I’d love to leave one to see how big they can get! :)
Loved that TV series The Good Life and you are living it, do you have a posh neighbour who is amused by it all?
Our neighbours are all amused, Roz, but none of them are snobby! They’re all lovely, in fact! :)
Winter after nine months of not much rain. Though we have enough oranges to make fresh orange juice. A few scraggly cherry tomatoes are left. We need to do a huge pruning.
A dry summer – that’s hard, Maz. We had ten years of drought here in Australia, thankfully that was a few years ago now.
Looking great ! I love your garden updates, I always enjoy seeing what is growing, how you grow it – and no it’s not messy – ye sthe tomatoes are ugly but what the heck they are still producing !
Could I reach out and just pick some of those beans please !
Claire, thank you – the beans are making me very happy this year! We still haven’t managed to grow snake beans, although I keep trying! :)
Great garden tour, Celia. What wonderful abundance in your back yard. I have corn, beans and tomatoes growing but all of the lettuce have gone to seed and there are fruit fly in the peaches. We had rain on the weekend so hopefully there will be some self sown lettuce soon.
Jo, that sounds wonderful – we’ve given up on corn, just couldn’t seem to get it right and it took up an entire bed. We haven’t had a lot of luck with stone fruit yet either.
What a productive space; I’d happily sacrifice kale to the moths if it kept the lettuce and chard free.
We’re into root crops now which look very drab at the moment so a glimpse of your bright green crops is a welcome lift on a cold rainy morning.
Anne, isn’t it interesting about the kale? I don’t know how the moths decide to lay on one vegetable and not the other. I’m delighted to be able to reciprocate with some photos of our garden, as I always adore looking out your kitchen window at yours! :)
Celia the “messy” ones are so much more exciting, romantic even.
I’ve got a surprisingly happy tomato plant at the moment. I’m hoping the planets stay aligned and I can nurture it to actually produce something. Everything else looks a bit sad and sorry.
Brydie, how exciting about your tomato plant! Fingers crossed! :)
Crazy wild and free and those chickies love it. Hope your getting back on track….can I help?
You’re a sweetheart Tania, thank you, but we’re all good. Chooks love going onto a new bed!
So sorry to hear you’ve had a bad run with health in your house. You might think the garden looks a bit rough, but to me it looks beautifully productive.
Thanks Amanda! We’re all good now – colds and coughs are a couple of weeks in the past. :)
How are you guys feeling now? You poor things :( I hope you’re all better?
Much better, thanks love. It’s been a long month, as you know.. xx
SO lovely to see all of these photos. We have about 6 super-acidic apples left on the tree. I’m having fun feeding the neighbor’s chickens with my vegetable scraps. They went mad for parsley last week. Our terrace overlooks their coop so I just throw the food down. They think I am God with the food arriving unseen from heaven. Occasionally I do hit one on the head…..
Anna, isn’t that interesting – our girls won’t touch parsley! I’ve been known to bop the odd chicken on the head when throwing in food too.. :)
ENVY! if this is a neglected garden, what does a tended one look like…
i was watering my small patch last night and my first crop of peas are all finished now (i think i got perhaps four meals off them?) unless i get a surprise re-flowering. the second crop are only about 10 cm high. my silverbeet shot to seed and once the trunks reached about 2 metres in height, they staggered over – but then, those 8 plants gave me a constant supply for almost 2 years so i shall not complain; all good things must come to an end (and be composted). here in hobart we are only just “warming up” so it seems we have a briefer window of opportunity for gardening. or is it just me? all your photos are so inspirational.
E, don’t be envious, that the last thing I ever want to do with my posts! Your comment about the peas made me wonder – I think we got four meals from ours too (although there were lots of peas in each dish) – I wonder if that’s the number of feeds a planting of peas gives? Our rainbow chard is still going strong, and we eat it regularly – love that it’s now growing in our yard, and everyone is happily eating it, despite refusing for years (homegrown is so different to bought!).
hello from brave fennel country ! I have little to report on the garden, but am waiting to see if the oca made tubers, though when I am supposed to harvest them I am not sure. Your garden looks super fantabulously productive, all that hard work is paying off and if and when we move house in the next few years I am going to make any garden we have much more food production based and will be coming to you for tips ! xxx
Jo, the nice thing about having the entire backyard turned over to veg beds is that we no longer have to mow a lawn! It’s scorching hot today – looks like summer has arrived! :)