There are so many parts of (all) our lives which are stressful.
The one area that we refuse to allow ourselves to become angst-ridden about is the garden. We spent considerable time and money getting it properly built and established a few years ago, and now it just co-exists happily with us – getting by on whatever attention we can afford to give it.
In the beginning, we had ambitious goals – we wanted to grow a huge variety of plants, establish an orchard of fruit trees, and be virtually self-sufficient in vegetables. Several years on, and the reality has been quite different. We’ve discovered that some things won’t grow well here, while others don’t fit in with our lifestyle.
We have had to adapt.
. . . . .
Adaptation #1: we buy more garden products than originally planned.
We haven’t had nearly as much time or energy to invest into the garden as we’d hoped (only a couple of hours a week, if that), so we supplement with purchased garden products. We buy organic sugarcane straw to top up the mulch we occasionally make with our chipper, we buy compost to boost the chook droppings and worm castings, and we buy layer mash to feed the chickens. (As an aside, my Time=Money post seems relevant here.)
Our most recently planted bed is a good example. When we went to plant it out, we didn’t have enough seedlings ready (a common problem for us, despite our best intentions), so we went to Enfield Produce and purchased four punnets. Buying seedlings is certainly not the most economical method of gardening, but that’s okay. And for $12, we were able to fill our bed with sweetheart cabbages, Green Dragon broccoli, mixed Asian greens and rainbow chard. We also planted perennial leeks, cos lettuce and garlic…
. . . . .
Adaptation #2: we have refined our plant selection.
After a few years of trial and error, we’ve determined which plants will and won’t grow in our garden. Overlaid on top of that has been figuring out what our family will and won’t eat. For example, Brussels sprouts will grow, but not even the chooks will go near them.
We now no longer grow spinach, which was fiddly to harvest and would invariably turn my soups green, and have opted instead for rainbow chard. Interestingly, no-one likes traditional silverbeet, but they’ll all happily eat the chard…
Chard grows brilliantly in our garden all through the colder months. During this time, it’s relatively bug-free. This batch were grown from last year’s saved seed, and have come up in an array of colours…
We now plant just one type of shelling pea – Willow (known commercially as Sommerwood). This variety produces fat, relatively mildew-free pods with up to ten peas in each.
There’s a wonderful story behind these – we were constantly losing plants to mildew, so I rang a commercial grower and asked if I could buy peas from them. The lovely lady who answered the phone (her name was Lyn) told me their minimum sale was several kilos worth of seed peas, which seemed a little excessive for our backyard garden. Lyn laughed and then very kindly sent me – gratis – a handful of their experimental Willow peas.
We’ve grown them ever since…
We’ve narrowed our kale plantings to just Tuscan kale (Cavolo Nero), as the curly varieties proved too tough for all of us (chooks included). They did look nice though!
We are attempting garlic once again with a short day variety that lovely Linda has sent us…
We grow tromboncinos. I might have mentioned this before (so I won’t rabbit on about them again)…
Mint is grown in a small patch of dirt in the bricks, to ensure it doesn’t take over the garden beds. We grow spearmint around the old laundry tub, and old fashioned mint in a large pot near the tap. Fancier versions have been tested and rejected…
The orchard has come and gone, and we’ve had to accept that growing organic dwarf apple trees in Sydney’s moderate clime is just too difficult. The fruit was always stunted and badly attacked by sucking bugs. We’re attempting lime trees, but they’re struggling as well – we really haven’t had a great deal of luck with dwarf varieties!
However, our bush lemon, with its thick-skinned but juicy fruit, is finally coming into its own…
. . . . .
Adaptation #3: we have stocked our garden with volunteer plants.
The term “volunteer plants” (coined by the brilliant Jerry Coleby-Williams from Gardening Australia) is the perfect description for many of the plants in our garden. Following the advice in Linda’s book, we allow the plants we like to go to seed, and then judiciously transplant the self-sown seedlings into the garden beds.
The ultimate volunteer plants in our garden are, without doubt, the perennial leeks. This is our nursery bed, where the plants seem to enjoy producing babies…
We will routinely transplant these into the garden beds to fatten up. They more than make up for the fact that we can’t seem to grow onions or regular leeks…
Pete refers to the management of self-sown plants in our garden as “selective weeding”. He suggested I show you this front bed as an example. It was ready to plant out a couple of months ago – but we weren’t. So it’s stocked almost entirely with volunteer plants, all of which are thriving…
We never plant tomatoes, but in winter we’ll often let the self-sown hybrids grow – there are less bugs at this time of year, and we end up with a different variety each time. The hybrids are also more resistant to wilt, which is a problem in our garden. This year’s offerings appear to be a cross between cherries and Romas, and the first few fruits have been delicious…
The Green Dragon broccoli plants in this bed are all self-sown…
We have a couple of healthy coriander plants growing…
…although they don’t always germinate in the beds…
Some years, continental parsley grows rampantly in everyone’s gardens, and all the neighbours try to feed it to our chooks (who sadly won’t go near it). This season is promising to be a bumper one, if our self-sown plants are any indication. Note the volunteer lettuce growing in the middle of the parsley plant…
The cos lettuces in our garden are now second generation self-sown plants – the first ones we planted from seed were Little Gems, but their offspring were closer to a true cos. We’re now eating the offspring of those plants, and they’re extremely sweet and tender…
Lettuce is closely related to dandelion, as evidenced by their seed heads…
We grow at least one edible weed each season – in the colder months it’s chickweed (photo below), and in the warmer half of the year, it’s purslane. This works well for us – both plants grow prolifically, we love eating them (as do the chooks), and they help keep the less desirable weeds under control…
Finally, we always let our rapini (broccoli raab) go to seed, because it feeds us so well. As Pete pointed out, if it had been left up to us, we wouldn’t have any rapini in the garden right now, because we were well behind schedule. But the little self-sown seedlings popped up in amongst the pebbles, and we happily transplanted them into the beds…
We’ve already eaten three dinners based entirely around this delicious green. Our pasta con cime di rapa comes together in just ten minutes, and tastes all the better for being almost free…
. . . . .
If you’ve ever considered growing your own vegetables, we would encourage you to give it a go. Your circumstances will be different from ours, but if you can approach the whole process with the right mindset, gardening can be a relaxing and extremely rewarding activity, and not the least bit stressful at all!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Inspirational, Celia. I’m hoping for raised veg beds during this garden remodelling project. Not sure if it will happen, but hoping doesn’t cost anything, right?
Misky, raised beds are lovely, I hope you get them! With your green thumb they’ll be full in no time at all! :)
Gorgeous greens, especially your Nasturtium picture.
Thank you, Peter. It was fun to walk around taking photos outside – the light is quite forgiving at this time of year! x
Fantastic, as always.
A comment before you leave! Thank you for finding the time to stop by, Glenda! Have a fabulous trip! x
When we come to visit, I’m bringing gardening gloves and a basket!
Goodo! When are you coming? :)
Well, not for now, but maybe one day in the future we can follow your footsteps…
my favorite line of your post: Brussels sprouts will grow, but not even the chooks will go near them. he, he, he… priceless!!!!
Sally, I’m the ONLY member of our family who will go within a bull’s roar of a Brussels sprout! :)
I am in the process of planting our ‘orto’ at Casa Debbio. I wonder what will grow here. We have to worry about wild boar, deer, wild goats and porcupines…among other things.
Debra, I can’t even begin to imagine how wonderful it would be to find a porcupine in the garden. Scary, but wonderful! :)
Some people are natural gardeners, some people have built up good soil or just luck out with it in their garden. I can grow herbs and flowers, but veg really is not within my reasonable realm of gardening. Sometimes I have a small amount of tomatoes or peppers- mostly I am just disappointed. I love your garden, my niece’s and the farmer’s market is are where I go to gather.
I’m just going to be happy with my herbs and buy the rest from people who can make things grow.
Heidi, we’ve learnt that it’s mostly to do with soil. It’s taken us years to get our soil into a half decent growing medium. Growing herbs is fantastic though, as are flowers (we can’t seem to grow them!). xx
Awesome Celia I will be starting to grow things once we got the raised beds in and David has kindly finished putting the glass in my greenhouse
Linda, that’s fabulous! I hope you enjoy it as much as we have!
You and Pete have done so well with your garden and you get a phenomental amount of produce out of it. It’s great that you’ve learnt what works for you and what doesn’t. Volunteers are one of my favourite parts of gardening, it’s always so exciting to see what might come up. Not that we get anything like the number of different things that you do. What’s interesting is that with your near tropical garden conditions and our very untropical ones, we both grow Swiss Chard and Babbington Leeks really well.
Choc, thank you! I don’t think our leeks are Babbingtons, but they are similar. And they spread like wildfire – I so love having them in the garden – and we use all the white and the green as well in stirfries.
I love following your garden posts. I think I will try the broccoli raab, tromboncini and perennial leeks next year! I find the tromboncini especially intriguing.
Some things grow here and others don’t. Will see how they will do.
How are your chickens doing? Been a while since you wrote about them.
Have a lovely week!
I wish you lived in Australia, so I could send you some seed! The tromboncinos have been amazing – we never grew zucchini successfully before, so their prolificness has been a surprise. Chickens are fine, thanks for asking – the remaining four all seem robust and eating well. Barely laying though!
I love to read and absorb your garden tales and photos, it is so good to know that a productive garden can be done by everyday people in an everyday backyard…
ED, it’s a very everyday backyard too! Amazing how much space we give over to lawn in this country – I’m so glad we got rid of it! :)
I don’t have a garden but I sure am gardening vicariously via your bountiful posts — thank you for sharing Celia!
Danielle, thanks for reading along – it makes all the difference being able to share the excitement with you all!
I love your garden and good on you for embracing the voluteer plants. They are invariably the healthiest and hardiest.
Our volunteers (AKA weeds) are the cherry tomatoes. The come up everywhere and usually in the most inconvenient places – one almost smothered a blueberry bush! However, this year we have had the most magnificent bush by the side of the driveway in no-man’s land. I have picked at least 6kg of fruit from it!! I use the cherry tomatoes to make sauce. If I cannot pick enough in one go, I just keep tossing them in bags in the freezer until I have the required amount to make the sauce.
Fairy, last year we had a monster rampant self-sown cherry tom that produced over 500 tomatoes! Thanks for stopping by! :)
Your garden is lovely Celia! We’ve just planted our first winter crops and I’m so excited to see what comes from them.
Clare, so exciting! Can’t wait to see how it all goes! :)
It is wonderful to see how much you have achieved with your garden and how the learning and the love continue hand in hand as you grow all these wonderful crops. I am so glad that you like the rainbow chard, I can remember you looking at ours and saying is that silver beet and sighing that no one would eat it in your house. Maybe we adapt our tastes to a certain extent to like what grows well for us? I know I eat more parsley now than I ever used to. Beautful lyrical photos and a lovely lovely post, thanks for sharing it with us xx
My darling friend who has been following our garden since we planted the first seedling! I think you’re right too – a few years ago no-one would go near the chard. I started cooking it without the stems to break them in gently, but now we use the whole leaf and everyone eats it happily. I think it is a case of learning to love what we can grow – to an extent. No-one will eat Brussels sprouts or broadbeans (except me), so we just don’t bother planting them anymore. We’ve also given up on kohlrabi, as everyone decided it was too boring. :)
Stress free is the best policy indeed Celia! This winter I’ve decided not to stress about the garden at all. With such harsh frosts it’s hard for most things to tick along through winter, and peas do much better here if planted early spring instead. My biggest stress will be keeping the cat away from the empty beds, so I’m going too cover them with chicken wire and eliminate that problem too. Love your garden, love your chookies, love you too!x
Becca, Canberra IS hard weather for growing in winter! You always grow so many different things in your garden, I’m always astonished at the range! Love you too! xx
one thing i love about gardening is that plants refuse to allow us to be rigid..like you i’m constantly adapting and growing things that thrive in my little part of the world..x
Jane, it’s great fun to go out and see what’s worked and what hasn’t, isn’t it? :)
What you say about a stress-free garden makes sense Celia. We really need to reduce the stress in a couple of parts of ours, this makes good sense. Your plants look lovely.
Rose, I can’t believe what wonderful produce you grow given that you both work full time! :)
Such a lovely gardening philosophy! We carry on about the technicalities of gardening, but really, at the base, it is about a relationship with a place. And like all good relationships, it really flowers when you listen, adapt, steer clear of being rigid or perfectionist and let it show its own magic.
Thanks Teach! I’m so glad it was your book that we based our garden on rather than one of the more rigid texts – your writing encouraged us to be relaxed and accepting of what worked and what didn’t in the garden. xx
I must have scrolled up and down your wonderful instructive post at least 3-4 times in the last ten minutes! What a great lesson! You have made logical choices, allowed the plants to oft show you what to do, not made your gardening a chore and achieved such practical results! . . . And I never knew chickweed was edible: OMG, of that there is definitely no shortage in my garden! . . . thanks for the enjoyment, thanks for the sharing . . .
Eha, we deliberately planted our chickweed so we know it’s edible – no guarantees on what’s growing in your garden! :) Wiki has some great advice on Stellaria media which is the variety we grow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaria_media
:) !!!
I love garden volunteers, my green and red giant mustard comes up every year and is always the first harvest from my garden. So do my amaranth and bok choy but they are not as reliable. Growing tromboncinos for the first time, hope I do half as well as you.
Norma, green amaranth grows here as a weed – we must try growing the red version to see if we like it! Good luck with your tromboncinos! :)
You have a beautiful garden Celia and you have given us some wise advice and information. I don’t think we ever stop learning in the garden. There is no point in growing things that the family or the chooks wont eat, I agree. Your pasta looks delicious too.
I love your nasturtiums growing in among everything, aren’t their pretty edible flowers lovely?
Jane, some years we eat heaps of nasturtiums – in pesto and salads – other years it’s just ground cover. The chooks like them too! :)
What a lovely post. I’ve so enjoyed the tour. I love seeing what’s popping up where and I love how the plants are now taking authority over where they’re next going to appear. It all looks so green and tasty. How lovely to be able to step outside and pick what you need to make this wonderful pasta xx
Charlie darling, I took that photo of the lemons just for you – there’s finally more than one single green lemon on the tree! :) I think you’re right too – we have bolshy plants. :)
oh my what a lovely garden you have, ive recently started but growing them in polystyrene boxes mean they wont thrive. i am looking at finding (evading) one of gardening beds in our tiny backyard to grow some bare essentials!
I’ve seen some wonderful balcony gardens grown in polystyrene boxes! But you’re right, the plants will do much better in a garden bed! :)
Never know “chickweed” is edible. What do you do with them? I always regarded them as annoying creepers, and am always plucking them out of my garden.
Kiwi, we planted ours, so we know the variety is edible – it’s Common Chickweed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaria_media
It’s a fabulous salad veg, and the kids love it! :)
Great post Celia. Any level of growing your own should be rewarded.
Jason, that’s so true, thank you for adding that wise comment! :)
All so true Celia and lessons that I am still learning. I seem to harvest more from the crops I’ve grown as mulch cover (pumpkins and sweet potatoes) and from the self sown seedlings growing in the paths than I do from my carefully nurtured seedlings. I’m gradually realising the part I enjoy the most in my garden is constructing and rearranging things – harvesting is a bonus!
Jo, there are many days when all that we eat from the garden has been self-sown! Last night it was leeks and lettuces! I’m not so big on the planning where everything goes in the garden, but I can see how that could get addictive! :)
Sounds wonderful to have so many self sown plant seedlings. It does take time to learn what you like to eat, and what grows well. I know a little bit from watching my dad as a child. I’m soooo glad he taught us about gardening.
We got our 4X4 raised bed garden started this year. Hubby did most of the setting up part since I’m unable, but keeping it weeded and watered is a cinch for me since its so small. I’m doing 4 broccoli, 3 tomato, 3 types of pepper (capsicums), 1 parsley, and a row of Cherry Belle radishes this year. They are growing super so far and luckily the resident rabbits in our yard do not seem interested in the garden and haven’t tried climbing up into it (hence why we chose 12″ high sides)
Thank you for sharing all your experiences with your own garden!
Mel, I’ve been thinking of you, I hope you’re feeling better! Your raised bed sounds fabulous – hope it’s very productive for you!
It’s fascinating to hear what you can get to grow and what doesn’t. Our California is aces for citrus, tomatoes, strawberries, artichokes, zucchini and herbs. We can grow lovely chiles but not bell peppers so much. Spring onions and radishes but not regular onions. My mom grows all kind of fruits and has a lumbering old tree that produces hundreds of mushy bland avocados. I’m envious of your peas, they are my favorites. Hugs, Maz
That’s a shame that your mum’s tree doesn’t produce decent avos – I know how much you love them! We can’t grow strawberries (we SHOULD be able to – must try again), and Pete’s just suggested we try artichokes! :)
I love your low stress approach to gardening Celia and the idea of ‘volunteer’ plants is lovely. The climates we’re gardening in are obviously very different but some plants seem to suit a relaxed gardening style for both of us – chard and cavolo nero for instance are my favourite greens to grow too, they keep going so well during the winter, are tasty and look good too.
Andrea, aren’t they versatile plants! I loved seeing all the wild food you had at your doorstep! :)
Look at all that lovely greenery Celia. I really wonder how much a persons garden contributes to lower blood pressure, stress levels etc. It’s got to help a significant amount of people. I feel calmer just reading your post!
Brydie, it’s been so therapeutic but we’ve had to train our eyes to accept the weeds and occasional mess. I’m very grateful we started gardening with Linda’s book rather than one which advocated for a “tidier” garden! :)
I love your gardening philosophy. My perennial leeks are just coming into their own and starting to provide volunteers. Really must check out the broccoli rabe. I love lindas comment about gardening being about a relationship with place…Enjoy your lovely garden. Xxx
Ali, thank you! We made a decision very early on not to allow ourselves to get stressed out about it, and we enjoy the garden so much more as a result! Helps that I’m sort-sighted and don’t always see the weeds! :)
I always love photos of your garden.. it’s so beautiful you must love working and just being in your garden. We use seedlings with abundance because our growing season is too short to accomplish much. Our spring this year is so rainy I’m not sure anything will grow.. but I’m always surprised when I come back from summer holidays. They seem to fare better without me:) xx
Smidge, thank you! I think you’re right about the garden – I know my succulents won’t grow unless I ignore them for a couple of months, and then I go outside to see that they’ve filled their pots!
What an inspiring post! I especially love your parsley plant, it’s certainly very healthy!! I couldn’t help but think of all the tabouli I’d make ;)
Celia, what do you use for your garden bed walls? Are they railway sleepers?
Lisa, you should see the purslane we get in summer! There are more fattoush salads in it than you could imagine! :) The beds are made with treated pine (the low toxicity stuff which you can now get for landscaping).
What an inspirational garden you have, Celia, with so many lovely vegetables and herbs. I love gardening and when my kids were small I spent hours out in the garden every day. Unfortunately between work and family commitments I rarely get out there nowadays. But I hope that when Spring comes I’ll be able to spend some time getting my garden going again.
Christina, I hope you get some time to play in the garden! It must have been lovely to spend time out there with small children – we didn’t set the garden up until the boys were quite big, so they haven’t really grown up with homegrown produce. They certainly enjoy it now, but they don’t spend a lot of time out there.
I love your garden so much, and your stress-free philosophy even more. I stopped growing spinach, too, especially in the warmer months. I love edible amaranth when it is warm, and we also grow loads of chard. Things are heating up here, so all of our coriander is bolting. Seeing yours was a nice change!
Siobhan, your garden always looks like Eden! And bolting coriander is a problem for us too – as a result, we just let it grow when it wants too – it never seems to work very well if we try to raise seedlings! :)
Your adventures in gardening are not only inspirational, but realistic as well. I admire that you have been able to adapt instead up give up. Keep it going girlfriend! xx
Thanks darling. It is a sanctuary for us in many ways, and we just do what we can with the time we have. And mulch covers up a multitude of gardening sins! :)
If you want to make your garden even lower stress you should consider trying a few more perennial vegetables. I know you have issues growing regular onions, perhaps one of the perennial onions will work better in your garden?
As you already know perennial leeks are amazing and require very little effort on your behalf, I also grow everlasting onions (a perennial spring onion/shallot type of plant), potato onions and tree onions, sorrel, yacon, jerusalem artichoke and a bunch of other perennial vegetables.
I still grow some annual vegetables such as corn, tomato, peas etc, but only because I am yet to find a perennial type that replaces it well.
Damien, that’s fabulous advice, thank you! I didn’t know there were onions that were perennial, although there are so many leeks in the garden that we often just use those instead. Sorrel is a mainstay, and Pete won’t let me plant Jerusalem artichokes, as he says we would never get them out of the garden, and we’re not sure we like them yet! :)
We have so much self-sown at the moment, that it feels a bit like perennial gardening – the parsley is still going made, half the broccoli is self-seeded and now forming heads and we had a fabulous meal recently from a “found” beet. :)