In our summer garden…
…a well camouflaged bee…
…a silent, still cicada…
…rampant butternut tromboncino squash….
…we’re picking the fruit while it’s still green…
…here’s one we missed – its butternut ancestry is quite evident…
…the self-sown snake beans are cropping like mad…
…we’re picking this many every day…
…our mystery (also self-sown) eggplant turns out to be a skinny one…
…red amaranth is going to seed…
…a Bishop’s Crown chilli plant has appeared from nowhere…
…our rosemary is doing well, as is the oregano (but not the thyme)…
…and finally, purslane is growing e-ver-ywhere…
(I’ve been using it in salad – recipe to follow)
How are things going in your garden?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
WOW! Amazing photographs… In our garden nothing happens right now we are waiting for spring and we will move to the village again… I hope. Thank you dear Celia, love, nia
Thanks Nia! I’m so glad you liked them! xxx
Bless you, Celia, for sharing. My garden sits covered in snow- even the herbs are shrouded within their wintery blanket and all is silent and sad.
I love the volunteers in your garden- especially those snake beans!
Heidi, we’ve never had a garden like this before, where almost everything is self-sown. It’s glorious! We’re getting a lot of whatever the garden wants to grow though, and not a whole lot else, so most meals are filled with squash and snake beans.. ;-)
Beautiful photos, Celia! They make me long for spring to arrive!
Debby, I hope it arrives soon for you!
Lovely productive garden! And lovely photos. In common with all in the Northern hemisphere, we are longing for spring!
Your turn is just around the corner, Pat! It has been an unusually good growing season – usually by this time of year we’re really hot and swamped with pests, but not this year…
Here: Soaking, dripping, soggy wet. Love your view of what I hope to see in my garden in a few months!
Your garden will be gorgeously green in no time, Misky! :)
If I had known that purslane was eatable, I would have eaten almost for free last summer :-D Lovely garden and lovely photos!
I’m not sure all varieties of purslane are edible, but ours definitely is! We grow it in the garden beds specifically for eating – I did draw the line and say we weren’t to eat the stuff on the path that we walk and drive over though.. :)
Your garden is doing so well Celia and I love your sunflower.
Have a beautiful day.
:-) Mandy xo
Thanks Mandy! The sunflowers all grew themselves this year, and the chooks love the seed heads once the flowers are finished!
Love the veg! We are having a hundred year drought here in California. Everything is brown and grey. We’ve been watering plants in pots and had a few winter tomatoes and and a bit of broccoli. Hoping for rain! Maz.
Maz, I’m sorry to hear that. Hope it rains soon!!
-20 windchill here! my garden is in hiding!
Hopefully spring is just around the corner for you! :)
Finding that bee was like a Where’s Waldo game. What bounty you have & I’m glad you showed a picture of the snake beans because I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before. Purslane is another new one for me so I’m interested in hearing what you do with it.
My garden? Well, let’s say it’s sleeping right now under about 6″ of snow with more coming in tonight. I just love looking at your garden – it makes me so optimistic about spring just around the corner.
Diane, it’s been a really great growing season – it’s not always so productive out there. The bee was so well matched to the sunflower, you’d think it was its natural habitat…
LOL, I love how you coordinated the bee & the sunflower so perfectly. Funny how some growing years are bonanzas and others just never seem to do much.
your mystery eggplant is a bonus, what a beautiful collection of shots .. and i am with Diane! Surely May is coming! c
Just around the corner, darling… xxx
I love the shape of those chillis!
Our garden is dank, wet and almost empty, but we’ve had chard to pick through the winter, and the first rhubarb is almost ready.
Suelle, isn’t rainbow chard just the best veg? Thank you so much for putting me onto it, it’s become a garden staple over the years (although it’s a bit too hot for it at the moment).
Agree with everyone, such beautiful photos, I particularly love the one of the cicada. Loving the abundance in your garden too!
Thanks Danielle! We rarely see cicadas, we usually just hear them!
Wonderful garden and wonderful pictures too!! Celia.
Regards!
Ale
Thanks Ale! Hope you’re having a great holiday!
Ahhh… Purslane…. I think that is the new ‘weed’ I found in the garden at Taylors Arm – I’ll have a better look this weekend. Not that it will do me any good – we had heaps of Chickweed but I couldn’t persuade the G.O. to eat it.
We had a lot of cicadas too – they are cute but noisy.
I love that your garden does itself – makes so much sense that it knows what it grows best :)
ED, it really is amazing how productive it’s been when we’ve let things grow wherever they want to. We only nudge them a bit – sprinkling seeds from one plant occasionally in another bed etc. Mostly they come up and we say, “ooh, look at that..”. The snake beans have been amazing – I was desperate to grow them again this year, and up they came, all by themselves. We can’t eat them fast enough!
Celia, self sown snake beans?! Wow! How did that happen, do please tell! Gorgeous photos darling… I am envious of your garden, ours has taken a hammering thanks to a week of 40+ temps!
Lizzy, I have no idea re the snake beans. I was keen to grow them, but the weather wasn’t warm enough to start seedlings, so we waited and waited, and the next minute squillions came up by themselves in the old bed. We just put frames in place for them to grow on, and let them run riot!
What generous,green gorgeousness Celia! I’m particularly jealous of your snake beans after 2 very poor bean seasons here. My garden is just getting into the swing of things, and my first finger limes are almost ready to pick! I forsee many zucchini and tomato dishes in my families future :) xox
Finger limes, Becca! Our tree has never fruited, it’s still tiny. Our limes are very slow coming along… xxx
Your garden looks wonderful, and isn’t it fun to have self sewn things producing? It’s such a bonus! Your Cicadas look different to the ones we have, will post tomorrow. Thank you for sharing.
Ardys, I just had a look, it really IS different, isn’t it! So glad you had fun in Sydney! :)
It all looks very green, fruitful and in abundance. I love how you’re managing to harvest so many snake beans and as for those trombos – it’s like they’re on a takeover mission. I can’t wait to be able to plant a garden xx
Charlie, hopefully it won’t be too long, I know you miss it! Come over and raid ours anytime.. :)
Oh my goodness Celia, how lovely to see such a lush garden complete with rampant beans and squash when it’s still grey here! Can’t wait to hear what you cook with all that gorgeous produce.
Andrea, I’m glad I can return the favour, because I love all your garden photos too! xx
Celia what a garden! Those snake beans are incredible.
I don’t want to start on my poor neglected garden :-(
Darling girl, you’re in no position to go out in the heat and tend to the garden! The thing Linda taught me is that you can always go back to the garden, it waits for you. So don’t worry, there’s always next season! :)
I am so happy and thrilled to see your summer garden. Looking forward to reading about how you prepare your butternut tromboncino squash and how you liked the results.
Waiting for the arrival of a major snowstorm, prediction 2 – 4 inches (may be 10) of snow, depending on how the storm tracks. With wind chill, temp will drop to below zero tonight and into tomorrow, it is brutally cooooold.
Norma, so cold! I hope you can stay warm, I’m not a huge fan of the cold. The butternut trombies are so beautiful that I don’t want to cut them! :)
What a lovely garden! I’m reaping the benefits of a fig tree in my new home and have just discovered the delight in picking and eating them straight from the tree.
Fresh figs are amazing, aren’t they? Our neighbour has two trees, and shares his produce with us, for which we’re incredibly grateful!
What on earth do you put in your soil Celia? I have never seen so many self-seeded crops bearing such an abundance of wealth in a relatively small place!!! Proof that garden beds carrying amicable vegetables do vastly better than my manicured pots :( !!!
Eha, it’s the chooks! They dig out the weeds and fertilise the soil before we plant. The only downside to this method is that we eat what the garden tell us to, but that’s a tiny price to pay for such abundance! :)
Holy cow, all that stuff from God?? I struggle with seeds and seedlings in pampered pots. Talk about green thumbs!
M, I think it’s the chooks and the fact that the garden’s been getting lots of water this year. But yes, all from God, and we’re incredibly grateful! :)
Oh my sneake beans have been looking a little sad – I cut them back in the hopes of a revival. Hopefully the bush will look like yours soon. I have only ever seen them grow two in a bunch, you seem to have five or six – what variety are you growing?
Gillian, they’re the red-seeded variety. These are growing two per flower, but behind each flower there seems to be another flower! :)
G’day! Beautiful gardens and STUNNING photos Celia, true!
Love your red amaranth and even your silent silent, still cicada too!
Cheers! Joanne
Thanks Jo! We’re very blessed, some years the garden works, and this is one of them!
Amazing!! I especially love the snake beans. I had some gorgeous ones planted but a mystery something came in one night and devoured every single one. Sigh. :-) Ah well. I will try again another year. :-)
We’re very lucky not to have possums, although we often have to fend off the cockatoos! Hope you get snake beans next time!
self sown eggplant is a bit special! Your garden looks lovely and green Celia. The weather lately has been kind to my pots too. I might (might!) even have tomatoes this year.
Brydie, that’s exciting! The weather has been really good this summer, hasn’t it?
It’s going wild Celia. It’s just so fantastic. I wish I had enough time to grow vegies. One day , one day ………
You’re so busy, love! And you know you’re always welcome to raid ours.. :)
It’s lovely to see your garden so productive. The constant high temps and total lack of rain have cooked my poor garden. I’m holding off planting anything and the tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant are just hanging in there. I had a squash similar to yours that was a surprise in our compost heap–was told it was probably a gramma/butternut cross. My eggplant surprise was a pretty yellow one–I’d bought a punnet of the skinny ones!
Liz, we had that a couple of years ago, thankfully this summer has been far more moderate. I always love it when we get surprises in the garden, but I’ve never had a yellow eggplant before! :)
Look at that bounty! And how is NQL going? Is she still bonkers? :D
She’s settled down a bit, and she’s very friendly, loves a cuddle. They’re all a bit mad, though.. :)
So many beans! Lucky you have bellies to feed or you’d be swamped with veggies. Can’t believe you get so much out of your garden.
Nancy, we’re actually giving them away this year, which is a big thing, as they’re my all-time favourite, so usually we just eat them all! :)
Such an amazing garden, everything is going crazy!!! I have a ridiculous amount of cherry tomatoes at the moment< I have told the neighbours to bring a bowl and help themselves!
Julie, isn’t it great when we have enough to share! Cherry tomatoes are the best ever, they seem to survive all the bugs when the other don’t!
Yep! I just made a huge pot of chilli jam with the excess chilli, cherry tomato and capsicum.
Celia, wow looks amazing. Those snake beans look so good, I can’t believe you get so many a day, lucky you! My garden consists of a lonely pot of basil !!
Stefanie, when I was growing up, these were my favourite veg, so to be able to grow them so well is an absolute joy! And if I only had one pot in my garden, I reckon I’d grow basil too! :)
The photo of the snake beans is quite beautiful and the cicada almost looks as though it has Morrocan-like decoration. We’ve grown those chillies in the past and called them ‘scotch bonnets’ – but I have to confess to calling them something far less attractive after discovering how hot they were! We are still trying to outwit our resident possum. It’s such a neat little eater, it just nips the tips off seedlings and trims young green leaves. It even ventured just inside the kitchen door and selected an apple from my shopping basket on the floor, we found the core abandoned on the deck in the morning – it clearly didn’t know where the compost bucket was.
Jan, the bishops crowns aren’t scotch bonnets (harbaneros), they just look a bit like them. Harbaneros are a right bugger – I grew them once and couldn’t eat a single one because they were so hot! What a civilized possum you have!
your garden is thriving, Celia! Waw, What a lot of produce,….tasty, tasty, tasty. 😀
Thanks Sophie! It’s been a great growing season!
Hi Celia, Great photos. What are you going to do with all those squash?
Glenda, the neighbours are helping us eat them! :D
Great photos Celia and your garden looks wonderful. The heat wave in Melbourne last week has damaged so much of my garden, especially the berry bushes. Enjoy your harvest:)
Jody, thank you, we’ve been very blessed with the weather this year – it’s not always so clement! :)
Love your garden as always, and that glorious sunflower is a joy to behold. We are eating the last of the bean pickle we made in the autumn and debating whether to buy beans so we can make some more. I woke up this morning at 5 am (which I think of as Celia time and found myself debating whether I could nip downstairs and make your choccy cake, hehe!) It must seem as if there is something new coming up or producing every time you go outside, such an exciting time of year in the garden!!
Morning dearheart, yes, the garden is a joy this year, and thankfully the pests haven’t been too troublesome. I think of you every time we go outside and see the fennel flowering! We’re still waiting for it to set seed so we can move the chooks onto that bed, but it’s taking it’s time! :)
love your garden and how things are appearing out of nowhere ;)
Gotta love the self-sown veggies. Often wonder where they get the hide, but they often turn out to be the most hardy. Love-em.
Ce, as I sit here in -27C in Ohio, it is very uplifting to see your lovely garden photos. Gives me hope that someday things will bloom again! As always, great blog!
JuliaB