There are a ludicrous number of photos in this post!
My apologies if it takes a while to load…
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Our winter garden is lush, green and relatively bug and weed free.
Despite that, there’s not a whole lot to eat yet. We planted out this bed in May (photos here) with broccoli, cabbage and celery, and have added cos lettuce, garlic and kale to it since…
Baby broccoli heads are just starting to form…
The sweetheart cabbages are surprisingly pest-free, which may have something to do with all the garlic we’re growing around them…
The second wave of Tuscan kale is maturing – I love the gorgeous grey-green leaves..
Perennial leeks – where would we be without you? When there’s really nothing else to eat in the garden, we can always count on leeks and cos lettuces…
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The bed closest to the house which we planted out in June is coming along nicely. The sugar cane mulch is doing a great job of keeping the weeds in check…
We’re growing coriander successfully for the first time ever – in previous years it’s always bolted straight to seed. That’s a good thing too, given our recent forays into Mexican cooking…
Pete wanted to plant dill, but I’m can’t remember why. I think it might be a useful companion plant?
And speaking of companion planting – my friend Diana gave us a bag of shooting garlic cloves and we’ve guerilla planted them all through the garden. They’re starting to pop up everywhere! Garlic doesn’t grow brilliantly in Sydney (it’s a bit too wet and warm), but the shoots are delicious and I’ve been snacking on them as I stroll around the backyard. Plus they seem to deter the cabbage moths…
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Our most recently planted bed includes our transplanted celeriac – the poor things just keep getting moved around! They seem relatively unscathed by the upheaval though. This bed includes garlic, potatoes, pink sprouting kale, chard and beetroot…
The pink sprouting kale was a find at Eveleigh Markets last week. Our $5 pot divided into nearly a dozen large seedlings…
The leaves of this variety of kale are delicious raw (so I find myself eating those as well as I wander through the garden)…
Aaah rainbow chard, perhaps if I call you that when I serve you up, no-one will notice that you’re actually silverbeet in disguise…
The area near the fence has been planted out with sebago spuds, which are just starting to push through the mulch now…
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Our back bed is currently the oldest, and the peas, carrots and celeriac are growing steadily…
After months and months, the celeriac finally appears to be forming a bulbous root. I adore celeriac, but after seeing how much time and space it takes to grow just one bulb, I now understand why they cost up to $5 each at the markets…
You might recall that we planted three varieties of peas in this bed – Somerset, Super Gem and Willow. I’ve since found out that Somerset and Willow are actually the same variety, and they’re growing much better than the Super Gem. All the plants are struggling a little with rust. Having said that, we’re just starting to get our first pods…
The Somerset/Willow plants are promising great things! I counted eleven baby peas in this juvenile pod…
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In other parts of the garden, we’ve planted more French sorrel…
The asparagus is finally dying back, so we’ll be cutting it down soon. And as you can see from the back of the photo, our lemon tree is starting to produce more fruit…
Thank you for taking the time to read all the way down to the end of this post! Our garden updates need to be as comprehensive as possible, because we’re always referring back to them in later months to see what we’ve planted and when.
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So tell me, how’s your garden going this month?
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