It’s mid-Autumn here in Sydney, but you wouldn’t know it from the glorious sunny days we’ve been having. Not too hot, not too cold, it’s a “just right” time of year.
The garden is certainly thriving under these conditions, although we’ve been a little short on time and energy to tend to it these past couple of months. But that’s ok – we’ve never been stressed out by garden chores – we simply do whatever we can, when we can.
Thankfully, the four tromboncinos we planted last year are still producing, which means there’s always something green in the vegetable crisper drawer. The plants have now scrambled out of their original bed into two others, climbing over the fence and the neighbouring camellia trees in the process…
They keep producing babies, and we keep pollinating them…
We collected seed from our last crop of Little Gem lettuces, but found that they grew into regular cos when planted. Not that it’s a problem, as these cos seem particularly sweet and tender…
Sage, which we’ve always struggled so hard to grow, seems to have come into its own this year. It likes being in a bed far more than in the herb garden – it obviously needs more water than oregano and rosemary…
Eggplants are a staple in the garden – they always seem to do well here, although their capsicum and tomato relatives struggle…
It wouldn’t be a garden update without a photo of our perennial leeks – the babies are growing like grass, and whenever we get the energy up, we transplant them into the beds to fatten up…
…like this…
The new lemongrass plant is going gangbusters – our neighbour Nic comes over to harvest leaves for her weaving projects…
We have lots of lovely lemons on our tree, but none of them seem to be turning yellow…
As you know, we don’t have much luck with tomatoes in the garden. We don’t plant them, but will occasionally let the self-sown ones grow – hopefully this one won’t succumb to wilt as the others have…
Most of our basil plants have now gone to seed now, except for this little one that’s still producing leaves for our kitchen…
A late planted zucchini patch – Black Jacks this time – is keeping us in fruit. The Lebanese zucchinis were very nice, but these darker skinned ones are our favourites…
At the end of last year, lovely Jo from Queensland gifted me with comfrey and arrowroot tubers, both of which are growing well in our garden. The comfrey will hopefully provide us with mulch, but it also has medicinal uses…
..and the arrowroot has taken off! Look at what a beautiful, tropical looking plant it is! We’re planning to use it as a shade plant around the garden…
Apparently you can eat the tubers of the arrowroot, so we dug one up to try (with a little imagination I can see how it got its name). We peeled it and soaked it and baked it tossed in oil and salt. Sadly, nobody liked it – it tasted a bit swede like, only not nearly as nice. I wonder if it might be good in a soup?
Jo emailed me recently to say that she had heaps of arrowroot and comfrey tubers to give away to fellow Aussie gardeners – you would need to send her a self-addressed pre-paid parcel post envelope. If you’re interested, please leave a comment below and I’ll put you in touch with her.
A photo of this morning’s pickings…
How’s your garden looking this month?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 