Pumpkin Harvest - Part 1!

I posted about a week ago about the pumpkin vines taking over the front garden. Well, just before the official start of Autumn yesterday, they weather seemed to be getting a bit cooler (turned out that was just to lull us into complacency before the end of season heatwave the last two days!), I started to think of getting the autumn planting into the ground. Of course, that was next to impossible with the pumpkin vine crawling over everything. The ideal is to let your pumpkins stay on the vines until they die off, then harvest. This means the skins get nice and hard, and the pumpkins will keep for longer. However, a few questions lead to the fact that pumpkin vines may not, in fact, die off here in Brisbane, where we get no harsh winter weather or frosts. And certainly mine are showing no signs of slowing down!

So DH put on his gumboots and gloves, and braved the pumpkin vine jungle to see what he could find. All up, 9 mature and ripe pumpkins, and at least another half a dozen that need a few more weeks. Luckily I've found a space around the side of the house for the first autumn planting, so these can have a little longer. I mean, really, can you ever have to many pumpkins?

From the Garden

Tonight's Dinner

Despite the lack of care in the last few months, the garden is still quietly producing away. I ducked out to pick these to add to tonight's dinner. The pumpkin is self sowed up near the fruit trees, the corn has been looking after itself since it was planted (probably not going to get much out of it, but looks like we should get at least a little), and the zucchini plants are taking over the front garden (along with the watermelons and more self-sowed pumpkins).

I'm trying to develop a liking for zucchini, but so far it's not going well. They don't taste exactly bad, but I can't find anything to actually like about them yet, so I'm making do with hiding them under other vegies (mashed potato works well) or in other things, like the delicious pasta sauce below. Because no matter how bland they taste, there is one thing I can say about zucchini's, they sure are easy to grow in large numbers!

This is the pasta sauce I made yesterday completely from our home grown tomatoes. Actually, this is the leftover sauce that I put into the freezer after using the rest of it to cook up enough mince and sauce to do 3 meals, plus leftovers! Tomatoes, like zucchini's, are something we can easily grow plenty of. In fact, I really must go out and pick the next lot to add to the freezer tomorrow morning!

This afternoon I went out and picked a bunch of cow peas. I planted these on the side of the chook run back in the beginning of summer, and have looked at them drying the last few weeks, wondering if they were edible (I bought them mainly for the chooks), and after a bit of research today, it seems like they are. I picked all these in only a few minutes, and there are probably about this many again on the vines.

Shelling them left me with quite a bowl full of dried cow peas (which I'm pretty sure are actually a bean, not a pea!) Not sure exactly what I'll do with them yet, probably add them to a soup, stew or mince dish, but it's kind of cool to have all these when I hadn't really expected it. They are quite prolific (I only planted about 20 or so plants), way more so than other types of beans, and on top of that they are doing a great job shading my chook pen!

Summer Harvest

I must admit, the garden has been sadly neglected in this heat. Luckily we're getting reasonably regular rain, because I haven't even been watering it. Went out this afternoon in the cool of the evening, and picked these. I planted 20 Roma tomato seeds a few months ago, and they have just produced and produced. This was just today's pickings, and because I haven't been out recently, there were just as many rotting on the ground. Guess I won't have to plant seeds again next season! Surprisingly we haven't had much trouble with bugs or anything, perhaps because in my laziness I didn't even stake them, and the plants are just heaps on the ground, with the tomatoes protected under all the leaves? Whatever the reason, I have a freezer full of tomatoes. Think it's about time I had a pasta sauce preserving session.

I didn't pick this watermelon today, but it's sitting there all ripe and ready to pick. Just as soon as I finish the one in the fridge that I picked a few days ago. You can tell when a watermelon is ready to pick because the curl at the point where the stalk joins the vine dies off. From the nine seeds I planted this year, looks like we'll have enough watermelons that we won't need to buy anymore this summer. And they're staggered enough that they won't ripen all at once either, should be just about right. And my goodness, they are DELICIOUS. A store bought watermelon has nothing on one you grow yourself, let me tell you.

Apparently my grandfather, who was a farmer in the Mary Valley when my mum was a girl, said the trick to a good watermelon is lots of water while they're growing, then stop watering in the last week so that the sugar can develop. Which, funnily enough, is exactly what these ones had. We had rain on average 2-3 times a week for the initial growth period, then in the last few weeks, only once a week or so. Couldn't have arranged it better if I'd tried!

So, just to remind myself, next year I again have to plant about 20 Roma tomatoes, and about 9 watermelons!

$29.60

$29.60, that is how much this lot of fruit cost us at the Caboolture markets cost us this morning. We spend about this amount each week, and get roughly the same amount of fruit. There were a few luxuries in there today, the mangoes were $1 each, and the apricots were about $5 a kg I think. The grapes were the most expensive at $7 a kg, but DD loves them, and since she's been sick, whatever she will eat is a good thing.

Today's Harvest

It would be nice to be able to supply all most of our fruit and vegetables from our own garden, but we are still quite a way away from that, and in the meantime, the markets are an excellent alternative to the supermarkets, and I'm sure it's much cheaper.

I just can't help myself!

I'm really enjoying sewing lately. I haven't sewn much for years, not since sewing all DD's blankets/quilts/linen/nappies when I was pregnant. I guess there hasn't been much time since then. But now that DD is a little older, projects like this are possible.

I really needed a new bag, and then in my blog surfing, I came across these bags, and loved them. Only, of course, there was no tutorial. So modifying this tutorial heavily, I finally achieved something approaching what I was after. I'm pretty happy with it anyway, and plan to have another go soon. You'll probably recognise the fabric, I made DD a skirt out of it here. Out of the metre I had, I made the skirt and this bag, and there is still plenty left over!

I also made DD a t-shirt using my new binding foot. It arrived several weeks ago, but I suspected it would be tricky, so was waiting for an opportunity where I wouldn't be too stressed out if it didn't work. Luckily, though it took a little figuring out initially, it works really well, and saves heaps of time when making t-shirts. Now to just make another 11 or so for a round dozen! I would post a picture, except a couple of hours after it was made, it ended up with paint on it. My fault, as I suggested she paint, and she was just getting into it, when she wiped her hands on her t-shirt, then looked at me and said, "I'm not wearing my painting apron." Luckily it was pink paint on a pink shirt, so not that noticeable. It's in the laundry soaking, and I'm hoping for a full recovery.

And before I duck off to try to write at least some words for the day (haven't started at all yet), here's today's harvest. The cherry tomatoes are just going crazy up there. I think as many are rotting on the vine as we're harvesting, but that's OK, they'll be next year's bushes. This lot is in the freezer now, ready for next time we made spaghetti sauce. They're great for sauce, as after they've been frozen, the just pop right out of their skins. By the time we're ready to make more pasta sauce, we should have more than enough tomatoes.

The chickens are a little slack on the egg department lately. We're only getting 3-4 eggs a day, but from chatting to other's around, this is pretty normal, as they can be quite affected by the heat. Hopefully we'll have more eggs soon.

Seed Raiders

DH called out to me today to come and look at these thieves, eating the seeds out of my sunflowers! There were two of them, and they were so beautiful I didn't have the heart to get upset at them. Unfortunately the pictures aren't the greatest, as I didn't have time to get the settings right on my camera, and was taking pics from indoors in DD's room, but aren't they magnificent? I think though, that I might have to cover the sunflowers with something, or we aren't going to get any seeds for ourselves!

And while I'm posting, here are the pictures from yesterday's harvest. Half a bucket of potatoes from the second potato patch (I planted 16), a bowl of cherry tomatoes from the bushes that self seeded and have received absolutely no care up in the old garden, and one almost perfect nectarine.

Decluttering and writing are still happening here, although we also mowed the lawn (all 3/4 of an acre of it, minus house/shed/gardens etc) with DH's dad's help. I have found heaps more things to get rid of, and the car is full right now of the playgym DD outgrew a year ago, the baby swing, and a box of toys. Can't count them though, until they are completely off the property! I'm almost on track for NaNo, just under 400 words to go today to make the quota. So I guess I'd better go get writing!

More Potatoes

Not exactly the promised photos of the garden, I know, but we had another hectic day. DD had her 4 year immunisations today, and though she coped with it like a trouper, DH and I were pretty stressed about it. Afternoon was spent playing with an occasionally grumpy child, so not much was done. However, this bucket of potatoes is at least garden related, right?

These are the last of the potatoes from our first potato plot. We planted 25 potatoes originally, and this is probably about half of the total harvest. I'm pretty happy with that. Hoping we can get by without buying potatoes now until the next patch is ready to harvest. Then there will probably be a bit of a break before the next (as yet unplanted) lot. They're currently chitting in the laundry. I really do plan to get into the garden tomorrow, so hopefully there will be some photos soon.

Sewing Spree

After discovering this free pattern a week or two ago, I've been itching to try it. Unfortunately gardening, and all the other sewing I've been doing hasn't given me a chance until today. DH was away for the day, so DD and I got stuck into some sewing. (Or rather, I sewed, she played around me, although she did help choose the colours.) This pattern is very simple, and makes up really quickly. I made these four skirts in only a few (interrupted) hours. They look really cute on, and I'm sure will get lots of wear. I'd definitely recommend this pattern for any new sewers wanting something easy, yet professional looking.

While I was on a roll, I had a go at this tutorial for pillowcase dresses. As usual, I was making it from memory, so didn't follow the tutorial exactly, and I decided to do the thread through ties rather than the elastic and ties she used in the tutorial, but the basic idea is the same. These two dresses are actually made out of pillowcases! And they look surprisingly cute (and non-pillowcase like) on.

So in one day, using only material I already had, I made DD four new skirts, and two new dresses! And given my material stash, I have plenty more sewing days like this ahead! I wondered for a while if I would have the time and materials to be able to make all our clothes this year (well, mine and DD's, I draw the line at men's clothes, too difficult), but I'm off to a pretty good start. I can't see it being a problem to make our entire wardrobes. Well, I am making an exception to my t-shirts. 100% cotton interlock is very hard to find, and when you do find it, it's not cheap, so I'm buying my shirts second hand at the op shops.

In amongst all this sewing, I have been working on my spring garden, but it's not quite ready for photographs yet. I popped up to the old garden up the paddock this afternoon though, and harvested these. (Well, the eggs are from the chicken pen, and I actually took them out of the fridge, as they were collected this morning, but I've really been looking forward to adding the eggs to my harvest photos, so here they are.) We had the potatoes and peas for dinner, along with a pumpkin we harvested a week or two ago. We're getting closer and closer to a truly home grown meal!

More mulch than we know what to do with

Our 50 bales of sugar cane mulch arrived a couple of days ago. All I can say is Wow. Here it is stacked up against the side of the house, where it was unloaded. DD had a ball, climbing up and down the bales, and then jumping from one to the other once we moved some to the front garden. I've started spreading them around the front area, where I hope to cover the entire area in mulch. Let me tell you, I'm going to have heaps for that, and for several other projects I have in mind. It is such a lovely feeling to have so much mulch that I can just use lots of it, and for so many different things. I'm sure these bales will feature in many of my posts over the coming months.

We also harvested the first installment of our potato patch this afternoon. (I posted about making this here and here.) We were going to harvest the whole lot, as the plants had begun to yellow a little, but found that many of the potatoes are still quite small. They are plentiful though, this is the harvest from about 4 plants that we pulled up. It will probably do us about 3 or 4 meals. We'll probably keep harvesting from this patch now instead of buying them, but do it as needed rather than pulling the lot up at once, so that some of them will have a little longer to grow. I do want to get them out soon though, as I have plans to plant corn and pumpkins where they are growing now.

It is very satisfying to harvest your own food. Tonight we had potatoes and pumpkins that we grew ourselves. A short step closer to having a fully home grown meal!

Toes in the Sand

This is how I spent a large portion of the afternoon.

When I wasn't doing this. As you can see, I'm still wearing my skirt. Better make another one I think, before I wear this one out!

We went out to Bribie Island again for the afternoon, and had a lovely relaxing time in the sand and water. The water is just starting to warm up, and being school holidays, there were a few families around, but not too crowded.

There were a bit of a crowd of these jellyfish though. So sad to see them washing up on the beach. I wonder why they do that?

And here are a couple of pics of DD playing on the beach, just for good measure.

We didn't spend the whole day in idleness though. Before we left this morning, we added planted 6 new trees in the orchard. I'll post some pics, maybe tomorrow, and an updated list of the trees we have now.

And finally, here is today's harvest for today. We're finding that we're losing a lot of strawberries as they're rotting from lying on the damp ground under the plants. When we get runners this year, I'm going to move them all down to the front, hopefully with a better setup. There also should be 2 eggs in the picture, but I forgot to include them. One in the nest, and one found in a corner of the shed veranda. No idea how long it was there, but it can't have been more than a day or two. It tasted fine. Well, better than fine actually. There is nothing quite like the taste of your own, fresh, chickens eggs.

Four Sources of Water

Permaculture theory (as stated by Rosemary Morrow in her book, "Earth User's Guide to Permaculture, yes you're going to hear a lot about this book over the next little while) states that you should always have at least 2 sources of water, just in case one is lost or contaminated. This can be any combination of tanks, bores, dams, or town water. If your only water source is tank water for example, you should have two smaller tanks rather than one large one etc. Well, our new 5000L water tank arrived yesterday afternoon, bringing us up to 4 water sources - 3 tanks and town water backup. I've mentioned before that though we have a mains water connection, we intend to only use it in an emergency. Since we moved, mains water has only ever been used to top up the new house connected tank when it was first installed (via the automatic top up that was installed, and was turned off as soon as handover was completed). We now have over 50,000L in water storage, and after the recent rains, both main tanks are at half and three quarters full. Another good rain, and they'll be full.

That's where this new tank comes in. We'll pump into it regularly (it's not connected to a downpipe) when the tanks are nearing capacity, giving us some extra storage space. It will be used entirely for watering the front garden, and will save a lot of carting buckets back and forth. I'm hoping to set up some drip watering systems to make watering even easier (and more water efficient).

As you can also see in the photo, the front garden is starting to take shape. Besides the tank, you can see the black compost bin in the bottom right corner, that is about 1/4 full now, with a pile of grass next to it for covering food scraps with. it's hard to see, but the climbing peas are about 18 inches tall now, and starting to flower. I'm hoping we'll get a harvest in before it gets too hot for them. Weeds abound in the rest of the front yard, but in the next few weeks they will all be mown down then smothered with lots of mulch. Then I'll be able to get started, albeit a little late, on my spring planting.

On a good gardening note though, the strawberry harvests just keep getting bigger and bigger! I need to pick them more often, as you can probably see, some of them are getting rotten spots where they're lying on the damp ground too long. I had to chuck about a dozen really rotten ones to the chooks, but most of these were salvageable, and have now been frozen for the next batch of strawberry jam. Organic and homegrown this time!

I love days like this, where I actually have some sort of tangible harvest from my garden. This is the last of the Roma Tomatoes, the mickey's (aka Noisy Minors) got the rest. But I'm sure they enjoyed them more than I would have. There are a few more side shoots from the broccoli at the back that we had for dinner. Never have I actually enjoyed green leafy vegetables before, but these are yum. I had the mulberries for desert, more ripe this time, and starting to get sweet. The strawberries are about 2-3 days growth. If I get this many every few days, about a punnet full I think, then I'll have a giant pot of my own organic strawberry jam in a few weeks time! I cut them up and they're in the freezer now, along with the tomatoes.

Gardening wise I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I want to get into spring planting, but there is a lot to organise first, which I shall post about more in the next few days/weeks as it gets moving. I have plans to move my vegie garden to the front of the house, where it gets plenty of sun, and is protected from the westerly winds, which can be quite nasty at times. It also works in well with the permaculture zones, being essentially Zone 1, close to the house and easily accessible. I actually bought Rosemary Morrow's "Earth User's Guide to Permaculture" yesterday, and have been voraciously devouring it. This of course is probably part of the reason for my overwhelmed feeling.

I've tried to read about permaculture before. The idea intrigues me, but Bill Mollison's books were just too theoretical for me, and I couldn't get through them. This book is far more practical, and I'm already finding myself referring to it as I try to plan something. I think I will have to work through the exercises she lists in each chapter, and try to get an overall permaculture plan for our block. Hopefully there will be some posts about that in the future too. (Ever notice how I talk a lot about possible posts that often don't ever eventuate?) There is just so much to it, and so much of it is so useful, but it takes a lot to take it all in.

In other news, my kiwi fruit plants arrived today. 2 plants, male and female, both very tiny. I've been reading up on them, and apparently they grow VERY extensively, and are very strong plants, so I'm going to need somewhere to put them. I'm really wishing right now that I had a pergola out the front, as it would be a perfect place for them. As they're deciduous, they'd give us some nice cool shade in summer, but let in the warm sun in winter. Some planning to do there too...

And as an update to yesterday's post, Roley the rooster has been returned to the breeders we bought the eggs off, and they are going to attempt to find him a new home. Hopefully Jumpy will settle down now that he's the king rooster, and not take after Roley.

Berry Nice

Yes, I know, lame title. That is what happens when you over plan a blog post. This is my 'berry harvest' from yesterday (with a few peas thrown in). Mulberries and strawberries. This is the mulberry tree's second year (first year it was still in a pot though, poor thing, while we waited to get out here to plant), and we're getting a nice taste of mulberries this year. Many of these were picked up from the ground after the recent rain and accompanying wind. Tasted nice, but could be a little sweeter, probably because some of them could be a little riper.

The strawberries are doing well too, but they taste Soooo yummy, that I am beginning to wonder if we're going to get many to make jam. I'm afraid I'm the worst culprit for strawberry eating, I keep eating them as I pick. They are so totally unlike the strawberries you buy in the shops, or even at the markets. These are the old variety, from my Grandmother's plants (Grandpa used to have a farm, and I have feint memories of going there and picking strawberries from their huge strawberry patch). These haven't been bred and modified to travel well, or be huge, or extra red, they are just the way they are, and you can taste the difference. Not even a hint of bitterness, just as sweet as can be. I'm not even going to bother trying to buy any newer commercial ones (the last ones I tried died anyway, oops), just keep making more and more and more of these.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was just beginning to wonder yesterday if we were going to get enough to make jam, and we were down to our last jar of jam... when I found a bargain at the markets this morning. A whole box full of strawberries, for the bargain price of $5!!!! So I bought them home, diced them up, and here they are in my pressure cooker! None of the saucepans were big enough to hold them! There is still at least a punnet load of the nicer ones left for eating and, more likely, juicing (have to post about my new juicer soon...)

I don't think I've posted about making jam before? We make all our own jam these days, and it's really easy. Basically, just dice up your fruit (and there are lots of options other than strawberries, pineapple, apricot, rosella, raspberry, etc etc). Put it in a saucepan with equal parts of sugar (I often put slightly less sugar, and it hasn't affected the eventual outcome). If it's a low pectin fruit (which strawberries are), add some lemon juice (about one lemon to 2 cups of strawberries), and boil it up. After a while (time seems to be dependent on the temperature of your stove) it will 'gel'. You should be able to see the change in the pot once you get used to it. The jam seems to go darker, it doesn't boil as quickly, and it 'feels' thicker. Then pour it straight into sterilised jars (I just rinse mine in hot water from the tap), and put the lids on quickly before it cools. If you have 'pop-top' jars, the tops will pop down as it cools, and seal the jars. I keep mine in the fridge, but I think it is OK to keep sealed jars in the cupboards, though I'm not sure how long.

This lot of strawberries made 11 jars of jam! So for $5 for the strawberries, and maybe $2 worth of sugar (I buy in bulk, 15kg at a time, works out at a little less than $1 a kg if I recall correctly), about $1 worth of lemons, that's about 70c a jar. Hopefully that will keep my family in jam for a while, although I won't hold my breath, we go through a lot of jam. So long as it's strawberry anyway. The pineapple and apricot have been sitting in the fridge for months. While I was at it, I poured a little into a bottle before it hit the gel stage, to see how it works for strawberry sauce.

I wonder if they'll have more boxes next week?

First Spring Harvest

No time for long posts tonight, so I'll just leave this picture of today's harvest for your enjoyment. Not bad huh? There were also about 8-10 mulberries that didn't make it to the picture...

I have lots more garden photos that hopefully I'll have time to post tomorrow. Hope everyone is enjoying the first day of spring.

Pictures of a Neglected Garden

Today's Harvest

With the new house being finished, and moving and major projects taking up all my time, my garden has been sadly neglected. About the only time I've visited it is to put scraps into the compost bin, and pause to pick a few things. It seems like no-one has told the garden it's being neglected though, since it's still producing just fine without me. The tomatoes are still chugging along. I've harvested probably a couple of kilo's of tomatoes off of the 6 plants, and have been freezing them to make tomato sauce, which hopefully I'll find time for in the next few days. The goosberries seem to like the cooler weather, or maybe it's the fact that I revamped their bed with new compost before all this started, because they've put on new growth, and lots more blueberries. The climbing peas have all fallen over and are totally tangled, but we get a handful of peas like this off them every day or two. They are certainly a good producer if you're going to grow peas! We actually cooked them tonight, just very lightly, and as with all homegrown stuff, they taste so totally different to what you buy in the stores. Almost like they're a different vegetable. DD even ate two, and she's never voluntarily eaten a pea in her life!

We also picked the first strawberry today. I've been watching this one for a few days, and this morning pronounced it good enough to eat. DD and DH shared it. Surprisingly enough, the one next to it, which isn't even showing any colour in this picture, was red enough to pick this afternoon, and I ate it before I told anyone else about it! It was beautifully sweet, without a hint of the tartness that seems to characterise store bought strawberries these days. With all the fertaliser I've been giving these, they're much bigger than they were last year, and the plants are loaded with flowers. I will be having huge jam making sessions this year. That is, if I can keep them from the hungry horde (and me)!

The potato patch that I planted about two months ago is doing well. I've been hilling the plants with dried grass and some sugarcane mulch, but no matter how much I keep hilling, they keep growing! Hoping to get a good harvest this year. There are 25 plants there, and I'm hoping for over 100 potatoes. We could start burrowing under the grass and probably harvest some small ones now, but given how many potatoes our family eats, I think it's more economical to wait till they're full size. Hopefully these will be ready to harvest within the next month. The sheets over the back fence is my half hearted attempt at frost protection. So far though, there has been no sign of a frost. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

This second, smaller potato patch near the compost bin is also doing well. There are about 16 potatoes planted here, in a much smaller area. They're probably a month behind the others, so hopefully overall we'll get enough potatoes to see us through a few months. I will plant some more soon, as I believe you can plant potatoes close to all year round here. Only problem is going to be finding seed potatoes to plant.

The seeds I planted a few weeks ago are coming up. The ones in the bottom left corner are Roma tomatoes, about 20 plants, then some sunflowers and nasturtians. Can't remember what the rest are, but I guess I'll find out!

I've also planted up some more climbing peas after the success of the last lot. I have a special spot planned for these guys though, which I shall be posting about the the next week or so hopefully.

Starting out small

Today's Harvest

Many times I look at the small tastes I harvest from my garden, and wonder why I bother? I compare my harvest pictures to the people who have a whole basket of tomatoes, or enough peas to actually cook for a meal. I put so much effort, yes and money, into my garden, yet seem to get so little back.

It's then that I have to remind myself that this garden is only 8 months old. Eight months ago, this place was a bare block, and since that time, I've grown a whole garden. Yes, it isn't particularly productive yet, but I consider that I'm still in the experimental stages. I need to grow some pea plants, or tomato plants, or pumpkin vines, to work out what conditions they like, how close together to plant them, whether I can successfully grow them at all, and how many I am going to use, before I go ahead and plant a whole crop of them. There is no point me going ahead and planting a whole crop of corn say, then finding out that I didn't plant them close enough together so they didn't fertilise. And if I had planted out the whole packet of climbing peas, not having any idea of how high the trellis needed to be, I'd have even more of them falling over and making a mess!

I imagine that in another year or two, I'll be so much closer to my dreams of being partially self-sufficient (I don't know that anyone is ever totally self-sufficient, unless they live on a desert island!), and all because of what I am learning right now. So instead of feeling down about how little I get, I'm going to celebrate what I have learnt with each plant grown, each fruit or vegetable picked, and each mistake I've made.

Today's Harvest 2

For example, today I learnt that the broccoli you can buy in the supermarket is nothing like the real deal. I'm not a broccoli fan, but this stuff is actually edible. When cooked (lightly), it is actually a brilliant green, not that washed out half blue look.

I learnt that to grow decent sized Luffa's, they need a lot more water and fertiliser than I gave these. Yet even so, I have two more luffa's than I had before, and...

... even a tiny, stunted luffa contains enough seeds to grow many many more luffa vines. Like rosella's, once you've bought one lot of luffa seeds, you'll never need to buy another. And neither will your friends.

But the most important lesson of all, was the one my daughter showed me. That even if we never produce enough to eat, not only is she learning so much from watching our garden grow, but she is enjoying it. She carefully arranged this entire basked of flowers, leaves and produce (yes, that's some broccoli and some parsley in there too), and was so proud to show us. She put the trim I'm knitting for her jumper down the bottom. A perfect show of simple living!

Kidney Beans

Today I noticed that the kidney beans I've been leaving on the bushes to dry weren't looking too good after all the wet weather, so I figured it was time for them to come off. Some of them were starting to dry out, other's not.

DD really enjoyed helping me shell them, and was fascinated to find that the beans inside were pink instead of green.

Out of the 4 seeds I initially planted, 3 grew, and we ended up with 43 beans in the end. Not a bad increase. I think if I had taken the beans off the bush as they grew instead of leaving them on, the bushes would have produced more beans, so I might try that next time.

I'm going to let these dry a bit more, then work out what I'm going to cook with them.

Potato Harvest

We harvested our first homegrown potatoes yesterday. This is the haul from the one bush that we've checked so far (we have one more, but will wait for a bit longer).

There were a few others that were far to small to even bother with (like thumbnail size), but these were a decent size. Largest potatoes I've ever grown in fact. DD was very excited to actually dig up our own potatoes, and carried them all inside two at a time, and hoarded them like eggs in a nest for a while. She also carted off the tiny ones to play with.

I had assumed that the bush had died off because it was time to harvest, but when I dug it up, the base of the stem was covered in these tiny insects which seemed to be chewing through it. I'm not sure what they are, but it's no doubt that if they hadn't killed my plant, we would have had twice this number of potatoes. I've done several Google searches, but can't find out what these are, so if anyone can tell me, I'd be really pleased to hear.