Dilemmas and Decisions

We were fortunate enough to be able to buy a fairly modest (by today's standards) house sited pretty centrally on a 600+ square metre block. This means we have decent sized gardens the whole way round the house, which is somewhat daunting when while most of the gardens are fine, they do need a lot of attention to bring them up to even a good standard.

It is easy to sit back and do nothing because doing anything looks scary, and it is a ploy I'll often use when procrastinating. I have decided though, that I would like to start both a veggie patch, and a compost heap. I'd like to reduce how much rubbish we throw out, and I'd like to buy less at the supermarket. In our recent diet regime we learned that there are some veggies we eat plenty of, that would be handy to be able to at least supplement our purchases, or be self sufficient with.

The list that was brainstormed with BabyCakes the other night is:

1. spinach (probably NZ spinach)
   
2. tomatoes
3. zucchini
4. corn
5. rocket
6. lettuce (probably cos)
7. carrot
8. broccoli

According to my "Kitchen Garden" book they are all pretty much sown/ transplanted in spring, and harvested in summer through to autumn, with some starting harvest in spring. (The picture is of the two books that I own about gardening - they are pretty much my first reference point these days!)

There are pretty much two possible sites for the garden bed in mind, both with their own issues. One is in the back right hand corner of the back yard, which sees a lot of sun and is bordered creating a nice deep garden bed.... with a giant tree stump in the middle of it, and some pesky self sown jacaranda (ish) trees in the other corner of that patch. Stump grinding sounds like it could be an expensive job - but we have other stumps left by the previous owner that will also need grinding so it is a known project on our 'to spend money on' list.

The other site is to the left of the back deck, along the fence line, just inside our new(ish) fence. At the moment, it gets a lot of sun, but we have planted passion fruit vines along the fence and if they ever get established, will block out the afternoon sun. This bed is much narrower in depth, with many less obstructions in it - and about as far away from the back steps as you could possibly get, and stay in the back yard. The key to good use and maintenance of both a kitchen garden and compost heap is of course, to be as close as possible to the kitchen!

We do have a few weeks to weigh the options up, and come up with a solution. Of course, I guess I could also move the garden bed after the first season if the results are not as planned.

Too, installing a water tank would also be handy before we embarked on our edible garden... but then the gutters would need replacing, given how many holes there are in them...

Saving money on the groceries could turn out to be an expensive process!

Fighting Father Christmas...

Now that we're married, and the wedding and honeymoon are paid for, we can start to think about spending time, energy and money on other things, and one thing we have been super keen to put some energy into is the house and garden.


Last weekend and this, we've been in the garden starting to wage war on the thousands of dandelions that are currently resident in our "lawn" (and I use the term loosely, because I think there is more coverage by dandelions than by grass). Having been away on honeymoon for 3 weeks, the grass hadn't been mowed in over a month, so the dandelion flowers and clocks (seed heads) stand out over and above the greenery. Add to that that it has rained quite well since we got home, and we have a very happy dandelion crop!

Naively, we started pulling up dandelions in patches before thinking about the task a bit more logically. Realistically, we probably should have made it our mission to remove all the clocks and flowers, so that the problem isn't perpetuated. We realised this after a while, and started the new task with energy which quickly dwindled with the frustration of trying to remove the clocks without the seeds being dispersed all over the place. BabyCakes had started in the garden well before me, and got frustrated before me. I'd started on the patch of lawn outside our front door, which has clear boundaries, and was about half way through when BabyCakes moved his attentions inside. I was determined to see the patch I'd set out to clear, clear. Thankfully, I stuck it out for the 15 minutes longer that it took, and can happily smile on that patch - now we have to maintain vigilance of beheading the flowers, whilst also finding the time to remove the existing plants!

The wheelie bin looks about 1/3 full after this morning's efforts, and having read the Wikipedia article, and wondering if in the name of being both budget conscious and environmentally responsible, if we should look at eating some of them - they are supposed to be high in iron as well as vitimins A and C, or potentially we could use the flowers to make dandelion wine... Maybe because Australian's seem to have to fight to grow vegetables that the notion of eating something that grows as a weed is hard to get my head around!

The more I read about the options, the more I wonder if I should experiment! The wine making piques my interest, but I would need more equipment than BabyCakes already has, and it takes quite some time to see results by the looks of things - maybe I should think on it some, I don't think I'll be running out of supply any time soon!



Oh, and the title comes from my childhood memories of dandelion clocks being called "Father Christmases", before blowing on them and making a wish.