I love spending time outside in the garden - it is so good for the soul! Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed, short on patience or stretched beyond capacity, spending time outside always seems to help. Pulling some weeds, checking the fruit trees or planting vegetable seeds provides an immediate sense of accomplishment. This is certainly very helpful when it is time to go inside and tackle the (constant) mountain of washing or the challenges that consistently come with being a parent. I always feel calm after being in the garden. Of course, Eli is my constant companion and enjoys being outdoors just as much as I do. He is particularly wonderful at hunting down any snails hiding among our little plants. Never keen to feed them to the chickens, Eli doesn't seem to mind the slime the snails deposit all over his hands as he plays with them.
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| Eli with his snails. Those gloves won't stay on long! |
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| Love you snail! |
We are all excited to have seen success with some of our vegetable plantings. Baby carrots and snow peas are particularly popular and are pulled up out of the ground, or off the plant as soon as they are big enough!
Our broccoli plants actually look like they will grow a head of broccoli (I planted these with my fingers crossed!). The mandarin and orange trees have blossoms for the first time and the stone fruit trees all have miniature fruit on them.
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| Donut peaches |
Very, very exciting! I am saving all my pasta jars in the hope that I will have such an abundant crop of fruit that I will be able to preserve some of it (but we'll see how that goes!). I have even had success with some fig tree cuttings from my mum's tree. I haven't grown fruit from a cutting before and didn't really know what to do with the cuttings. After some internet research and advice from Sabrina Hahn I dipped the cuttings into rooting powder and stuck them into pots filled with propagating mix. Thirteen of the nineteen cuttings have struck and are growing leaves. I can already taste the fig jam!
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| Fig tree cutting |
Of course, there are parts of my garden that are full of (ahem) weeds. I have set myself a goal to be weed free by the first week in October. Feel free to send a message around that time to see if I was successful!
What do you grow in your garden?
Eli and I enjoy checking the letterbox each day. I think we each secretly hope
that there will be something exciting in there for us. Unfortunately for
Eli, exciting things don't often come for him in the mail (I send
him something from me every so often to make up for it!) - I'm certain I didn't get any mail when I was two! I am always more than happy to share my
exciting mail. And so, it was Eli who opened the envelope containing these two
beautiful blocks from Helen. I love the interplay between the solid blue and the prints. I really didn't use solids much until recently and am loving all the options they create. Through Helene's clever use of the solid fabric the same star pattern looks very different in each block.
