Making Sense of Things

Posts tagged with garden

• 14 February 2011 - Sub-tropical Permaculture Design for Friends

  Friends have recently purchased a house and they asked me to do a permaculture design for them.  This post describes what I provided them with.  I don’t have much experience (my only other full design is here) but I’ve had lots of fun thinking about it, feel really excited by some of the ideas I’ve provided and, of course, look forward to your feedback and suggestions which are always welcome.

  There was no chance of getting a full design for my friend’s new house completed due to time, weather and other restrictions, so what I provided were some suggestions but warned them they would need to note the existing plants on the property and monitor the sun, wind, moisture, slope and movements to determine if these suggestions would indeed work. Also, I was aware that they wanted the first third of the backyard as a ‘show’ garden with the ‘hippy’ … Read the rest

• 12 January 2011 - Harvesting during a flood

  As we described in our first ‘harvest’ post, we want to share more photos from our garden with you.

  At the moment our city is flooding severely. People are evacuating, packing up their things, thousands of homes have been filled with water and some have even lost their lives. On our side, we are lucky as we are on high ground. Many people have been “panic buying” supplies in preparation for isolation and lack of transport. Our CSA (community supported agriculture – see this post for information about CSAs), Food Connect, are having difficulty delivering fruit and vegetable boxes as their drivers can’t get through flooded roads. We have bought some fresh provisions we could carry from a nearby store (we don’t have a car) but we already have loads of grains, pasta, lentils and the like in our home to feel secure. Not to mention small gifts from … Read the rest

• 10 January 2011 - Harvesting our garden despite the rain

  As we described in our last ‘harvest’ post, we often forget to take photos of our harvests from our organic garden to show you. Lately it has been raining a lot so we haven’t been able to get into the garden to work on it and plant new vegetables. Additionally, the lack of sun and constant pools of water have had a significant impact on our plants.

  Despite this we were lucky enough to harvest some sweet potatoes (with a few holes in them!) and aubergines (still a bit small) and we are very grateful they have survived. Tonight will be roast sweet potato and aubergine salad with fresh homemade yoghurt dressing… mmmm… keep an eye out for our coming post on how to make yoghurt at home!

  

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• 24 December 2010 - Harvesting our Garden

  We often forget to take photos to share what we harvest from our organic garden with you, but below are a few from our recent harvests.

  We’ve been making delicious fresh pesto from all our herbs – rosemary, sage, chives, parsley, thyme, oregano, basil, mint… Baba ghanoush and moussaka from our aubergine… tomato sauce from home grown tomatoes, capsicum, aubergine and spinach… croutons from our fresh homemade bread, brushed in olive oil and fresh herbs from the garden… our green beans, courgettes and Asian greens go in anything from salads to stir fries to lentil soups… our lettuces, spinach and shallots make beautiful crispy salads… and many, many more dishes…

  We shouldn’t forget all those lemons, mandarins, grapefruit, oranges and acerola cherries we’ve been able to benefit from thanks to the landlord’s love of productive trees.  (see our post on ‘Urban Permaculture in Practice‘ where there is a base plan … Read the rest