Millie

Beans and cucumber .. from seed

Young beans

Grown from seed.

Nasturtiums

The nasturtiums grew quickly after the Frangipani twigs mulch was replaced with horse poo.

Coriander flowers

Dill flowers

Lemongrass border

I mixed worm castings with a little bit of potting mix, and turned it into the dry red soil, then mulched with hay.

Passionfruit



The idea is that the passionfruit will use the rock for support ... saves me having to erect something. I recycled the frangipani sticks and put them over the hay to keep it in place in case of wind.

Passionfruit

Another passionfruit vine. Even with worms and guinea pigs, we still had household food scraps left over, so bought a compost bin. An excellent CD, 'Give it a go', told me exactly what to do to get the bin started. Details of the CD are at: http://www.veggievillage.com.au/peregian/ 

Passionfruit

Lemongrass

Snake

I disturbed 2 or 3 of these beautiful little snakes while moving the bricks.

Brick border



A random collection of bricks was used between the grass and a steep, uneven dropoff where vegetation rubbish has been thrown and where weeds thrive. I thought I could do something more attractive with Lemongrass. Plus, we wanted more bricks to make a playground for the guinea pigs!

Shallots, Dill, Coriander

Casting Aspersions ...

Early Nasturtiums

I collected some strands of nasturtiums from my sister's place and planted them here, using Frangipani branches as mulch. The Frangipani had to be cut back as it was was growing against the roof. Once the sap was dry, it was easy to handle and break to the sizes I needed for mulch.

Green pot horseshoe

This is how I orginally arranged the green pots, on an odd concrete platform beyond which the land drops very steeply to the road about 70m below. As the weather warmed up, I wondered about how warm the soil would get, and learned that the best way to keep individual pots is in a bunch with the most heat-sensitive plants in the middle.

The house

This end of the house faces north-east. There are a number of huge rocks in the garden. The house boils in summer, and really needs better eaves (ie. some eaves!) or a shade sail. As renters, we probably won't make either investment.

Tomatoes

We grew these tomatoes from seed. I've since learnt that tomatoes always need a certain thing added to the soil (potassium or something), but I can't remember what! Another thing on tomatoes is to plant them in partial shade as they get so hot in the summer that they literally boil and burst! We're planning to grow them at waist height along the tope of a stone wall that's mostly under the carport, and against the border fence. I'm thinking of using wafers of strawbale pegged in place to form the garden barrier on the carport side of the bed.

Guinea Pigs

Millie and Gertrude eat food scraps and provide lots of poo for pots or the compost bin.

Herbs

Parsley, rosemary, sage, coriander, lavender and lemon thyme came from Nambour Growers' Market. They started off OK in a commercial potting mix, with a bit of Seasol from time to time, but I've since learned the importance of developing the soil organisms, and that commercial potting mix just doesn't cut it.

Worms

Donated by Vicki.

Buderim

A pumpkin vine grew from some seeds thrown onto a pile of grass cuttings.