An afternoon gardening

Now that temperatures have become milder, and after a few days of light rain, it was most refreshing to get outdoors and enjoy a couple of hours pottering around.

The children helped get a few seeds sown in pots, ready for late autumn eating. Maestro chose some elongated beetroot, called
Forono. Mariposa chose carrots, but we'll sow them in another week. Then both helped me with the herb seeds since most of my herb garden is looking very sad after the heat. We'll keep them indoors in the kitchen garden window once they get going.

Maestro's wheat is coming along nicely, in the recycled polystyrene box we collected from Aldi. This was sown on the first quarter moon in February, so here's what it looks like just one month along:





Next was collecting the pears which are coming into season.
Yum - a nice big basket full. Some are ready for eating now.
Unfortunately bugs have managed to enjoy a few nibbles, so we'll have clean them up a bit. Pear sorbet is usually the best way to deal with a surplus of stewed pears.




Lastly, the Stella cherry tree got a good trimming. We chose to grow this in an espaliered vase shape, helping with space saving. The lateral branches really needed a good lopping as they were beginning to get too high (and the neighbours have been enjoying the sweetest fruit from the top branches!) It's looking pretty sad now, but it will come along again ... I promise!!


If you're interested in saving space and trying to espalier your fruit trees, there are heaps of great books available through libraries. Here's a short 2min doc. which may also be of interest:

I know that if we had time to start our garden over, we'd probably fit a lot more trees growing on our property using this method. Otherwise, we're just going to have to wait until we move to our 'dream property' .. maybe. :)