Tristan and I finally got around to mowing and whippersnippering the backyard. Our lawn is infested with Kykuyu grass so it grows FAST. Which means it often gets the better of us and parts of the garden get cut off from access due to the jungle-like growth underfoot. We really need a goat or something but our place is a rental so I’m thinking… no.
Anyway, here’s what it looks like now!
It looked like it was about half the size before. My cats don’t know what to do with all the space. They seemed a little freaked out to be honest. Poor little pumpkins. This photo was taken standing about 1/3rd of the way into the garden so its actually bigger than this. You can’t see but along the fenceline on the left is where our veggie garden is. This merely serves as a reminder of how LITTLE space we actually use for gardening. Sigh.
Our potato patch… it looked bigger before we cut all the grass around it. We’ve finally succumbed and put out buckets, pots etc up off the ground – we kept losing them inamongst the grass. I forgot how MANY pots we had!
Some seedlings can you name them all? Going clockwise from the top right there’s carrots, basil, amaranth, at the bottom right there’s a mystery citrus and the bottom left is another mystery seedling. Looking forward to finding out what they are! Its been sprinkling rain all night so the soil looks lovely, eh. Not the usual Masc0t Sand. haha
Mr Sunflower No.2 is ready to pop! So excited about this, I’ve never grown sunflowers before! Still not convinced that it actually *is* a sunflower but at this stage there’s probably no other possibility. They’ve started bending to follow the sun which is adorable. I’m anthropomorphising plants. Its ridiculous.
And finally my pond. Waterchestnuts and Pondweed. I need to learn more about pond stuff… this is probably a little bit of this house that I can take with me when I leave this city. Sigh.
In other exciting news… I came across this youtube vid about a family that is pretty much doing what I want to do one day… except on a LOT less land. But I guess that just shows that you only need so much space to become self-sufficient. A FIFTH of an acre! Fancy that.
Have a good day everyone! I have my parents coming to visit tonight and we have some exciting news to share with them… I hope it goes down ok. Eeep!
Groovy backyard there. Your mystery-herb-in-the-bottom-left looks like Dill maybe?
I’ve just planted my sunflowers so nothing to see right now, but my friend up in Chatswood (much nicer dirt there compared to the sand we have in the eastern suburbs) has sunflowers that are a good metre high already.
Do you know if those ponds breed mozzies btw?
I think the mystery herb is dill. I planted it and fennel (both I’ve never grown before) so its one or the other! Unfortunately the seeds I used were really old so only one came up.
Yes, I am jealous of anyone with non-sandy soil. Although composting is slowly getting it to a nice loamy consistency! I do worry though, about how ‘clean’ the soil is. With the planes being so low and ORICA messing up the groundwater and stuff. Ahh well.
The ponds don’t breed mozzies because the pondweed covers the whole surface of the water so the mozzie babies don’t get any sunlight and die. Not that it would make a difference if it did breed mozzies. We have golf courses like 200m away with all the pond they want/need!