The Garden

I heard from my daughter, Katrina, that, with her husband Tony and children Kaileb, Hannah and Olivia, they have started their first vegetable garden in their new house. I can appreciate why they have taken so long to start as they are very hard working people, but at least they are making a start to become somewhat self sufficient.
A couple of tips for anyone who is starting a garden in a newly developed area. The builders often leave rubble lying around and also some of their rubbish, which is usually buried and left to rot away. This alters the quality of your soil and sometimes can cause some of your plants to be malformed, stunted or not grow at all. I would recommend the purchase of a PH Meter, a few $'s from any hardware store. This will tell you how acid or alkaline your soil is in a particular area of your garden, and remember that not all parts of your garden will be the same PH. Also, you will need some blood and bone (a good all round ecofriendly fertiliser) and garden lime as most veges and flowers require a neutral PH around 5 on your meter. If your soil is too acid add lime, too alkaline add sulphate of ammonia (I use blood and bone which has sulphate of ammonia added).

Mother Nature is flexing her muscles again in the form of tropical cyclones. Cyclone Andy is already battering the North Queensland coast and the monster of all monster cyclones, Yasi, is on its way to add more devastation to much of the Queensland coastline and cities.
Just as our summer garden is starting to look a bit of alright we are now faced the probability of very strong winds which may damage the garden considerably, so I thought that while everything is in pretty good shape, I would share with you some of the beauties of out garden. Its not quite the Garden of Eden but it will do us!


 Passionfruit - Only been in the garden about 5 or 6 months and is already in flower. And such a striking looking flower it is!!! Can't wait for the fruit and than the Pavlovas, fruit salads and passionfruit icing iced cakes will abound!!!

 Chillies - The bed on the left are Thai chillies and are nice and hot but bearable, where the ones on the right are from Peru and rate 150,000 on the Scoville Scale, which is HOT HOT HOT!!!! and they are amongst the world's hottest chillies.
When you cook with them, only one equates to about 6 or 7 other chillies, so they are very economical??? They prefer cooler climates to grow in and we had heaps when we grew them in Tassie.


Bananas and Peanuts - I am not used to growing tropical plants, but these two seem to be doing OK. Maybe get some bananas next year and in about 2 months I will dig my first peanuts. I have already cropped one bed of corn growing with the peanuts and you will see No2 on its way.

Snake Beans and Herbs - Snake beans on the left grow to about 1 metre long and the herbs are thriving. But the snake beans aren't doing so well this year - all green and no bean!! You will notice a type of shade house near the snake beans. I like to call this my C.A.T.B - Camouflaged Anti-Terrorist Bunker, which is full of miniature Shock Troops - When you see how small they are, you get a shock. But I really use it as a shade house for some of the more sensitive plants. Fooled Ya!!!!!

Pumpkins and Petola - Pumpkins you know and love but Petola may be strange to you. It is an Asian vegetable something in the family of gourds (I think). It is also called LOOFAH or LUFFAH because, when it has been dried, you can use it as a bath sponge or in the kitchen for cleaning!!!

 As a green vegetable it is cooked and served with rice dishes or can be made as a soup or even stir fry it. Very versatile vege and very nice and refreshing to eat too. In Malaysia I saw it growing and consumers prefer straight ones like the one on the left, so the growers put little weights on the end of the fruit so it grows straight. This intrepid photographer crawled under the petola vines to take a pic of the one on the right which has a bit of a "hangup" and I will use it for seed for next year, or even as a bath sponge after I get the seeds out.


Kay and I are very happy in our little bit of paradise called the "back yard". It took a bit of getting where it is now as there was nothing here when we bought the place. The garden beds took a while to get going and because of my gammy leg, it took me 3 times as long as usual to dig it first up. But now the soil is pretty good and easy to manage. We grew 2 beds of potatoes but only cropped one before the rains and floods hit. Although we didn't get flooded, the rain and all that water rotted the spuds in the second bed. Better luck next year maybe.