I did manage to get a bit done this weekend, but not as much as I had hoped, due to a few personal events that I won’t discuss here on the blog.
However, I did manage to prep and plant out one bed for capsicums (bell pepper), and long yellow peppers.
In my bountiful veggie patch.
How relaxing. It was great getting my hands in the dirt again. It is so soothing for the soul.
I augmented the soil with some blood and bone, a handful of dolomite lime, and lots of homemade compost from my Aerobin. It certainly does make the best compost ever.
As you can see behind me, the broad beans are growing well with most of them having large pods. They are taking up so much water that we have to turn on the irrigation at least three times a week as we have had below average rainfall during late winter – early spring. It is supposed to be our wettest part of the year. At least I still have two full tanks, with one nearly empty. A little more rain would help everyone around here.
Planting out the capsicum seedlings
Besides a bit of weeding, and adding some spring onions sets to the pool area wicking bed, that was all I got up to besides lots of work behind the scenes on the Little Green Workshops website. We have nearly finished the cheese making product line, with a few more to add before we open that part of the store. More on that soon.
Oh, one more thing. I discovered a new flavour. Kim and I were sitting in our garden of tranquility (near the main gate), and I picked a couple of lemonade fruit and some chocolate mint leaves. We peeled the citrus and broke it into segments, then pushed a chocolate mint leaf into the middle of each segment.
Then pow! What an amazing flavour. I thought it was a bit like an orange choc mint liqueur, and Kim thought it tasted like a Terry’s chocolate orange (I think it is an English thing). Definitely something we will be trying again on our next Sunday morning picnic in the garden. Have you tried something unusual like this combination?
I hope your gardens are growing well, and if you don’t have one, that you are planning one soon. It will certainly help you to relax after a hard week of work.
It does for me.
I grew chocolate mint at one stage but could never figure out what to do with it! Now I need to plant a lemonade tree to go with it! I have a tumbling composter that I love. The areobin looks very interesting. There is nothing quite so relaxing as hanging out in the garden as far as I am concerned.
I have one too and will be trying this one out on the weekend. Yes, Terry’s chocolate orange is an English thing but available in every supermarket for about $5. Its dark chocolate infused with orange liqueur and it comes apart in orange segments. Its divine!!! Great with a good coffee. Baby toms are coming up as we speak !!!!! I think growing tomatoes has become the new summer sport.
Terry’s Chocolate Orange is a Christmas tradition here. Even the kids love them, Santa leaves one in their stockings for them (and yes, even at 23, 22 & 19 they want their stockings!). My mother is a Scot and she started the tradition with me and my brother, as she would find two things in her stocking at Christmas when she was a child – a sixpence and an orange. Between the two wars and the depression things were tough. But Gavin my Grandad grew the best onions year after year after year. He’d tend them with heaps of manure (whatever he could get his hands on), often growing them right in the well rotted manure. How I miss those onions, and how I wish he was here now to help me with mine. Thanks for bringing up some lovely memories.