Friday 2 August 2013

Divine July Gardening


Gardening in July is very enjoyable.

The pests are minimal, we have pleasant weather and the weeds are scarce.
Vegetables such as broccoli, snow peas and cauliflower grow better at this time then any other season.


            This is the first sign of Spring!

Pink Peach blossoms on the first day of August.

These are advanced Pak and Bok Choi plants.

 Baby bok choi and baby pak choi. 

 When you are doing a stir fry, pick the outer leaves and let the rest continue to grow.
 Freshness at it's best!


These Cavendish Bananas are slowly turning lighter, a long way from yellow, but delightfully maturing.

Look at these delightful white snow pea flowers.
You can eat the tender shoots (the tip of the plant) but in a few weeks we will be picking lovely fresh snow peas.  Crisp, firm  and delectable.  Wonderful  for blanching for 1 minute, chopping up finely into salads or stir frying quickly with your dinner.
Note the old fence my husband was given, this reminds me of school  but it is perfect for climbing plants such as snow peas.


Broccoli plants keep reshooting
providing endless broccolini stems
for many weeks.  Easy to grow,
these are hardy and invaluable
as everybody likes broccoli.







Red cabbages, dense and delightful.  Shredded finely for salads or braised with cider vinegar and sugar.

Garlic chives, very handy for stir fries, fried rice and noodle dishes.
One clump will continue to grow for years, they also grow well in a pot and are particularly fragrant.
You may think it strange but I can watch bees for ages.  Look at the pollen sacs on the back legs, fully laden, it will tire this little bee out returning to the hive with this load.  I can smell honey and know Spring will ensure good honey.

Edible Pandanus to the left, this one is doing well. It's predecessor rotted in a pot, but this one in the ground has two  baby pups already.
On the right are grape vine cuttings, taken when the leaves dropped and the vine was pruned.  Grapes for good health and next year, hopefully good wine.










Our Winter tomatoes taste better than any you can buy during Winter.  

The tomatoes are sweet, red and delicious.  Not quite Summer sun drenched but still wonderful.

Seeds sprouting on the left of many vegetables in anticipation of our Spring garden.


A big bunch of broad beans.  Enough for us, my parents, my brother and close friends.
Giving is sharing and it is easy to grow more than you need to spread the joy of gardening.


                                              I love  Papaya! 

I ate Papaya for the first time in Fiji where the bright red fruit was sweet and delectable.
I hope we can do justice to it here in New South Wales. 
 Note the bird netting, which will be increased when the fruit starts to ripen.
This tree was planted six months ago at which time it was 30cm high.  
I will definitely keep updating the Papaya photographs.
So this is the bulk of our July garden.  We still have beautiful kale, so picturesque and healthy but gardening seasonally ensures  you get the most benefit from what grows well during each period.

19 comments:

  1. I am green with envy! I wish I had some broadbeans in, maybe its not to late? I am totally envious of your cabbages too, they are huge compared to mine. I did harvest one small sugarloaf this month, hoping the rest will be bigger. Also our pawpaw tree died this month it didn't even last two weeks. I think the spot for it was wrong so I hope to try again soon.

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    1. Thank you Liz, you could still try broadbeans as the warm weather is a couple of months away. Our first papaw planted at the bottom of the garden in a moist spot died but these growing on a slight slope have blossomed. Sugarloaf is the tastiest cabbage :D

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  2. Those peach blossoms are so cute - I wish we could grow them up in Brissie, but I don't think it gets cold enough. Those bananas are bountiful. Your Pak and Bok Choi plants are also doing really well.

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    1. Yes peach blossoms are one of prettiest flowers and peach trees do become prevalent as you head north. We are looking forward to the bananas in about a month from now.

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  3. your broadbean crop is amazing and yes, sharing is caring! Thanks for the tour :)

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    1. Lisa thank you for stopping by my blog. It is wonderful sharing our growing successes and failures; this is another form of sharing and caring :D

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  4. I too could spend hours watching bees (and ladybirds)! It is great to see where everyone is at with their harvests.

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    1. Do you have ladybirds? How lucky they are gorgeous. Yes, bee and insect watching is a very relaxing past time and humbles me. Thank you for stopping by my blog I am looking forward to viewing everyone's harvests as well. :D

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  5. I love your garden! You've got so much growing and it all looks very healthy. I've definitely got garden envy now.

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    1. You are too kind Maureen! Thank you for viewing and enjoying my garden this month :D

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  6. Wow! those bananas have me very envious. They are magical. How do you use up such a large bunch at once? Do you freeze the excess? Gorgeous pictures. Thanks for the look at your beautiful garden.

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    1. We give most of the bananas away Kyrstie. This year we cut a hand yesterday to let it ripen inside and will try to cut off a row a week to stagger the bunch. In the past we kept the whole bunch on the cold garage floor on a sack taking off a dozen at a time. Family and friends benefit from a banana bunch. Eating, cooking, smoothies you will be amazed at how everyone appreciates a banana! Thanks for stopping by my blog :D

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  7. Your garden looks wonderfully abundant! I would love to have an abundant winter garden, I really would. One year I will..
    Interested to see how your grape vines progress.

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    1. Thanks Jacqui, our garden is incredibly productive for winter, and we are soon to get more chickens so have to protect our green speciments. We have taken 12 cuttings from the grape wines now and they are growing, so hopefully next summer we will reap the benefits :D

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  8. divine gardenign indeed! wow, merryn, papaya and bananas ... i can tell i'm not in hobart any more :-) seeing every with gardens on the mainland is startign to make me very envious! i love snow peas and yours look so very pretty, and it's gret to see your broad beans - i'm going to try some for the first time this year.

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    1. You should be able to grow broad beans, each plant produces so many broad beans, we grew them for the first time last year and tripled the planting this year as we enjoyed them so much. They do not like summer heat either. Thank you and good luck with your plantings (P.S. I agree, the snow pea flowers are pretty enough to grow just for show)

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  9. What a bountiful garden you have Merryn! And I saw and smelled my first sprigs of jasmine while walking down the street today-yay spring! :D

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  10. Yes Jasmine is paramount to the enjoyment of Spring and their smell is a definite precursor to the warm weather. So much nicer than wattle which will being pretty makes many of us sneeze. Thank you for viewing my winter garden Lorraine ;D

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