Old faithful

This is one of only two plants we uprooted from our old house to bring with us here. We planted it in a pot and hoped for the best. For months it struggled and looked half dead. Finally there were signs of improvement, however the chillies produced were small in comparison to the 'old days' and also often had no heat. Well, I can say that it looks like our beloved chilli plant has finally accepted the move. Look at these gleaming big red and green chillies pa

cked with flavour and punch! :)

Our first leak

Okay, so it is a bit of a shorty... but who am I to talk?

Mint

As I learned from my attempt to grow mint at our previous house, I can say that if you are not a very confident gardener, start by growing some mint... it will boost your ego! ;) Be warned, it grows out of control so keep it contained. I previously grew a chocolate mint variety, but have decided that I like the ordinary mint better (it has more uses). There is nothing like a fresh glass of water (or homemade ice tea) flavoured by adding some fresh mint leaves from the garden. Oh, and another thing... just make sure you keep it near a water source... it likes regular watering.

p.s. You will see our first "Christmas" stawberry plant in the background and our first Iceberg lettuce (bought as a seedling).

Our first olive

The olive trees are growing and seem to be happy where they are... yipee!

Veggie beds update

So, remember how over winter I prepared those two veggie beds? Well, after about 3 failed attempts things finally started growing. I've learned (as a 'green pinky') to rather start off with planting seedlings rather than seeds. When I become more of a professional I will try the seeds. I have had success with seeds in the past, but the 'organic' ones I bought failed (not sure if it was a bad batch or something I maybe did or didn't do!). Something else I learned is to have patience! I planted way too early this year and that also contributed to the failures. So, although my crops were not as great as anticipated, I have been blessed with a hugely successful baby marrow crop, the cucumbers are taking off and the leaks did not do too badly. I've recently also planted yellow pepper, brocolli, beetroot and a new cherry tomato plant so we will see how those go. :) Check out these pics of the 'before' and 'after'...Not too bad for our first summer of planting hey?

!

My first cucumber

Check out how this baby has grown just over a few weeks! We've harvested it and it tastes amazing! Crunchy and full of flavour.. and it seems this is only the beginning because many new babies are popping up on the two plants which I have!

Tomatoes

So far my tomato crop has not been overly productive. Although the tomatoes are incredibly sweet and fragrant, they are rather hard and lack seeds, although they seem to be getting better with the progression of summer. The tomato plant looks terrible but it is producing fruit. I've been growing another plant which is starting to produce fruit now...(in one of my veggie beds) perfect timing to take over from the old one which is now on its last leg. I think I have discovered why I had such a problem with the first tomato plant. The pot it is in is like a sieve (water just drains out!) and I also did not apply mulch. I am going to empty the pot and replant after I have lined it and next time will mulch and put peat moss around the root ball (a new discovery I made at the nursery)

Pink lady with her prize

As I brought in some lavender from the garden I discovered this little pink spider toating around a bee nearly double her size. I managed to take some snapshots.. here is one of the best.

My first baby (marrows)!

Would you like some plastic in your tea?

I couldn't figure out what all these sheets of plastic were that I kept finding in my vermicompost. Turns out it is tea bags!! We wrote to our local tea company and I will post their response when I get a chance!