a foggy morning and what else is blooming..

I know all I seem to be talking about lately is my garden but there IS a method to my madness. I am preparing for the winter, which is not that far away. So when I'm feeling cold and have had enough with it all in a few months time I can look back on these posts to brighten my day and know my garden will look pretty again.
This morning I woke up to some pretty thick fog...

it was quite magical really.. so misty and eerily peaceful with just the sound of birds calling in the background..

Well, Thelma, which is what I decided to call my scarecrow, is doing her job really well and my previously devoured beans are now filling in again  and are taking over the arch. The cucumbers (on the other side) have taken off too but are not as fast growing..

My pumkin has taken over my veggie patch... and I only have 1 plant..!

near my beans I have basil and behind that, my zucchini plants.

what I picked yesterday and a couple of eggs.. compliments of the girls..

 a great yield of tomatoes.. times it by 10... so over summer all I have been doing is making this, 

yes, lots of pasta sauce. I have been freezing it and hopefully it will see me through winter or just about.. not to mention all the tomatoes I gave away to family and friends.

Now my cucumbers have started I am looking for ways to preserve them.

and here are just a few more flowers from my garden...

Hope you're having a great day where ever you are ..

take care, Maryann

veggie patch 'garden arch' inspiration..2014

Does anyone else like looking at photos of veggie patch gardens.. I do! Well I got this idea from pinterest to create an arch where I can let my beans and cucumbers climb up and over and where I can walk through the centre in between the rows. I'll show you the inspiration photos first...

Well mine isn't as pretty as these but it will do the job. The frame was originally an (el cheapo) greenhouse with very thin plastic. Just 2 days after we set it up we had strong winds here and ripped all the plastic off! (which I somehow just KNEW would happen), and so it sat like that for a while 'till I thought to use it as the arch for my veggie patch.

I got hubby to help me attach  chicken wire to it .. ofcourse he ended up doing most of the work!

I'm so glad I didn't throw this frame away..

.

beans starting to climb up already.. can't wait till they reach the top..

This is the view from the back of the veggie patch.. it looks more like a jungle right now..which I love.

 

The pumpkin, which self seeds every year from my compost heap..is feeling the heat..

I have an abundance of tomatoes this year.. so lot's of pasta sauce to come..!

and meet the girls... i have 5 in all, the white one is a chinese silkie and is just like a ball of fluff walking around. They belonged to a friend who was down sizing and I was more than happy to take them off her hands.. 

loving the fresh eggs!

take care, 

Maryann xxx

My Potager.. or as we call it down under 'vegie patch'

We are well into summer here in Australia. Infact we have been having a bit of a heat wave this week.. but what's an aussie summer without a few scorchers. Thought I'd show you something I'm REALLY into apart from my sewing and decorating .. and that's my vegie patch.

 Here are the front views.. the fence is a boundary from my back yard and the back paddock.

Looking from the back...that little shed was Lisa's cubby which I am hoping to convert into a practical garden room one day..

It would be a dream of mine to be totally self sufficient. To be able to feed my family off our land, I would even have cows and sheep. But I don't think that will happen soon, so for now I am quite happy to grow what I can myself to save a few dollars and also know that my vegies are organic. I grow many plants from seeds as this is the cheapest way to go.

At the moment I have growing.. zucchini..

way too many tomatoes, they are growing into each other from one row into the other...

Needless to say we have been eating lots of brushettia (I'm sure I spelt that wrong but you know what I mean) and I also love making home made sauce and freezing it for my next pasta meal instead of buying cans of tomatoes.

Cucumbers...

Watermelon...

I like to put little mats underneath my melons and pumkins.. keeps them clean.

Radichio

Spinach or silverbeet

Climbing beans..

I'm also a very keen recycler and put all my garden and kitchen greenwaste back into a compost heap to reuse in the vegie patch..

and here is my harvest for the day...

Yep, I sure do love summer.

take care, Maryann

ps I've just woken up to pouring rain..hallelujah! Our fellow Queenslanders had to endure cylcone Yasi last night but thank God it was downgraded from a catagory 5 to a cat 3. and there are no casulaties or fatalities.