Tuesday, November 17, 2009

My Ideal Garden allotment

India Flint, a fellow South Australian and dyer extraordinaire has a give away on her blog relating to garden allotments, here.
I love garden allotments and whenever, if ever we are away I love looking out of train windows looking at them.
This is my ideal and has in it what I know we can grow here. Our soil is very light deep sand and can get non wetting if we are not careful with it. Using the stable manure from the ponies in the stable is a help, when I can get someone to cart some for me.
I dont know if you can see or read what I have done, click on the photo to see it larger.
I have laid out a very traditional garden with fruit trees that I love, apples, pears, apricot, nectarine, fig, peach, plum, loquat, and of course a lemon on the right root stock and a navel orange. No cherries as they dont grow here, apricots I have to say are a bit iffy too.
I have a garden shed and an area of shade with a seat to rest on after a hard days work, with a grape vine over it and a few table grapes on the back fence.
IN my garden plots are all the vegetables that I can grow and that we eat. Poles with beans, peas, tomatoes, and a passion fruit.
Beds for strawberries, asparagus (that is growing well at the moment and so are the strawberries!) Potatoes and onions, oh gosh I forgot the garlic, that is always tucked in in odd corners. The broad beans are just surviving the heat at the moment and the bush beans well, I am having a few problems with salt in the water but there should be a reasonable crop.
Beetroot and radishes, a must for summer salads, as are the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber.
The herbs, some in some places, others like the basil around the tomatoes, the chives and parsley can run a little wild and the couple of artichoke plants are doing well, just not too much heat please.
Then the pumpkins who tend to get very rampant, the lebanese zuccini is my favorite and I must have something lovely to look at so a few roses over the entrance and beside them and some marigolds to keep the white fly at bay. Talking of Bay, there is a bay tree in a huge pot by the shed but I forgot to put that in as well. Visually the Jerusalem artichokes are lovely in late summer, huge sunflowers and very nice tubers to make into a rather embarrassing soup.
I dont bother too much with mid winter vegetables, too cold and the rabbits have a field day.
I hope you like my garden allotment.
As I live on a farm, there is no water barrel, all that would do would be to breed mosquitoes, and in our heat there would be nothing left in it very quickly, our water comes from the dams.
In reality I do have to battle with the peacocks eating everything so anything I get is a bonus.
What would I wear? Oh jeans and a shirt with long sleeves and a collar and sensible shoes, but then sometimes shorts and t shirt and sandals and a hat and sunscreen.
To eat for my elevenses, well normally I dont have elevenses as I am always trying to lose weight but I suppose I could have a mug of green tea and a biscuit, one of my gorgeously naughty biscotti with chocolate. Would you like the recipe? well leave a comment and I will put it up.

3 comments:

Gwen Buchanan said...

Battle with peacocks!!! now that is something that is not very common... I can just imagine that whoosh of feathers scuttering away... lovely!!

and planning your garden layout... that is the best... part of the process... nothing better than the process in any creative adventure!!

ArtPropelled said...

Brilliant! Your allotment sketch reminds me of a game my daughter is addicted to on the internet. Its all about farming .... adding fruit trees, forests, market gardens, livestock. If she doesn't tend the garden everything is dead the next day.
Naughty biscotti sound delish!

Maya Sara Matthew said...

How fantastic to have peacocks and such an abundant garden. I would love to visit and snack on that wicked chocolate biscotti and green tea.