Hidden a mere 15-minute drive from downtown Portland, in the city’s North East, is the unexpected semi-rural neighbourhood of Cully, which is brimming with urban farmlets growing food, flowers and the deep roots of community. It’s a gem in this …
Category: Gardening
Fecund figs
Ooh, it just sounds sexy doesn’t it? And figs, they look like, well, we all know what they look like. But pulling apart a soft, ripe fig, warm from the sun and tasting its sweet flesh…it’s a revelation. Summer’s bounty …
I pomodori magnifici
Getting into the spirit of all things Italian is easy when you’re harvesting these magnificent beauties from your garden. Oh how I love this time of year in my garden when all the hard work comes to fruition! It’s been …
Fruits of our labours
The relentless heat of a Perth summer is easier to bear when the work you put into your garden starts to bear fruit, literally. Plum-tastic Two years in a row now, we’ve been rewarded with a deluge of plums from …
May the Micro-Force be with you
I am a fan of the SBS TV program Gourmet Farmer and I remember an episode from last season I think when Matthew Evans explored the benefits of adding microbes to the soil in his veggie patch. He ran an experiment …
Dig on Dad
My Dad’s been gone now for nearly 14 years. Time has, of course, softened the loss but I know that he will always drift into my thoughts when I’m in my garden. When I happened upon a Fathers’ Day competition …
Rootin’ around
While waiting impatiently for my new work contract to begin, I have been keeping busy in my favourite way: harvesting the last winter crops from my garden and working out how to turn them into delicious delights in my kitchen. …
A healthy addiction
I am addicted to buying seeds. I don’t need any more; have way more than I can possibly sow or plant. But I go a little giddy when the gardening porn (Diggers Club annual seed catalogue) arrives in the mail. …
Rangpur lime gimlets, oh baby!
I wasn’t sure how I was going to use my first ever harvest of Rangpur limes. A friend had given me a stunted little tree in a pot and it had languished there for at least a year or two before …
The Preservation Society
“Father: It’s been nine months since my last confession.”Nah, I’m not religious but Holy Moly has it been a long time between drinks on this blog! Busy, busy, yeah you’ve heard it all before…work, kids, life. Doesn’t matter; here we …
Medicinal lunchbox for happy chooks
Now that we have reticulation to approximately 90% of Edgefield, a world of opportunity for planting perennials has opened up, which was previously unsustainable. Slowly but surely I’m developing the perennial garden, focusing my attention particularly on the east orchard at the …
Rockmelon, but not as you know it
Yes this is rockmelon (or cantaloupe for my North American friends) not pumpkin. It’s an heirloom variety called ‘Delice de la Table’ and it’s fragrant, juicy, firm and absolutely delicious. Been checking these babies daily outside my laundry door till …
The scourge of being organised
I have a list. Actually I have many lists. I even have CATEGORIES for lists. Part of me thinks that’s a sad, sorry little confession and part of me is unrepentant, even proud of my anal organisational streak. My problem is that the lists never seem …
Sunshine & love in a jar
We simply couldn’t eat them fast enough, those soft, scarlet globes of goodness. Something had to be done because there was no way I was going to watch the mountain of gloriously ripe tomatoes slowly sink into a mushy, fetid …
Abundance in Gidgegannup
At the invitation of a dear old school friend, we recently headed to her glorious farm ‘Lilydale’ in Gidgegannup (15 minutes from Edgefield in Mundaring) for a divine afternoon of swimming, eating, drinking, lazing and chatting. Of course, no visit to …
Blissed out on tomatoes
This is what it’s all about. We arrived home from our two-week holiday in Denmark after a 5 ½ hour drive to a clean house, dinner in the fridge (thanks to our fabulous housesitters Bill and Sue), a happy dog, …
Reticulation monster bites
I didn’t get past Day 1 in my blog posts about Edgefield’s reticulation project because it morphed into a monster that devoured our time and money in a way we hadn’t anticipated. I would like to focus on the positive: …
Sweet sweet peas
My flower arranging skills might need some practice but they don’t detract from these gorgeous sweet peas that are rambling wildly over the arbour in my vegie patch.
This is why I garden
I don’t often post food photos but I should because this is one of the main reasons I garden, so I can eat food like this, straight from my patch to my kitchen to my plate to my tummy. Yum! …
Guilt-free green lawn
I must admit I’m more than a little excited by our new lawn extension. (Permaculture purists stop reading now but I have defended my personal views on lawn on this blog before.) Our latest effort has doubled the size of …
