Home Grown Vegetables!

Well this is the view of my veggie patch! The pumpkins and zucchinis are a bit out of control and taking over! They are also growing into the neighbours!

Over the past year or so I have been trying to grow more of our food at home. Some successfully and some not so much. There are a number of reasons for this. I like to know where my food has come from and to cut down on my food miles. When I grow it in the backyard it becomes food metres rather than miles! Also, when I have grown it I can pick just as I need so it's beautiful and fresh. It also encourages B to eat more of his veggies when he knows where its from and he has participated in the growing process. I find that he is really fussy with "out of season" produce but anything in season he will wolf down.

One of my favourite stories is last year when I had some a friend's children over one day. Her eldest picked an ear of corn and I cooked it up for him for morning tea. His response? "This is the best corn I've eaten!" Couldn't ask for a better reason!! (For all my friends in Iowa my corn is just about ready to harvest now)

There were huge hailstorms here in Melbourne on Christmas Day and I thought I may have lost my tomatoes with the storm. Another friend had to pull his out as they were so damamged. I didn't think mine were too bad so I thought I would just leave them in and see. And surprise, surprise I now have lots of tomatoes growing! So glad I left them in.


Here are some more photos of my garden up close:

Zucchini

Cucumber

Lemons. When I moved in about 15 months ago the lemon tree was in an awful state. It hadn't been pruned in a very long time and was full of gall wasp. I cut it back very hard and have had to wait patiently for it to regrow and fruit again. It will still be a while till I get lemons but it's exciting that it will happen soon!

And now I have started harvesting!

Zucchini - so glad I'm not producing for supermarkets - they would not accept my bent ones! hehe!!

Strawberries - yum!!

The next challenge is to try and refine my process so that I can harvest produce nearly all year. This will involve some planning to ensure I have seedlings ready to go when I pull finished ones out. It's an extra challenge as our backyard isn't huge so I don't have a lot of space to expand the patch without taking too much toddler playspace!!