I really do love my garden now and have now developed a routine to look after it.If I neglect it for two or three days, I find that a lot of damage can happen. I had a few evening meetings last week and I didn’t get home till after dark and didn’t get to do much. On Friday, I found that there were heaps of weeds that have grown in three days and the plants didn’t look too great.
I find that if I spend about 10 minutes in the morning, picking up snails and maybe sprinkling a bit of water if it is too dry and a good 15 minutes after work before I start making dinner, that is enough to keep up the garden in great shape. I do spend a couple of hours on the weekend doing maintenance work.
This weekend, I only managed about 2 hours of work on Sunday as I was busy the rest of the time. I did a bit of weeding, loosened soil around the bigger plants and removed dead plants and leaves. The cherry tomato hanging baskets are looking great with tiny tomatoes the size of a thumbnail. I pierced two milk bottle tops using an electric drill and cut the bottom off two milk bottles and stuck them top down on the baskets to keep up a continuous stream of water as the baskets get dried out quickly. One of the baskets has a normal cherry tomato plant while the other has Cascade which is definitely the variety to use in hanging baskets from the way they look. I tried to train the other plant down by trying up with garden wire.
The cherry tomato baskets on the wall
I am now harvesting about 5-6 strawberries a time which is not much but just enough for breakfast or a smoothie with some other fruit. I use most of my herbs now in cooking. Mint is growing well and so are chives for egg sandwiches, oregano for pasta, dill for salmon and heaps of coriander for Indian dishes. I also have an abundance of spinach so might have to blanch and freeze soon.
Last year, I planted tomatoes and chillies in a small bed above which the garden tap is placed. Every time I used the hose, I would break a few tomatoes off as the hose would hit them. This area had grass before and still has couch grass and other weeds that come up which usually overtakes any vegetable plants I planted. This year, I planted mixed parsley under the tap with one tomato plant in a corner which seems to have worked. The parley grows as a ground cover and is not tall enough to be broken by the hose and it has thrived under the tap. I still need to get rid of the couch grass by pulling it out manually.
A mix of Italian and curly leaf parsley grows in the tiny area under the garden tap.
My few corn plants are about a foot high and the silver beet is thriving.
Runner beans in flower with a few tiny pods
The runner beans are flowering and I can see tiny beans appearing. I tied them up to train them to stay within the bean structure. I also removed the excess leaves from tomato plants so that I get more fruits and less leaves. The only plants that I am not happy with are the Asian vegetables like bitter gourd and okra which are growing too slowly. The chilli plants are also still small so I sprinkled some fertiliser around them although my veggie bed seemed full of fertiliser from the healthy growth of other plants.
Green chillies beginning to flower
Made a mental note to plant another six-pack of lettuce as the second batch of lettuces are maturing beautifully. The trick of planting 6 lettuce plants every 3-4 weeks in between old lettuces works. Once the old plants are pulled out, the younger plants get more room to grow and I get a continuous supply of lettuce through the summer. When I started gardening, I planted two punnets of lettuces which all matured together and went to seed. This year, I decided that such waste can be eliminated if I plant smarter. I also try to get mixed lettuces so that we don’t end up eating the same variety over summer.
Lettuces old and young
I bought a gherkin plant at Bunnings and thought I’d grow it in a pot. This is the first time I am growing gherkins so lets see how it grows.
Gherkin plant in a pot
I planted two cucumber plants which I want to train to climb the plastic mesh I stapled along my wooden wall. These two survived the snail army and hopefully will keep me in salads throughout the summer. 
Bitter gourd or Karawila/Karela plants
I love growing Bitter gourd or Karawila in Sinhalese (Karela in Hindi) not because I love the bitter fruit because its furrowed fruits are pretty and they are very expensive fetching as much as $30 a kilo so I like to gift it to friends who love it. It’s very good for diabetics as it reduces blood sugar levels. Karawila fruits can be blended into a horrible tasting bitter drink which when drunk immediately reduces blood sugar levels. The cooked fruits are eaten for its medicinal purposes but I love it sliced, deep-fried and made into a sambal with onions. I havent been able to germinate Bitter gourd in Auckland but I buy it from a Thai woman who sells a variety of exotic plants in the market. More on Karawila later when the plants grow bigger. They are not an easy to grow plant.
Spinach growing in a recycled Christmas hamper box
My spinach has taken over the neighbourhood!!! Its lush growth, even in the wooden box is amazing. I need to freeze it as I am not in a mood to eat it all this week and I am on a pre-Christmas speed diet. There is only so much spinach one can eat in a family of three with one total carnivore who doesn’t eat vegetables unless hidden in his meat loaf or disguised in his spaghetti sauce (even at the advanced age of 25) so will need to freeze the surplus.
My friend Angela visited me on the weekend and she loved the garden and was going to copy some of my ideas like the cherry tomato hanging baskets and planting lettuces along the ledge of the vegetable bed. She called it a beautiful urban garden.
I’ve uploaded some photos finally. Happy gardening and talk to you next weekend.
My Happy Places 