urban vegetable patch

Snow peas flowers!!

I thought I would never see the flowers from my snow peas but the day has come. After buying some seedlings from Bunning in early August, I stupidly realise that peas are more of an Autumn – Winter plant then a Spring – Summer plant. Oops! That would teach me to read before buying.

I did not really tend to them much after transplanting except for watering and the occasional splash of leftover liquid fertilizer. No surprise, some died, others eaten by bugs of unknown species.

So there I was, minding my own business and doing the usual gardening type things and ‘Whoooo, is that…..?’ Oh yes. Surprise indeed. I am now like a praying hawk (more like a mother realising the potential in her long neglected child), waiting for the emergence of the sweet, sweet peas.

Yellow Zucchini - before the dreaded leaf mildew set in

Well after years of fiddling around with lettuce in pots etc, 3 years ago I took the plunge, got my act together and organised 3 garden beds. Each measured approx 2 metres long by about a metre wide and yes I am in the suburbs of Melbourne. In the past 3 years I have managed to grow some awesome tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, chilli’s, spuds, a random eggplant or two and some other odd bits.

But it has not all been success, last year the zucchini went mouldy, I tried everything but nothing would help those poor little things, so out they came. The hot summer knocked the stuffing out of my garlic and it died, but to my surprise it has come up again this year.

I also have a large possum population that enjoys a nibble on the odd leaf or vegetable, so I have driven stakes into each corner of each bed and hung bird netting over the top and sides, fixed the possum and bird population. Or so I thought, watching out the kitchen window a very clever butcher bird had found a way to steal my cherry tomatoes, perched on a corner stake, he carefully put his beak through the netting and picked out a nice ripe cherry tomato, squished it in his beak, decided that one wasn’t tasty, spat it out and tried another… needless to say he was quickly “shooed” off. But that’s part of the joy, the ups and downs, successes and failures. The learning.

But there is nothing quite like picking your own produce, especially the first one of whatever for the season, it’s kind of an almost childlike sensation, amazement that “I grew this”. And for me this feeling never goes away!