Good morning lovely readers! I'm a bit excited to bring you the latest installment of the Community Gardens happenings. If you cast your mind back to the last gardens related post, you will be thrilled to know that veggies now exist in the veggie garden!
Take a look below at the progress, and lamentations, of the past 2 weeks.
A trip to Bunnings for seedlings, and a wonderful donation from Let Us Grow hydroponics, and I was ready to get stuck into mass planting.
The tray on the left is a crazy quantity of basil seedlings. The plastic sleeves on the right contain mint, coriander, 2 types of parsley and chives.
Basil in sleeves ready to plant, and several lettuce and celery seedlings already in place.
Slight segway, some angsty teens have had fun tagging away.
Hubby is assessing the damage of a large, fallen tree near the bike track.
Hubby had to work out the best angle off attack as the tree was balancing near a rather large mystery hole: we've never quite understood how/why the hole is there.
A small bit of cheer- flowers blooming after the last massive flood drenched them.
There is hope.
Hubby doing his best to cut down a tree that is balancing under tension.
Back to the veggies, and here we have the freshly planted out bed.
Poppa Ian gave hubby some company, and offered his keen eye, as the lattice was assembled ready for peas/ beans.
The foreground shows the basil seedlings in place.
What can't be seen is 3 tomato seedlings planted under the trellis. I grew them at home in peat pots to transplant here.
Yay- first peas and beans in!
And now, we are at this week.
A very brief visit this morning before the rain bucketed down revealed some carpet had been thoughtfully thrown into the creek.
This section was crumpled over. Who knows what joy was derived from the experience, but kids/teens (?) ripped up the corner section of the garden bed and threw the carpet in the creek.
*face palm.
A walk through the bike track has discovered so much destruction.
So be it. We will work to the demography we have, not the one we wish existed.
Kingy may be evolving into an overpriced, overcrowded little suburb of Tweed, but bored kids will always exist whether you accept it or not, so we will work on making the gardens/ bike track safe, and accessible.
Back to the garden again. Thankfully, the left side of seedlings has settled back into to growing after a child (?) pulled them all out- a discovery I made when at band practice Tuesday evening. Lucky I still had the watering can in the car.
All going well, these capsicum will grow and produce a bountiful harvest.
The dwarf beans and peas have leapt out of the ground.
I planted the remaining lattice length with snow pea seeds- snow peas being a personal fave of mine. This rain will be great for germinating these babies.
The bath tubs are filled with 4 types of chilli bushes (bottom) with marigolds filling the gaps, and the dry herb bed has rosemary, hot and spicy oregano, and 2 types of parsley.
I aim to also get some sage.
Last week, I sowed some beetroot and spinach seeds. Despite kids walking through the garden, most of these seeds are germinating. Hopefully, the predicted rain keeps up so that these babies have a chance to grow. All I want to plant this season is some broccoli. Then it's sit back (and weed, fertilise, water!) until harvest time.
Look, if I'm to be 100% honest, it's easy to get discouraged with the gardens. Lack of finances, budget cuts and crazy weather, on top of willful destruction, unsupervised kids...it feels like a battle we can't win.
But then something inside me arcs up. Though the pace be slow, we WILL continue! Property prices in Kingscliff are literally skyrocketing! We have 7 acres- land hard fought for and purchased miraculously. We will do our bit to steward this land, even if no one else gives a flying woop.
And that, dear readers, is your lot for the week.
Stay tuned. More to come. I guarantee it!
No comments:
Post a Comment