Flowers or veges

While I am able to appreciate a beautiful garden filled primarily with flowers, foliage and trees, I find in my travels that the gardens that really get me excited are vege gardens.
They don't have to be pretty, just the sight of vege plants mingling with a few flowers and maybe a few fruit trees, all providing food for the table, will do it.
I love peaking over a garden fence and checking out what is growing, how they are growing it, and hoping that maybe I'll pick up a few tips or get inspired to try something new in my own vege patch.

 

Whether it is gardening in a container like this tire or on the side of the river as the waters subside after a rainy season as it is here in Northern Thailand, I feel my heart beat a little faster.

 

Gardening at high altitudes like here in Ecuador show veges growing in yet another type of climate.

It doesn't take a lot of fancy equipment. Just a sturdy hoe and a strong back.

 

On a larger scale - preparing a small field for planting in Ecuador.

 

Walking through the hillside terraces of Nepal one can see narrow beds each only big enough for a single type of vege in it, and maybe a few self sown flowers growing around the edges.

 

These small garden patches are often fertilised by the cows or goats that live around the homestead and the bedding straw from the rice harvest.

 

A simple bamboo fence is enough to keep wandering livestock out of the garden patch.

 

 

Many of the gardens in the tropics are set up so that the watering is done by diverting a stream into the garden and flooding the paths between the beds. The water soaks in sideways into the beds.

 

 

How about this hydroponic setup growing several varieties of lettuce in large bamboo in Thailand.

 

 

It is hard to beat the beauty of a corn patch surrounding a slate roof house and a background of snow capped mountains.

 

 

This stone wall helps keep the chili pepper plant warm at the high altitudes of northern India.

 

 

The corn has been harvested and is now drying on the roof in the late summer in preparation for storing for the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These gardens are all productive and beautiful in their simplicity. Often tended with simple tools and the healthiest of fertilisers - compost made on the spot.

I come away inspired, and get excited about returning to my own garden, and trying out some of the new ideas I have picked up on my travels.

 

 

 

 

Abundance

There are days that I look at parts of the garden and feel a deep dissatisfaction. The lettuces aren't growing or the squash aren't producing. But in spite of these minor failings there is always an abundance of food to be harvested.
Plant enough variety and no matter what happens with the weather or pests there will always be something doing well.
Now that we have chooks we get our daily eggs. Today we picked up the 3 younger hens, so the 2 elderly chooks have company. I am still amazed to be able to go out every day to collect the eggs.

 

Then there is the surplus of fish we get daily from the river. We eat it sometimes several times a day fresh or smoked. Here are some of the fillets coming out of the smoker.

 

Down the river from us, at the mouth of the harbour, there is an oyster bank that covers several acres. We harvested a few sack loads a couple of days ago. Last night we made a big pot of oyster and fish gumbo to share with friends.

Early January we harvested the garlic. It was planted last April and had nothing much done to it since. It was a little over run with weeds, but still we got a good harvest.

 

 

Then onto the potato harvest. Potatoes that were planted in October when I was last here were ready for harvest. because I wasn't here to hill them up properly there were quite a few with green shoulders. Never mind, they can be seed potatoes for the next round of planting.

 

The tomatoes are producing regularly. Not huge amounts at once, but a constant supply for eating and making the odd batch of tomato sauce for pasta or a batch of tomato relish.

 

 As well as an abundance of veges we are starting to get an abundance of seed and dried beans and peas. Some of the dried beans will get eaten and some will be saved to plant next time.

 

 

And then there is the fruit. We have plum, oranges, apples and lemons being harvested now. And more than we will be able to eat or turn into preserves. No matter, the birds and chooks enjoy the surplus.

Next month the peaches and grapes will be ripening. Then come the figs.

As you can see we are not going to go hungry here. The land is rich with its produce, and we are thankful.

 

 

 

 

Enjoying the sun

We are back in New Zealand. The weather is warm and my garden seems to have survived.
Lots of weeds, and some of the veges took a beating, but overall it has survived quite well.
The lettuces had almost all gone to seed, though there were a few still good in the shady corners.
The basil and chillies were having a hard time amongst the weeds, but the pak choi and cabbages are doing well.
The scarlet runner beans haven't started producing beans yet, thought they are covered with flowers.

The summer squash has just started to produce, and it looks like I can look forward to a lot more.

 

Lots of flowers around. The hydrangeas are covered with flowers.

 

As are the dahlias

 

I started some fresh perennial chili pepper plants a year ago as my old plants, which are about 8 years old, are starting to give up. These new plants are covered in flowers and have a few dozen green fruit on them as well. We shall make good use of them.

The purple podded bean plants had a few over mature beans on them. I'm hoping that by picking off all the beans they'll produce a fresh batch of flowers, and keep going.

 

The tomatoes are doing well and we are eating the first of them.

 

 

Now that we are back we can keep it all going. Have already started a new round of seeds to fill the gaps. So with regular rain we should be able to keep eating out of the garden for the next few months until we are off again.