Friday 9 May 2008

In the garden

Since I just mentioned the potatoes the other day, I thought I might do an inventory. I live in a Canberra suburban house, but it's on a smaller block than usual. The house is quite large, too, so there's very little garden space. I can't have a big veggie garden; there's not enough sunny space. The backyard is more like a large courtyard, with low trees around the edges.

I like to grow mostly edible things, but I'm a very erratic and uneducated gardener. I think of it as natural selection weeding out the weak. Whatever grows with my random attention and neglect can stay. Mostly I plant perennials, and try to choose edible varieties for most of the border trees and shrubs. There's a patch along the side of the house that gets enough sun for a few summer veggies, but is too deeply shaded in winter for much to grow.

The edible inventory:
2 feijoa trees, inherited from previous owners.
1 lemon tree, inherited from previous owners.
1 bay tree, so far about 1.2m tall, and thriving.
1 kaffir lime, struggling in a large pot.
1 fig tree, so far about 2m tall. I got half a dozen figs this year.
1 dual graft apricot tree, about 3m so far. No fruit yet.
1 olive tree, 1.5m, in a pot. Has 6 olives...
1 miniature white peach, 1m, in a pot.
1 desert lime, 1m tall.
1 finger lime, 1m tall.
1 red currant bush.
1 blueberry bush in a pot.
1 teeny gojiberry bush, .5m, just planted.
A couple of rhubarb plants.
The newly planted rainbow chard, still alive after a week...
A berry of some sort, I forget what. Youngberry, maybe?
1 something or other shrub that I've forgotten what it is, except it's supposed to have edible berries. Peruvian guava? A native thingo? I planted both, and one died, but which?

Herbs: rosemary, thyme (unwell), oregano, some weird variety of mint that just growed, lemon & lime balsam, tarragon (now dying for winter but it springs back).

Then there's marginally edible things like roses, violets, lavender, native mint bush, and native tea bush (that's white correa, not ti-tree.) And some random native berries rambling around the front that never get enough water to set fruit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I"d put in some broad bean seeds. I think now is the time, and they grow so well. They thrive on neglect, and it is good for the soil to have them growing.

I have a struggling lime in a pot too.

seepi

Cath said...

Hmmm, thanks for the idea. I do have a patch that's currently empty. I even dug some chook manure into it after I took the spuds out. Not sure about the winter sunlight, though. Oh well, the worst thing that can happen is they'll die, right? :)

I've moved my kaffir lime up against a wall, in hopes of it being a bit better frost protected than last year.