Daisy

Buy me a bunch of daisies and I am happy.

The Foxglove

I know it's cliched but I absolutely love a cottage garden, and one of my favourite cottage plants is the Foxglove.  In fact anything with spires of blooms excites me.  There is such a fabulous variety of colours and they add much needed height to the garden.

Happy Mother's Day

What better day to post these gorgeous floral arrangments by Amy Butler....  Happy Mother's Day everyone.

Lisianthus Love

Hoping for  lisianthus for Mothers Day - unfortunately neither of my kids read this blog!

Cluck!

I think if I was to decide that Castle Kiely would not be complete with out some poultry I would want my chook house to look like this.

These make the idea so appealing I could almost be talked in to it.  I found them on a Danish site which I can't for the life of me remember the name of (sorry).  Besides it was in Danish so they could have been selling anything really.

Peony

One of my top five flowers would have to be the Peony Rose. I get all smiley and dreamy just looking at them. My ambition in life is to have a bed of glorious peonys at Castle Kiely, but like everything else it is just going to have to wait a bit longer.

Vegie Garden

I must say that although we spent many hours and many dollars making our vegie garden, the rewards have not really lived up to expectation. Moondoggie and I decided to do some harvesting and although we had fun it was not a plentiful crop to say the least.

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We may have only produced a mouthful but I must say it was a great activity to do with the kids. The process, from buying the plants, digging the bed, watering, watching the growth, and then picking the vegies was a healthy, outdoor activity that was also heaps of fun. I think we'll persevere and see if we can produce more next time around.

Glorious

Autumn is not the time of year when I usually feel inspired to hit the garden but this year the weather has been so perfect for gardening in Melbourne that I can't help myself. I even bought myself some gumboots today! Now that the veggie garden is nearly done I'm moving on to the next bed.

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Next Step

Moondoggie has the day off on Tusedays so after our usual breakfast at The Corner Shop in Yarraville Village we headed off to Poyntons Nursery in Essendon.

It is always a treat to visit Poyntons but especially with a project in mind.

I closed my eyes to all the other treats on offer and headed to the veggie section. As planned we chose broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, chives, strawberries and some herbs. I also grabbed a passionfruit for the fence and some sweetpeas to add some height to the bed.

As is always the case a few extras some how ended up on our trolley and by the time we got home we had a blueberry bush, 2 salvias and some catnip for Oscar. Because I am hopeless I also snuck in some hollyhocks and Canterbury bells that I just could not resist. 2 bales of mulch, seeded potatoes and we were on our way.

Phew! It wasn't until I wrote it down that I realised how much I'd bought.

We spent the afternoon planting and this is the result...

The Herb box.

Blueberries and Catnip!

Next step - mulching!

Sustainable Living in Kingsville

Moondoggie and I have started a new project. We decided to make a veggie garden and with the help of a certain Surfer Boy who happens to be good with a hammer, it is starting to come along nicely.


Our back garden has always been a bit of a dog's breakfast due to the fact that 8 years ago we thought we would be renovating soon so didn't want to waste money on an area that would eventually be flattened! We've whacked in some garden beds, pulled up all the concrete and grown some grass but in general it leaves a lot to be desired. The advantage is you can clear a whole bed without losing anything of value and start again with a - veggie garden.

I'm very proud of us - usually I just want to put everything in so it looks pretty but this time we're actually preparing the soil first. A sprinkle of dynamic lifter followed a few days later by manure and a couple of handfuls of lime.

Surfer Boy edged it properly for us and he's promised to fix the window box on the cubby so we can plant herbs there.

Moondoggie and I have decided to only plant things that we like to eat so we have chosen carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and maybe some strawberries (yes we know they're not veggies but gee they're yummy) We might try and grow potatoes too but I think some research needs to be done there first.

I'll keep you posted on our progress.