Winter Vege Garden.....

Previously I have never had much success in the vege garden in winter, but to be fair I've never had much of a vege garden before and who wants to spend time out in the cold wet windy weather turning over the soil?

Well now I have more vege garden than I know what to do with and I'm determined to produce all these fabulous goodies that are going to make me strong and heallthy and maybe even save a few bucks at the shopping centre each week. I must confess, it's technically not my vege garden, its 'theirs' or 'ours'. That is, it's at my sisters place where our studio is situated and as I do half the work in it, then surely that makes it 'ours', or 'mine' even when I feel like it...yeah?

Since big sis moved in about 5 months ago, we've been slowly working to get it back to health with lots of digging, turning and horse poo, and Daz has worked hard to put up a fence and gate to keep all the critters out (rats, rabbits, kangaroos etc) and has moved the potting shed for us to a nice convenient position.

In autumn we planted silverbeet, spinach, beetroot, parsnip, broccoli, celery, cabbage, strawberries, and what we thought was leeks, but has turned out to be onions. About a month ago now we went out to harvest our first planting of beetroot, only to find that the wildlife had 'just' beaten us to it, as they were okay only a few days previously. Lucky we had a 2nd and 3rd planting of beetroot, and anyway we've fixed the suckers now, with that fence and gate! You don't suppose they can open gates do you?

Today I dropped in on my way home from Melbourne to pick a few things to go in my dinner, and can I just say that I think I cooked my best fried rice ever, which included fresh broccoli, celery, and spinach leaves from 'our' vege garden. It's a pity I'm not a rhubarb fan, look at it, it's going crazy!
I've got to say, its pretty darn good being able to 'take 5' from all that creativity and production and just go and work in the vege patch for 1/2 hour, and its even better picking fresh ingredients to cook with. All the family is benefiting from this little patch of dirt.

Oh and in case you hadn't noticed, my nephew Cooper also loves being in the vege garden, and he doesn't mind his photo being taken either!