my vegie garden is kinda happening, its taking me a while to get used to the raised beds to be quite honest & the formal structure. our previous vegie garden was down the back of a chook pen on 5 acres that wasn't visible from the house, it sprawled, quite often became overgrown & i just chucked things in all over the place. being confined to the raised beds is challenging me & my meandering herb garden on the ground surrounding the beds is doing far better as i just chuck things in randomly. i can't for the life of me grow tomatoes, capsicums or parsley...don't ask me why...i just can't. i'm sticking to cherry tomatoes this year to try & avoid fungus attacks (i don't know why i get this when i use drip irrigation) & i've bought seedlings of the others. i have a serious lack of lettuce aswell which leads me to my aquaponics...
our little system was doing just wonders...strawberries going mad & lettuce seedlings emmerging but then....the heat kicked in...the tank is greening over a lot more frequently & everything is struggling in the grow bed. so i've just rigged up some shade (not shown, as my attempt to construct anything in the garden always looks awful). cross fingers that we get some progress coz i would love some plate size barra's by may.
my lack of tomatoes hasn't stopped the preserving though. you can get tomatoes (good tomatoes) cheap as chips this time of year & i've even given whole tomatoes a crack this time round. still not enough yet, need to make some pasta sauce & salsa, plus probably some more passatta. stone fruit are also in abundance & the best chutney recipe ever is in Sally Wise's 'A Year in a Bottle'...if you're keen on preserving the seasonal harvest its fantastic.
so i'm off to order my side of beef, we order one each year. reason? here comes my rant...people go to the shops and buy meat each week...depending on their budget they generally buy the same thing over & over like rump steak. you buy rump steak all year & you've probably killed a couple of cows & basically disposed of most of it (don't think that everyone else is using buying the rest because it's highly unlikely). i buy 1/2 cow (i know they don't come in half sizes but a whole 1 is just too much...splitting with family is a good way to solve this problem) i know that way our family is responsible for the death of only 1 cow & we use every bit of it. sometimes its hard when all you want is a BBQ & all that you have left is casserole meat but we try & work with the seasons. vegetarian would be a much better option but this our compromise as a meat loving family.
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