Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Spring has Sprung!

Well folks, it seems that spring has sprung here in Melbourne. Even though there is every chance that it might coil back up again tomorrow, there's a sense of excitement in the air, and it's catching.

I couldn't possibly stay indoors today even though I had emails to send and job hunting to do. So I went walking, and went scouring through the rubbish that's out for verge collection at the moment. I found a whole heap of plant pots, seedling trays and a piece of a fence that I can use to train my cucumber plants up. Yesterday I found a shelf with slide-out trays on my street, so I took it home to use as a linen cupboard. Hard rubbish time is great! Some people throw out really great stuff. Its a bit shocking really, so much of it should be going to op-shops or being recycled, rather than becoming landfill.

One tip when picking up verge collection items: watch out for spiders! As I was cleaning the shelf yesterday, I felt a sharp pain in my finger, and there was a spider latching on and biting me! I quickly pulled it off, and luckily I had no reaction. Phew!

With the lovely weather, I'm very inspired to keep gardening and growing more food. I found some great info and inspiration here .Here are some shots of my clam garden (my old burlesque prop that I turned into a veggie patch) It's just a kid's paddling pool, with some holes drilled in the bottom for drainage, and filled up with potting mix, compost and a bit of slow release fertilizer.


My veggie clams with their new seedlings. Garlic, bok choy, onions, parsley, broccolini and lettuce.


Progress on the veggies after about a month. We had some steamed bok choy with salmon and it was lovely and juicy!


3 comments:

  1. Hasn't the weather been great? I'm not an outdoorsy person at all, but I got inspired enough to plant my own herbs!

    Your veggies look great - super idea with the clams too!

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  2. I love the old paddling pool planter boxes, very smart idea!

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