Our Garden From The Lemon Tree ...

This is part of our backyard area viewed from below our lemon tree.  We have a fair bit of grassed area and existing garden beds which we can transform into a permaculture garden. You will note, in the top left of the photo, the evacuated tubes of our new Apricus solar hot water system peeking over the edge of the roof line.  That's the first installment of our sustainable house project.

Permablitz Design Workshop Perusing Our Backyard

Peter Driscoll snapped we workshop particpants at our place on Saturday, October 17, looking at the task before us, discussing various options.  Note my puzzled, neck scratching pose as I weigh up several competing concepts!  Thanx to all those who came along.  :-)

Our Largest Vegie Patch

Here's our largest strip of garden planted with eggplant, capsicum, rocket, endive and celery. There are older herbs and a kaffir lime tree (not in photo) there as well.

Our Fast Growing Capsicums

After only a week or so the capsicums are already looking great!!

Zucchini After Four Weeks

Well folks, have a geek at that!!  Pretty impressive or what?  We've already harvested one of them but I have a feeling we'll have a few more very soon!  ;-)

Main Bed After Four Weeks Photo #1

Things are moving along nicely now.  We are harvesting lettuce, rocket, endive and basil every day now. Capsicums have not grown much more.  No sign of any eggplants as yet.

Main Bed After Four Weeks Photo #2

Our Eastern Native Garden

This is a beautiful area of our garden. Lot's of tree ferns under which to walk accompanied by native bees fussing around native orchids and birds nest ferns etc.

Our Southern Native Garden

Our front garden, facing the street to the south, is a work in progress.  Now that we have much more sun here after the lopping of our dangerous she-oak, we are finding teh plants here have begun to thrive.  We'll be adding a lot more in due course.  :-)

Nature Strip On Eastern Street

Here is our east facing nature strip in which we have planted 22 native daisies.

Nature Strip On Southern Street

This our the main project of beautifying the nature strips.  I've reloacted six kangaroo paw from the main garden on the north side of our house in order to make room for more vegies.  I've augmented them with 13 native grass plants, three (the big ones) transplanted from the other garden and 11 yellow flowering natives whose name I've forgotten.  These were purcahsed from the Randwick City Council Nursery in Kensington

Zucchinis At Six Weeks #1

What more can I say!!!

Zucchinis At Six Weeks #2

Did I say we planted some zucchini?

Various Vegies At Six Weeks #1

This is our most diversified plot after six weeks.  When we returned after two weeks away we found all our lettuce had gone to seed. :-(  So Leeanne removed them and did some pruning.  Eggplants are now forming, celery appearing and endive thriving.

Various Vegies At Six Weeks #2

As above.

Chillis and Herbs

This is the oldest part of our herb garden.  We're very proud of our chili plant.  :-)

Tomatoes At Six Weeks

Our tomatoes look good at six weeks but there is a nasty black bit in several.  Does anyone know what's causing it?

Just Picked ....

Check out our most recent and best produce!!  The cucumbers are now rampant and just look at that eggplant.  That large one is being used tonight!!!

Just Harvested ..

My son popped around to harvest some zucchini flowers for a special meal tonight. Don't they look great!  Unfortunately, we're not invited. :-(

Just Cooked ..

Here's what our eggplant went into.  An excellent recipe from Stephanie Alexander's book the Kitchen Garden Companion (wonderfully given to us by my son for Christmas) called Eggplant and Pork Patties. It includes minced meat so apologies to vegetarians and vegans.  We also used our spinach.