Favourite Things Friday

I actually forgot last week and it was Saturday before I remembered about FTF.

My Favourite Thing Friday this weekend is our veggie patch.

Our backyard is totally paved.  There was a boxed garden around the boundary fence DH has tried various things in it.  Plants actually don't last long in our garden because DH likes to move things, plants don't actually like being uprooted and moved but DH hasn't worked that out yet.  He also likes to prune.... he seems to like to do it when a plant is in flower ... the whole point in having a particular plant is to have flowers I would have thought.  

When we first moved here my husband put up a perma pine monstrosity shade house as the fences were really low and we didn't really like the idea of looking into the neighbours backyard. The shade house had to be removed last year (finally I breathe a sigh of satisfaction) as a new house was being built behind us and the fence needed to be shifted.  So he demolished the shade house and the boxed garden and we decided to try to have a veggie patch had to think quickly and suggest this just incase there was another shade house planned.

So far we have had baby carrots (squid ate carrots without complaint for the first time), broccoli (squid's favourite veg), beetroot (my favourite) and strawberries.  We currently have tomatoes which we planted a bit late so we haven't had many so far but the bush is quite full of green ones.  We are also trying our luck at capsicums and cucumbers.  

The tomatoes have been a bit neglected as DH didn't tie them up until last week and he hasn't pruned them at all, so they look a bit of a dogs breakfast at the moment.  I am hoping that now they are supported they will send up more shoots and grow upwards more.  I have learned not to interfere with tomato growing (having some Italian blood flowing in his veins makes him an expert... some would say know all.)

We notice one of these guys (a blue banded bee) which is a native bee and apparently one of the best tomato pollinators around because they do a bit of a wiggle when they are collecting pollen.  She was nesting in our corrugated iron veggie pot, but I just checked it and I think DH has managed to water over the burrow, so I am hoping she wasn't home when he did it.

Last week we were battling a rat who was enjoying eating every ripe tomato and picked the strawberries clean.  One of our neighbours has birds and our fence has always been rat highway number one.  The drought has meant that rat numbers have been down for a number of years but they are back with vengeance this year.  Because of the dog we really didn't want to bait the area so I got a couple of rat traps and we set the around the bottom of the tomato.  The next morning it had been set off but there was no sign of the rat so we think we may have wounded him  or scared him off but it appears that the veggies are safe now.


Plants in our place have to be fairly hardy, they are often neglected.  We have a couple of water tanks which with the rain we have had this year have meant that we have only really had to use mains water recently to water them so the veggie patch is costing very little to keep going and straight from the garden is so much better than what you buy at the shops.  Still enjoying my pickled beetroot from Christmas.

To find more FTF head on over to Mrs P.