Sunday, February 19, 2017

Daughter

Recently my enthusiasm for the veggie garden and growing veggies has been waning, hopefully that's about to change.

There's been various reasons for this but at the top of the list I've been finding it difficult to grow veggies just for myself.

It seems like a lot of effort to grow just one bean bush or three carrots at a time. Also the weather, aka, the rain gods, have fallen asleep at the wheel and apart from one 75 mm fall on the 3rd of January we've had nothing worth counting since the first week of September last year. And on top of all that we've also had an endless run of above 30° plus temperatures including a record 40° day in February. And on my porous red soil that makes it almost impossible to grow much without a lot of extra work mulching and shading plants from the hot sun and not to mention a water bill that makes buying veggies a more common sense idea.

Over the last two or so weeks that has changed. The temperatures are starting to drop, hopefully, and after a recent conversation with my daughter where she expressed her desire to eat more fresh veggies I'm feeling inspired to grow again.

The plan is to see if I can grow a basket of fresh veggies a week that I can take to my daughter that she can then use in her cooking.

I'll keep it simple at first with beans, beetroot, carrots, a few radish some lettuce and a turnip or two.

I’m also looking forward to taking a basket full of bounty over and discussing possible uses and recipes for the veggies with her.

My long term goal is to sneakily get her enthused about fresh veggies to the point where she will want to learn how to grow her own.

Coming into the cooler months there will also be an opportunity to get some herbs and leafy greens in as well, things like silverbeet, spinach, coriander, and parsley.

Very keen to see how all this works out. I'll keep you informed of my progress.

There's also something else that's been inspiring me too but I'll leave that for another day.

Cheers

Stewart

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The weather has been terrible! All I can grow is chillies. We've been enjoying going to a local produce share. Sometimes there's not much to share except a whinge about the weather, but its nice to catch up with other vege growers. Do you have something similar in toowoomba?

My Veggie Garden said...

Hi Liz, yes there is. There is a Facebook group that seems to be going well. Toowoomba Home Produce Swap group they are called. We've had some rain over the weekend but we will be desperate for some follow up rain. Fingers crossed.