GentleSoulGnome Summer Garden Update 2020

I finally had a chance to take a few photos of the garden after I tidied the up. This doesn't happen very often as usually I would be rushing to move on to other tasks around the house. But this time around, there is a lot of exciting things in the garden, from flowers, big leaves and potential harvest, so I just had to document it.

At the front side of the garden, the herbs border had truly established themselves.
Rosemary, thyme and chives:

Also in this section, I planted oregano, parsley and tarragon. I harvested them a lot for cooking.

To soften the pathway to the house entrance, I planted a few lavender bushes along the border of the pathway. This section is literally buzzing, because of the daily visits from solitary bees.

Lavender, Pink Geranium (not flowering at that time, Chrysanthemum and Calendula:

There are some cauliflower and red cabbage as well growing underneath the tree (olive).

 New occupants of the front garden this year are pumpkin and zucchini. They are loving the morning sun and had grown lots of giant leaves:

There are also self seeding borage popping out everywhere and I moved a few of the strawberries here as well. I'm thinking they might like the morning sun too. They are too tiny and are hidden under the giant zucchini leaves.

 A few of the flowers decorating the front garden:

Cosmos

Rose - Double Delight

Dwarf Sunflower

The back garden is where the 4 beds crop rotation are located. Garden Bed 1 this year is occupied by potatoes with some random tomatoes plants popping around. I didn't have the heart to pull them out, so I left them there:

 Nasturtium is thriving in this section. I'm hoping they will stay strong so I can train them to arch along the fence. It will be cool, Rainbow of Nasturtium.

Garden Bed 2 is occupied by various climbing beans including snake beans:

Garden Bed 3 is looking a bit bare at the moment. Only Broccoli and Perpetual Spinach growing on it. I have a few kale and brussel sprouts seedlings which will be planted soon:

Tomatoes are happening in Garden Bed 4. I harvested a few already and there are more tomatoes ripening. Capsicum has lots of flowers, so hopefully they will bear fruits soon. I also harvested a few cucumber. I need to install a better trellis next time to encourage them to climb up:

There is an empty spot between Garden Bed 4 and 0, so I planted a few sunflower. I can't wait until they bloom, the bees are going to love it:

Bay tree had a growth spurt. It is now taller than me and producing lots of fresh, healthy, great looking leaves for cooking.

And here it is, the back garden:

I tidied up the side garden as the 3 tier metal planter kept toppling over due to strong wind. It is now wedged between the metal garden bench and the half wine barrel with strawberries, Zinnia flowers and apple tree:

Tidied up the succulents as well to make room for new growth:

Pomegranate is exciting as there are lots of fruits this year:

I'm waiting...

Lots of fruits hiding between the leaves:

Mandarin tree had lots of flowers, but no fruit: 

And so does the lemon lime tree:

I bought citrus fertiliser from Bunnings a few days ago and will apply them soon.

And, here it is, the side garden, looking a bit more tidy and in order. 

LittleMsGreenies is now GentleSoulGnome

Hello everyone,
After very careful consideration and reflection, I decided it was time to update my old blog name LittleMsBusy to GentleSoulCraft. Following that change, I also updated LittleMsGreenies to GentleSoulGnome to make things consistent between the 2 aliases.

This 2019 Spring is my 3rd spring season I live in Melbourne and marked 3 years of my backyard garden. Whenever I see my garden, I always see some things to improve, to fix, to add, and so on. A few days ago, I was scrolling through old photos and realised that things actually had grown and changed significantly.

This was how the original garden looked like in 2016:

And now the backyard has a 4 beds crop rotation going, a very tall bay tree (that I brought along with me from Sydney), an overgrown Marshmallow trees and Dahlia:

The outdoor sitting area is surrounded by lush green grass, instead of the original crushed rocks:

So, this weekend, I'm going to appreciate my surroundings more and consciously remember that the perennials around me are doing well, growing stronger and taller, instead of focusing on what needs to be fixed and tidied up. I will of course do some weeding tomorrow morning, but I will definitely look at my plants with a different view and appreciation of them.

Let me know below if you have experienced this in the past and I welcome you to share your stories.

Spring 2019 Planting Stage 1

With the weather (finally) warming up in Melbourne, I decided to transplant some of the seedlings that look ready.

First are the pumpkins, the below photo was taken 1 week ago. They have grown more true leaves and the roots have grown very long.

They are now at the front garden where they should get ample sunlight during the day.

Second, the cabbages, cauliflower and lettuce seedlings have grown enough number of true leaves, so they were planted at the front garden as well this morning. Also on the photos are lettuce and spinach seedlings.

Photo from 1 week ago. Cabbages (back right), cauliflower (front right), broccoli (back left) and lettuce (front left)

Photo taken yesterday.

The cabbages and cauliflower were planted around the poppies bed where they will get lots of morning sun.

Some of the lettuce seedlings were planted at the front garden as well, since they were doing well on that section last year.

Third, lettuce, spinach and broccoli  seedlings were ready.

The big lettuces were from last winter and new seedlings planted in front of them.

Broccoli also occupy the same spot this spring as last time.

The remaining of lettuce and spinach seedlings were planted in garden bed 3 this year.

Lastly, the tomatoes that I planted in August 2019 were finally ready to meet the outdoor weather.

Garden bed 4 were cleared yesterday to make space for the tomatoes.

New occupants of garden bed 4, with some space left on the right hand side for cucumber, capsicum and beefsteak tomatoes.

All of the seedlings have been covered with with pea straw mulch since the photos were taken.

Garden bed 2 filled with broad beans, long beans, anak beans and all sorts of beans.

Photo taken 2 weeks ago.

Photo from this morning.

With new beans seedlings popping out.

Raspberry bush is back and growing new branches. There are a few flowers already showing and I hope there will be walls of raspberries soon.

Cranberries have grown it's leaves back. 

Garden Update - Mid Summer, 11th January 2018

Happy New Year 2018 everyone :) Wow, how time flies...

This is the first garden snapshot of 2018. It's a full blown summer now here in Melbourne, we had a 41 degrees Celcius day last week, the plants survived.

The most exciting news for this post is the Pomegranate tree. After a long wait, finally, we have fruits!! Five fruits to be exact, I have my fingers and toes crossed as they are still growing. Arrgh, I don't want them to drop!!

The other trees are growing well, but no fruit in sight for the mandarin, lemon and lime.

I planted extra pumpkin seeds a few months ago and have no spot for them, so I transplanted them on the ground behind the gate. Since the temperature had gone up, they seem to grow larger. Maybe we will have pumpkin harvest this year, who knows..

A bunch of new additions to the family, 2 Amla trees (Indian Gooseberry), I'm hoping I can get the berries for consumption and also for my homemade shampoo infusion, 1 Katuk or Sweetleaf plant, Indonesian vegetable that I was looking for ages ago to help increasing breast milk production, and finally, another Indonesian plant, Blimbi, or Belimbing Wuluh, a bit like the starfruit fruit, but the vegetable type, for cooking savoury dishes.

They arrived today from Daley's and currently resting under the shade. It's quite a hot day today.

Another major milestone for this post that we're super excited is the tomato plants.

Unexpectedly, the first one that flowered and produced fruits was the one that grew from compost, next to the mango tree.

The other tomato plants are growing well too, and there are lots of fruits started to form.

These are the ones that I started as seedlings indoor during the late winter.

This is another tomato plant that beats the odd, growing from compost.

I almost pulled this one out, lucky thing I spotted the fruits that had started growing.

This would be the yellow pear cherry tomatoes.

We have had a few harvest of the beans in the last few weeks, they have started to produce after the temperature raised up.

It looks like the harvest is still going on.

Chili plants that I planted at the west side of the garden seemed to love the heat. 

Lots of flowers and there are a few chilies that had already formed.

They occupied this spot with the family of mints.

Last, but not least, out of hundreds of chamomile seeds that I planted, one survived.

And it's been producing lots of flowers, which I have been collecting to make my own chamomile tea.

Spring 2017 - Companion Planting

I'm trialling the idea of companion planting this year in my garden.
It sounds like a fun thing to do, and I can imagine how pretty the vegetable garden will look like with a combination of greens and flowers and also the herbs smell.

The plan for this year is to have rows of Marigold flowers as garden beds separator. And also to plant the Marigold on the border of the Roses plants at the front garden.

The Marigold seedlings.

At each corner of the garden beds, there will be Nasturtium plants that are going to be trained to grow vertically along the fence.

The Nasturtium seedlings - they are planted a few days ago.

At the bottom of the tomatoes plants, there will be basil and parsley planted. Also, there will be Borage planted near the tomato plants.

Parsley and Basil Seedlings - And I'll be starting more of these in baskets.

The Borage seedlings had just emerged, they were planted a few days ago.