Self care by growing a garden

Ah the possibilities @Smc, your bucket planter has plenty of country charm.

Hello @Smc, @Former-Member, @Faith-and-Hope, @Appleblossom, @Adge, @Anna88, @Lesley

found a whole lot of Succulents the other day , and I have brought nearly all of them home , going to put them in pots , have to do it tomorrow i hope

Excellent @Shaz51 Low-maintenance, drought-hardy (mostly), good-looking too...

Always exciting to get new plants.

Adge

@Shaz51 here's an idea for your succulents

Check mate?

lovely @Former-Member, need to get some different succulents , love them

@Former-Member, I've currently got lots of little sore spots on my fingers, some from rose prickles, but most from unexpectedly encountering cactus spines in a pot of soil, left behind when its previous prickly occupant died off... so I'm not going anywhere near that chess game!

I found some nice sugar snap peas growing down the back of the yard when I arrived here, which would have come up from a pod left behind when I planted them last year, and also some parsley from seed I scattered down there. These "set and forget" veg plantings are a good little encouragement for me, so I've splurged out on a few "bargain" seed packets. I put in Greenfeast peas today, and have more sugar snaps, broad beans, lettuce, spring onions and a few flower seeds that I'll make spots for too.

@Smc

Set and forget veg = 😀

Rogue cactus spines = 😬

Picked up some carpet roses today as hubby given some bunnings vouchers. Hoping they will be enough to finish a garden bed

@Former-Member... "Set and forget" veggies = thinking outside the square. I love being able to pick fresh herbs and vegs from the garden, and found it a bit hard being so far from home up here without my garden. I was also unhappy about seeing Dad's old veggie patch totally overrun. Years ago I read an article in a magazine by this real old style hippie of a bloke, who bought a bush block. He went there in spring, bashed over some soil and tossed in whatever seeds he thought were tough enough to beat the weeds. Then he and his family went off travelling for a few months, and got back in time to harvest the prolific results. He must have had good soil, and it was in an era of higher average rainfalls.

So far what I've grown here has included tomatoes, cucumber (one only....), squash, mini pumpkins, beans, sugar snaps. Anything that has to be picked exactly when its ready is no good, so I haven't tried broccoli, for example. I've been longer between visits than expected. Too burnt out, needed a break. Unfortunately that means I missed the harvest time for tomatoes and rockmelons this year. The rockmelons were a bit of a bonus. My sister had bought one from the supermarket, and I stuck the seeds into the veggie patch just in case. They were developing nicely when I was last here late Feb. All frosted and gone now, oh well.

And my Mum and Dad were very keen (expert level keen) cactii and succulent growers for many years. I encountered many rogue cactus spines through my childhood, and my memories of home include Dad using the point of his very shart pocketknife to dig them out of my hands or feet. 😛

@Smc do you think set and forget also = crisis proof gardening? Might be the only way I will get our beds filled, we do have s short growing season and is possibly a bit late where I am to put in any seeds but could check planting guides.

@Former-Member, my whole garden has to be reasonably crisis proof. At home, I try to have a lot of perennial and self seeding edibles. That's not practical here, but yeah, "set and forget" also qualifies.

A very similar house to Mum and Dad's two doors along the street sold recently, and is now a scraped bare block. I expect that's what will happen here too, so I'm not putting anything long term into the ground. There's some fairly impressive mature plants here, such as a Firewheel Tree, and it will be sad to see them go.