Can we grow it?

Yes we can !! (with apologies to Bob the Builder for modifying his theme song)

Or, in actual fact, how can we take this...

 

And maybe turn it into something like this...

Ok, so maybe we can't have the Washington Monument in the background (the above photo is from the Smithsonian Gardens in D.C.), but there's no reason we can't use that dead space at the back of the block behind the carport and the pergola and make it a little more productive.

While you wouldn't know it, we are very closely edging towards completion of renovating the inside of the house (yay I hear you all scream - believe me, we are screaming yay louder than you ;-) !! So, obviously it's time to move on to the outside and the garden looks like an obvious place to start, and certainly better than starting to paint the exterior (shudder....)

Ideally we want to grow some veggies and herbs for the obvious reason that it makes sense to grow your own food, get back to seasonal cooking, and also because the girls love being in the garden and growing flowers and plants. We got to meet our fabulous neighbours in the USA (The Altman's) through the girls playing in the garden and helping 'Mimsie' and Barry plant some flowers. Oh how we miss life on Memory Lane...

And so a veggie patch it is. I like the idea of large raised vegetable garden beds like the ones in the Smithsonian picture above, and this vertical garden bed on diydiva.net

Plus I like the idea of a number of raised beds so that you can rotate 'crops' just like Peter Cundall did with his veggie patch at the Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

And maybe also a few 'chooks' (chickens for my USA friends) for some fresh eggs - but we are still contemplating that idea, though there is room down there for something like this...

 

So that's where we are up to, planning ahead for when we finish painting the living/dining room ceiling, and get to move outside into the sunshine away from the paint pots !!

 

By the way, on occasional sporadic bursts of searching on the Internet in-between writing post-grad assignments I stumbled across (thanks to Google) a few old vintage 'Victory War Garden' posters which I think are as humorous as they are commonsense, while also being a snapshot of history...

 

Cheers, Col

 

I remember home preserved fruit and vegetables growing up on the farm.

 

 

I think Kate would look great in this outfit (below) with a basket of fresh veggies

 - she could even whip up matching outfits for the girls !!

 

 



And this is my pre-election campaign favourite - I'm convinced that's a Tony Abbot endorsed election campaign poster for beating the Labor party's current vegetable resource rent tax...

 

 

(Actually I'm almost convinced that's actually Tony Abbot in the poster ;-)