I googled and googled

and discovered that google actually doesn't have ALL the answers... or it may, just not all easy to find, if that's the case!

Once I discovered that the HUGE vine on the back fence was actually Kiwi Fruit, I wanted to know when they would be ripe and ready to harvest here in Victoria.

I. Could. Not. Find. The. Answer.

The closest answer I got was "April to June".

Well, just so you know.... where we live, they are ready in June. Let me spell that out so the search engines can find it... In Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Kiwi Fruit are ready for harvest in JUNE.

and if you're not sure about when they will be ripe in your area... it's pretty easy to tell that they are ripe

coz ALL THE LEAVES FALL OFF AND YOU CAN EASILY SEE THE FRUIT, it is NO LONGER HIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I would have thought google could have told me that when I asked it 'how can I tell when Kiwi fruit are ripe?)     At this point, they are YUMMY and READY TO EAT.


All 350+ of them.

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Lessons in Pumpkins and Prayer

I'm really loving having our BIG vegie patch this year... BIG for us anyway... I know others with 5-10 times what we have.... but at about 30 square metres, we're about 5 times bigger than we were last year, so that counts as BIG to me.

Soon after Pete dug over the garden bed and removed most of the weeds and over grown grass (I say most because it's almost impossible to remove it all and those little bits left in do keep multiplying - one must be diligent!)

Lesson 1: Very similar to sin in our lives wouldn't you say?

so, soon after he prepared it for planting, we (I) noticed some self sown seedlings. From my limited knowledge, I called them cucumbers.
Within a few weeks I could see they were too big to be cucumber leaves and figured out they were instead self sown pumpkin plants.

Lesson 2: We don't know all we think we know... be prepared to learn more and adjust one's convictions

At the other end of the garden, I had (while the cucumber thinking was happening) planted some pumpkin seeds and after 4 weeks of nothing from them, I was sure it was a failure... though another couple of weeks later we did have emerging seedlings

Lesson 3: Patience

A couple of months ago, the pumpkins that were self sown were a disappointment. Seeming to be all male flowers...males can't have babies, pumpkins or otherwise (no lesson here, I know a little about reproduction LOL)

The pumpkins that we planted at the other end were flourishing. Well, their leaves were. Only 2 were fertilised and growing into full size pumpkins. The other females were having no success as the males were always flowering at the wrong time for the bees to take their pollen and fertilise the females... and so no more pumpkins growing. 8 weeks or more of  'still nothing'

Well early last week I decided to pray over the pumpkin patch - very simply I prayed 'Lord bless this pumpkin patch with abundance. Provide us with enough to eat, enough to give away and enough to preserve' (for the winter).

What can I say... a week later we have more than 7 fertilised pumpkins, and quite possibly many more on the way by the looks of things - you can be sure about 4-5 days after possible fertilisation that they'll grow to adulthood or not. And now I say "The Lord provides".

Lesson 4: Seek Him first and He WILL add everything else!

Since then God's said to expect more than 20 all up. And that those given away are to be passed to others, for them to pass along - given to those willing to share the story of Gods provision as they pass along the pumpkin. Our sole purpose in existing is after all 'for His glory'.

Pumpkin patch from seed. Pumpkin #1 is to the right of the centre and just behind the bright flower - hard to see but is rather large, guessing about 2kg at the moment. #2 is bottom centre, smaller - probably about 1.5kg. Both are not far of being ready.

Fertilised pumpkin in the seeded patch - this is about 12cm long at the moment

Fertilised pumpkin in the self sown (from supermarket pumpkin scraps) - quite different shaped pumpkins in this patch but still butternut!! This one is about 10cm long at the moment.

On My Mind

This 'zucchini' was hiding under the pumpkin leaves... we usually harvest them when they're small - 15cm long. This is well over 30cm and weighs almost 2.5kg. I need to dehydrate it (today?) so I can store it easily for winter soup making

No Longer A 'Mystery Vine Thingy'

A lovely neighbour came over to introduce herself last week and told me of 3 fruit 'trees' we have that I didn't know about.... one being the 'Mystery Vine Thingy' out the back....

It's A KIWI FRUIT VINE!!!

And it's growing LOADS of these cute little Kiwi... all around an inch long at the moment!

How cool is that!?!?!

Now... just one QUESTION... if we're going to have buckets of Kiwi fruit, what else can one do with them other than eat them fresh or put them on a Pav?

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Mystery 'vine thingy' - can anyone help?

I have no idea what yet another plant/tree/vine is in my yard... if you've read along for a while you'd know we're renting in a new place since July and are making a whole bunch of new discoveries, mostly of the fruit kind.

 We thought it dead when we moved in because it was just a bunch of old looking vines with no leaves at all... since then it has loaded itself with leaves and just recently it's produced a whole bunch of berry looking things... so are they flowers or some sort of fruit? There's clusters of them all over... hundreds...

Does anyone know what it is?

In response to Ganeida's comment, I'm adding this picture of a full leaf by itself :o)

all the leaves are pretty big - I don't have small hands at all LOL

Spring!

The garden is looking better... a lot of this green has happened by itself but Pete is responsible for the digging over of the vegie patch - yes, it was there in the first pic, just totally over grown!! He's also working his way around the front and back yards doing the edging on all the paths so the bricked borders can be seen again... looks much nicer this way :o) The grass & weeds are growing about 10-15cm a week at the moment, so it usually takes a double mow to get it low enough to survive to the next mow. Hopefully in a month or so, the growth will slow down again and we'll see Pete inside on the weekends or outside actually enjoying the yard!

Before: Start of August

After: Today and yes, the trampoline still needs putting up - maybe this next weekend? The wet bit on the vegie patch is where we've planted two lots of butternut pumpkin seeds today... we have other seedlings on the way and will get them planted once big enough, in a few more weeks

Before: Start of August

After - Today

See all that green on the two trees! The one in the centre is a magnolia... the one on the right I have NO IDEA about... it seems to be growing some sort of fruit or flower now... will keep an eye on it now we know it's alive!

A lovely surprise this week was to discover that just near the clothes line we have a fig tree, covered in figs at the moment! I'll have to learn a few ways to use them up as I've never even eaten one before :o)

Not sure what this is but after spending much time looking at blossom pictures - it's looking like some sort of cherry... I'm hoping it's a sweet one!

You Could Call Me Obsessed

Obsessed with the garden that is. I'm not really - we do have to go there twice weekly to water at this time of year and occasionally for planting if the watering day is too hot to do it in the same trip... okay, maybe just a little obsessed :o)

It is amazing to see everything growing! God's design is just incredible

Wednesday this week we went and planted our cucumber plants - and they're doing fine. Only 3 days have passed since then and it's the zucchini that I am AMAZED at.

This photo is from today, the zucchini are at the bottom of the picture (and yes, I do know they will grow much much bigger than this - I'm just impressed with how fast they're doing it!)
There's lots of activity starting near the centre of the plant, it looks like the flowers are on their way.

and in this picture below from Wednesday, the zucchini leaves don't reach out nearly as far and the leaves are considerably smaller

Master Timothy LOVES coming to the garden to help out and was demonstrating his strength today with a FULL 2L bottle of water, watering the plants.

Melinda loves watching the tomatoes grow - I can see already that once they start to turn red that she'll be literally jumping with joy. Nathaniel is not really impressed that we're growing vegetables hehe, flowers would be much nicer I am sure. He is most concerned though about the carrots. Now that the tops are showing, he is keen to make sure I don't accidentally pull out any carrots when weeding.
And this is true to their taste buds... Melinda loves to eat whole tomatoes as fruit and Nathaniel is willing to snack on a carrot

Our Vegie Patch - 8 days on

3 of our baby cherry tomatoes,
one of the benefits of seedlings when planting late.
I love this picture

A thin layer of mulch around the seedlings, we now have zucchini in and the bare earth is where our carrot seeds are sown. We're having very hot weather this week so on our watering days we're giving it a really good soaking as you can see. Once this hot spell is over, well add cucumbers to the empty mulched areas

These are 2 huge organic zucchini we were able to take, free of charge from the 'excess produce' table.
I've turned the light green one into soup and the dark green one is yet to be cooked with - quite possibly it is destined to be zucchini slice. I didn't weigh the soup one before using it but the dark green one weighs 1.2kg!!

... and if you're wondering how to make zucchini soup - easy!
In a pot chop zucchini into large chunks, add a large onion (quartered), a couple of peeled potatoes and home cooked chicken stock to cover. Simmer till cooked - I just did mine overnight in the slow cooker - and then puree and salt (celtic sea salt) to taste... See - easy!

Our Vegie Patch at the Community Garden

Weeding first


Nathaniel divided one half into 6 mini plots which will determine where different things get planted. Today we put in cherry tomatoes and beetroot. More beetroot will be added tomorrow and in a couple of weeks well add cucumber seedlings which we're caring for at home while they're tiny.
Need to decide on a couple of other things to grow here too as we have more room that we first thought, which is nice!


Other peoples' vegie gardens in the background


This will be a whole other home ed subject! Covering maths, science, life skills and more :o)