Our garden

We are renting the place we are living in at the moment. It is a smallish section and 2 bedroom house in Orakei. We have been here for two years last November. We didn't really know how long we would be here when we first moved in, but it is really close to the beach for us and the city for Shawn's work. In other words, very handy.

Last year we had a reasonable garden, all in pots. This year we asked permission to dig up some of the lawn for a garden. As a result we have loads more of our own produce to eat this year. It is really exciting. I love to know where my food is coming from. Somehow it feels not only healthy but virtuous at the same time.

I thought I would share some photos of what is possible to grow within a small space. We are trying to get the most possible from the space we have. I.e, we are staggering our planting, and planting plants close together. It might also be referred to as "the overloaded garden". Shawn is also a very aggressive gardener. If it cannot stand being moved around in the garden multiple times it won't survive. Survival of the fittest perhaps...

We have a couple of cups from Alice's adventures in Wonderland with a variety of herbs in them; tarragon, oregano, chives, and bay trees.

Down the side of the house underneath the laundry window we have more herbs; parsley, mint and thyme.

This is the small side garden which contains; sugar snap peas (for Sofia), corn, beefsteak tomatoes and sweet 100's cherry tomatoes, daikon and apple and telegraph cucumbers. There is dill on the side and chilli's and marigolds (pest control) all in pots.

Here's Sofia's favourite, sweet 100's. She picks them straight off the plant and into her little mouth. Happy girl!
This is the tub where we sprout our seed for replanting int he garden. At the moment it contains, Parisian market carrots (small round variety), daikon sprouting and some really slow to grow mixed colour capsicum.

This is our big garden, this contains; Nadine potatoes, daikon (Japanese radish), pop corn (small purple variety), and copious amounts of zucchini. If you love them, stop by and we'll give you a bunch! Sorry this is not such a great photo.

Finally, here is one of Shawn's bonsai trees. He has a few. I like this one though. It looks really authentically Japanese to me. I don't think it is necessarily his favourite, but I like the blunt foliage