Garden Journal November [Apologetically Late]

It's totally unforgivable of me to miss @simplymike's garden journal challenge. Times and dates aren't working for me this week. I was meant to go to a summer yin masterclass yesterday and was twenty minutes late, thinking it started at 1.30 not 1pm, so I couldn't go. I also posted the wrong day for the meditation challenge in Discord. Maybe I'm rebelling about deadlines given I have 5 days work to go before a whole year off. Screw you bells, timetables, emails and must-dos!! But the garden journal challenge I love - and I'm a big believer of joining in on the things that are great for engagement on the Blockchain. If you don't join in, it might disappear forever - there's been some awesome contests on Steem that lack of engagement has meant they died out, and I know some of us really, really miss them. Joining in says WE CARE!

So though this post is about a day late, I'm still going to share my garden with you. Plus, it's an excuse to get out and admire the garden on this lovely summer day.

I hurt my back this week (due to surfing, sailing and not enough core work over the winter) so it's a little hard to do anything much in the garden, which is a little depressing. But Jamie did weed the paths this week and I did manage to tie up the tomatoes, of which the first cherries are beginning to show. Yay!! In true @riverflows fashion, I've planted a lot of heritage tomatoes but forgot to label them, so it's anyone's guess what I'll end up with.

Purple Sprouting Brocc	Yellow Zucchini	Tons and tons of lettuce

The broad beans and silverbeet, fennel and kale have all gone to seed and I've knocked many over for the bugs to hide under, shifting them occassionally so the chooks can burrow in the dirt looking for them, which they seem to find entertaining. I had two sick chooks this week but managed to nurture them back to life with human antiobiotics and they seem fine. I have pulled up all the garlic - it's a ripper crop this one and everyone I give the garlic too is really happy with their beautiful big bulbs. Throwing some in the chook water to ward off more infections. Kinda an unsettling thing to happen when I've never had ill chooks before.

The strawflowers that @sagescrub sent me from the States are showing their flowers which always makes me smile, thinking of them over there with their little baby River. I miss him on Steem and hope in the dead of winter he finds time to come say hi every now and then.

So excited about this beautiful native flower - I've been trying to grow them for a while, and seems I have hit the sweet spot in the garden. Aren't they just gorgeous flowers?

My sister has a beautiful yellow one - I must get one too! I also have a white variety which is a bit more frost and drought tender - hoping the microclimate area I put them in helps them survive the winter.

Lots of comfrey bells, great for fairy hats. I keep coming inside with a confetti of elderflowers in my hair. Hubs thinks it's quite fetching and thinks I look like a forest princess. Sure, albeit a fugly one with toes covered in dirt and cardie covered in straw.

The other flower I love is this native one - it's a dwarf relative of the kangaroo paw and is such a cheery colour with a mad flower - I'm sure I've shared this one before, right? Hate dead heading them come full summer, but they are spectacular at this time of the year. The poppies are also going absolutely crazy!! I'm really enjoying planting more flowers this year.

Pumpkins have self seeded everywhere and are interwining with the hops, comfrey and tomatoes. I'm not so concerned about the neatness of the garden and the more of a jungle it is, the more it stays cool underneath. However, the sticky bines are finding their way everywhere and tend to draw blood, so there's a lot of swearing and snipping going on. It strikes me that this homemade recycled bench has lasted twenty years, since I took it from an ex boyfriend's house when we split up. Or not quite - that's right - he stored it at my folks place, and then I refused to give it back to him, because I was young and felt I deserved it, which I probably did after years of being emotionally neglected. I still kinda miss him though, in a wierd way. When you spend a good few years of your life with someone, it's kinda sad that you don't catch up as friends. I'd love to touch base with him really, but the fact is, he could die and I wouldn't know. Anyway how has a gardening post ended up a digression on an old boyfriend? Maybe memories stick to us like hops when we turn a corner in our minds.

I've loaded up the wicking beds with new compost and have planted varieties of eggplant, cucumber and capsicums and chillis. The nasturiums are doing well, as are the gold zucchinis. To be honest I haven't been as on the ball with planting this year as I'm going to be leaving it before the end of season, which will be a mess but there's nothing I can do about it. It's either travel, and have a mess of a garden to return to, or stay to tend the garden but not have an adventure. Adventure wins. Just.

Setting @simplymike as part beneficiary on this post. Happy Christmas garden sister - thanks for the opportunities to wax lyrical about my garden all year.

@naturalmedicine II Discord Invite II #naturalmedicine