The latest on the garden.

Before (the garden in December 2009) and after (July 2010)

Progress on the garden has been slowish but steady -getting rid of rubbish, finishing the paving, building the walls to define the garden beds (using the sand stock bricks recycled from the building renovations) and finally, last Friday, taking delivery of 3 cubic metres of garden soil - and suddenly we have a garden! Not a finished garden by any means - there are still some edges to fix up - but planting has begun!!

The herb garden now boasts marjoram, thyme, lemon thyme, bay, parsley (both flat leaf and curly), chervil, lemon verbena, lovage, borage, sage, mint, rosemary and tarragon. The garlic has all sprouted and elsewhere there are rhubarb crowns, and seedlings of kale, sorrel, spinach, tatsoi, rocket, mizuna, cos lettuce, red oak leaf lettuce and radicchio. The seed potatoes and the seeds  - broad beans, nasturtiums and marigolds - should arrive this week.

We have been collecting the inner tubes from toilet rolls and I am using the old fish tank as a little hot house hoping to get the seeds I saved from the ground cherries and tomatillos to germinate.

It is so exciting to be growing things again - going out every morning to check on progress (there hasn't been much yet). It is also wonderful to see everything looking so green and healthy thanks to the recent rain and despite the cold weather - last week we had frost on the car which is almost unheard of here in the inner city. There's also some vivid colour in the garden - spikes of red and purple bromelliads, which always flower at the most surprising times, and the cerise, frilly, droopy bells of the zygocactus which the native soldier birds love and go through all sorts of contortions to get at. All the orchids are full of flower buds and this year even the cymbidiums have come to the party - out of the 5 or 6 pots there are only four flower spikes and three of those are all on the same plant but that is a big improvement on nothing at all for the last couple of years. All these plants along with my collection of succulents have had a bit of a hard time over the last year, moving around from one place to the next in pots or neglected on the building site to fend for themselves, so I am more than grateful that they have survived and thrilled to see them thriving now that they are getting some care and attention.