It is safe to say that there has been a lot of hard work going on in the Corner Patch, particularly over the last week or so, and I can now, with much delight, tell you that the Corner Patch is now the Vegie Patch! Yes, on Monday of this week at about 6 pm we finished making the last of 12 garden beds. While we were both exhausted, we are both really pleased with the end result and all being in order, are looking forward to enjoying the fruits of our labour for many years to come. The fun now begins with planting up the beds, nurturing the seeds and seedlings into food for our kitchen and store, family and friends.
Just a recap on how we got to this stage:
- Trees were cut down, cut up and removed.
- Stumps were dug out
- Plans were drawn up
- 31 fruit trees were planted
- A slab was put down for the garden shed
- The garden shed was erected, and everything that belonged in it, relocated accordingly
- Holes were dug for posts
- Posts were purchased and concreted in
- Holes drilled in the posts
- Wires strained accordingly
- An old gate that we found behind the garage was cut down and given a lick of paint before being hung.
- Timber and pegs for the garden beds arrived
- A bit of creative use of old posts, rescued from the pens on our family farm, before it was sold, have been put in place to stop the beautiful Duchess (border collie) from entering.
- Careful measuring, cutting, nailing and screwing of timber into place to box each bed.
- A mountain of soil was moved from one place to another and finally into each of the boxed beds.
- Well rotted manure worked in
- Seeds sown in anticipation
- One inexpensive archway erected to train fruit trees over the entrance
Left to do:
- Plant out the seedlings.
- Plant seeds
- Espaliering of the fruit trees
- Three inexpensive archways to be erected, one more for the fruit trees over the entrance and two for the runner beans to trail up and over.
Click here to see some of the activity leading to this point
While all of this hard work was going on, we did have a little reprieve with a visit from our son, Chris and his family, to celebrate his birthday. It was a quick visit, just one night, as they had to return home for his work. But while they were here, we enjoyed two meals together. I can tell you that seeing our little grandson, Cooper, enjoying picking strawberries, and eating blueberries straight from the bush was a real treat.
Don’t you love it when the little ones are around, it also meant we could have cake before our main course, because he had to go to bed and he made sure he got to take a bite of almost everyone’s cake – Nana’s Chocolate Cream Cake of course!
When we did get to sit down to our main meal we enjoyed the beef brisket that I had had cooking in the smoker all day – another one of the Old Fat Guy’s amazing recipes, adjusted somewhat as the brisket I had was considerably smaller than that called for in his recipe. I also slightly changed the rub, given that I did not have any onion salt – I used a combination of home made porcini mushroom salt, together with celery salt. There was plenty left over, so we were able to send a container full home with them, together with other goodies. The rest has been sliced, vac packed and frozen for quick meals when we need them.
Until next time…
Happy Gardening & Bon appétit!
Links:
Chocolate Sponge – AKA Nana’s Chocolate Cream Cake
As we unpacked and set up, Sonnie, Cath and Aussie prepared the pizza toppings, and when I got our Esky out I sent down the food that I had bought to add to the evening. Everyone got to make their own pizzas selecting from the toppings available, and Dave was in charge of cooking them in the pizza oven – What a treat… What an eye opener for Fabien, a friend and chef from Paris who was visiting with us for six weeks. With the sausages cooked at the camp fire, we all sat around enjoying some laughs and catching up on recent happenings. The night was freezing, everyone was tired, so we all decided to head off to bed for the night.
night had been a very cold one, and the campfire was inviting, as was a nice hot cup of tea. Brekky for our family was bacon and egg sandwiches. The fun was beginning. There were quad bikes and motor bikes to ride, a drone to fly, the camp fire to keep burning, the pizza oven to get fired up, wood to cut, more people arriving etc. etc. While the men, or should I say, boys, hooned around on the bikes, and cut wood, Cin learned how to ride the quad bike and she and Chris took our grandson Cooper to see the bah bahs (AKA sheep). For the rest of the day that is all he wanted to do – go see the bah bahs…
