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Hi there and welcome back….I’ve done it yet again and been gone for too long. Sometimes I really think I should just put this baby to bed and be done with it. I’ve changed the blog names too many times and have lost readers, I’m terrible of late at posting consistently and I really feel like I’m just talking to myself these days as I just don’t seem to be reaching anyone. On the other hand I love having a place to write and somewhere to share my thoughts and what I’ve been up to and one day my kids will be able to go through the blog and see what it was I was always doing on the computer and how much of it they’re in.
Today I thought I’d share a new little project I started working on this week. If (and that’s a very big if) you’ve been following me through all the changes, you’ll know a few years ago I started a Potager (french for vegetable garden) at a previous house we were living in. However we ended up moving and it was left behind, we then were in Tassie and didn’t have a chance to start one there but now we’re somewhat settled (I always have itchy feet) I felt like I needed plants around me and what better things to grow than things you can eat. We actually don’t have much of a yard here let alone a bit of soil to plant much so most things are being grown in pots.
It all started with a rosemary bush I bought a few months ago and pretty much stayed at the rosemary but while we were in one of my fave hardware places last week….Bunnings naturally…..I saw some beautiful lavender with the most gorgeous pink double blooms I haven’t seen before and knew I had to buy one and buy one I did. I then took a trip to Kmart to buy a pot for it as I wanted it to match the pot I’d bought for the rosemary.
Admittedly both plants sat in their Bunnings pots for another week until we were gardening this last week preparing for a house inspection. As we were pruning plants already here and mowing the lawn we realized we needed a new shovel and some potting mix so off to Bunnings we went again. This time however I really wanted to buy a Lots o Lemons Lemon Tree. I’d been wanting one for ages and being as we simply don’t have the yard space for a tree to reach full maturity I thought a dwarf variety would be a great idea. So we headed over to the fruit trees and for Chris I took a painfully long time choosing a tree but to me I was inspecting the health of the tree, making sure there was no disease, no branches crossing over each other or too crowded in etc….you know, the things responsible gardeners look for lol….So I eventually picked my tree but wasn’t 100% sure and as I was talking to Chris I spotted a dwarf Fig Tree!! OMG I was in heaven. I love figs probably more than any other fruit and I adore Fig Trees and how massive they get and the shapes of the leaves……I pretty much love trees guys but some I love much harder than others….so off I went again inspecting the fig trees and deliberating as to which one I would bring home with me. (I’m even fussy on the way the trunk of a tree has developed…..I know, it’s a problem. If it has a crooked trunk I won’t buy it lol) I found the cutest Figalicious tree with a good trunk, nice healthy leaves and even a few figs on it which made me soooooo happy.
So now we have our trees we go off to choose some good sized pots that they can grow into and will last some time in. It was actually a pretty easy decision and one that Chris and I both agreed on as we rarely agree on anything design wise or garden wise lol but this was a victory for both of us, we’d agreed on the colour and shape of our pots. Who knows maybe one day we will agree on the decor of our house……lol who am I kidding that’ll never happen we have completely different tastes and thankfully I win out most of the time. Any way after choosing our pots we went to get the right sort of potting mix and as we were putting it in the trolley I decided I had the wrong lemon tree after all and told Chris we needed to change it to which again he thought I was right. Seriously this never happens lol…..so back at lemon trees I put my tree back and start sorting through all the other trees. After another five to ten minutes I finally decide on a tree that looked right to me.
Now, much to Chris’ disgust (lol) I decided to take the kids over to the veggies as they’re always wanting to grow something and after much deliberation on Bec’s part she ended up choosing carrots and garlic. Bec was rapped with her garlic until I pointed out it takes 38 weeks to harvest! The look on her face was priceless but she stuck with her garlic and it’ll give her something to maintain and look after. Francis decided on a strawberry bush, probably because he loves eating them. With both kids happy with veggies I decided I needed to get another lavender bush as it would be a pity to just have one, I also wanted another rosemary bush but they didn’t have any….oh well c’est la vie there’s always next week. On our way out of the gardening section Chris spotted the Bonsai trees and decided to have a look at them for Bec as she’d been wanting a plant to keep in her room. Honestly I think deliberating over the Bonsai trees took longer than choosing everything else but Bec was happy with her little tree and we bought a new pot and some bonsai pottig mix to re-pot it as it’s four years old and a root was exposed. Finally we headed to the checkout but not without stopping to look at potato seedlings. You see in Tassie we found the best potatoes on the planet that we’d never had before….Dutch Cream Potatoes…..however they’re not available here in Western Australian supermarkets, I have no idea why but personally I think it’s crazy. So any way Bunnings had Dutch Cream Potato seedlings which got Bec all excited and as badly as she wanted to buy them I knew we didn’t have room to grow them. I had however heard of growing potatoes in hessian bags so I’m looking into that and if it’s doable then we’ll be back for our Dutch Creams.
Finally we made it to and through the check out, out to the car and home again. Bec was busting to put her carrots in the ground but by the time we got home it was getting late and quite cold and we needed to finish the bigger jobs off first…like getting the weeds out of the very small garden bed. It took a couple of days but we got Bec’s carrots and garlic in the ground surrounding her one surviving tomato bush from the summer. I potted up my lavender and rosemary bushes and then realized I was a pot short so I’ll be off to Kmart to get another one on the weekend. I also potted up my lemon and fig trees after taking forever to decide where I was going to put them. In the end I went for one either side of our bedroom door that leads to the backyard.
Things are now starting to feel a little more like a jardin out there which makes me feel better and less restless. Honestly our yard is so small it’s really a courtyard with lawn and I find it quite depressing not having much space around me, especially after being on an acre in Tassie but it’s looking a little more homely now and I intend to fill it up with a lot more plants. This way we’ll have a mobile garden, so if we move house, everything will be coming with us and I can keep my French Jardin with me. I love french gardens and they way they look perfectly put together but really they can be quite haphazard but it’s the way they come together and you’ll find all french gardens have flowers in them and usually lots of geraniums which are also another love of mine thanks to my grandma for sharing her love of them too.
So with our french way of living here in Australia we’re starting to bring in our Potager/Jardin as well. It’s not always easy trying to get a very Australian family to live another way of life but with our trip to France in a couple of years I’m determined to try and get them to at least attempt a more french way of life to prepare for our trip. It’s the little things that are keeping me sane at the moment and being in the jardin this week felt so blissful, productive and joyous and that’s something I haven’t felt in quite a while.
Ma Belle Vie 