Lisa from Tasmania – The Summer That Never Really Was

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other people’s pictures and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all have a rock star garden this summer. Keep them coming! 

Today our buddy Lisa from Tasmania shares her garden photos:

Hi!
We are four days into autumn and it still feels like we haven’t quite gotten into summer yet!
Without wanting to sound too whingey and pouty, it was the least impressive summer since we moved to Tasmania 5 years ago. Still, the big outside garden has been producing reasonably/sort of well.

We would have been lucky to get more than a four day stretch of summery-like days together.
This didn’t help the garden much! While we still got food of course, it was nothing like other seasons have been.
Everything has been running about a month late. Thank goodness we made the hothouse. It has been pretty fabulous in there.

I put in three tomato plants (a lot also self seeded that I moved about to other areas in the garden) lots of chillies, some cucumbers, capsicum and a whole lot of basil!

One of the big garden extensions we did this season was to make use of the ‘duck yard’ that was really more of a chicken run. Since we put in a bore for water we figured we could manage more vegetable plots without having to go down to the river for a bath, as before that we were on limited tank water.

The area had knee high weeds the first time we tackled it. Then we had to weed it all over again when it came to spring and actual planting.

I figured the best use of the area was to put in the big plants and ‘running’ plants. So the zucchini, pumpkin & corn went in. I also used the tall fence as a bean trellis and put more runner beans in and then filled the remaining spots with more tomatoes.

We are really happy with seeing a neglected area turned into a very productive place.
We only just started eating corn – over a month behind its usual ready date! But its oh-so-sweet!!

We slightly extended the raspberry patch – I found this fabulous big piece of polypipe washed up on one of our local beaches and brought it home (My husband doesn’t even roll his eyes anymore – just works out how to get my ‘treasures’ home).

Putting a bit of polypipe over two steel droppers makes an excellent framework for netting. We will get more of it in the future when the budget allows.
We put together a new lot of netting and got the raspberries covered.
We eventually got raspberries – not even half the amount of last season, but at least we got them. Most went into jam, cakes or the freezer – they were also really wind battered this season.

Mid winter I put in about 130 garlic plants. I save the cloves from previous harvests. I anxiously watched them do not much for a long time. (I LOVE my garlic) By the time they got to a decent size they started to yellow off and not look impressive at all. I checked the bulbs at the beginning of December, which is when I usually harvest – nothing formed! So I left them in the ground looking very woebegone for another month and managed to get a really lovely harvest with some massive bulbs! Whew!

Potatoes are another supremely important crop to us. I just find potatoes such an easy non-demanding thing to grow. (And I LOVE digging potatoes! The thrill of discovery!) While we didn’t get as many as last season, we certainly have dug up enough to keep us going for a lot of months.

We have 11 chickens at the moment. They keep us well supplied in eggs, entertainment and poo! They free range around half of the yard, get cakes baked for them and top quality scraps. Egg money keeps them in wheat and other treats for us (They usually fund our movie tickets!!)

I have taken to whitewashing their coop. I used to just dust it with lime a couple of times a year, but whitewashing is way more fun and messy! Plus it has lightened the coop up beautifully!

I have been working on a few more composts too – I have been shredding all scraps that don’t go to the chickens to put in the compost along with the chicken coop hay/manure and grass clippings. It has really hustled the whole production along amazingly well.

We have had several projects on the go – some finished some not.
We managed to pick up a whole lot of free pallets from a local shop and made an entire fence out of them! The original chicken-wire one was a temporary thing that was very manky looking. So we got to, and put together a pallet fence which looks a step up from before. I might even paint it one day. (Not to mention get a gate at some point)

Jeff also built a small ‘house’ to cover the bore pump and pipes which didn’t look that nice exposed. He mainly used timber that we recycled from Ruby’s old fence and other freebies! It looks much smarter now and the electronic bits are safely covered. (I’d used a bucket before to keep the rain off which didn’t look that stylish)

Harvest time is the best time. Slowly we have been picking more and more from the garden which is such a thrill.

Sometimes I get madly huge vegetables like this beetroot! It self seeded in the hothouse somehow so I just left it to do its thing! I think it weighed about 4 pounds by the time I pulled it up! I pickled it and it was beautiful!

Of course with the extra food comes the extra time in the kitchen to cook and preserve.
It’s been wonderful to stock up on all my sauces, relishes and jams.
I also have been experimenting with making ice cream with different fruit flavours & pesto along with my favourite raspberry cakes and stuffed tomatoes etc etc.

Naturally in the interests of enthusing people to come to Tasmania (PLEASE come to Tasmania and help me with the weeding!!!) I have a set of photos of some of the local places we enjoy going to. So many great places to hike or relax!

Well… that was sort of summer! Still hoping for some good autumn weather to help all the 60 outside tomato plants ripen their fruit!
As we wind down I will be thoroughly enjoying seeing all the spring/summer gardens from my Northern Hemisphere friends!

Cheers, Lisa

{New around here? Catch up on more of Lisa’s posts HERE}

If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop, pantry or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so,  show me some picture of how you are going about it.
• Your Pantry Pics – Submit at least 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures of your pantry/fridge/cabinets, as well as a short blurb {at the very least} about you and your food habits.
• Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
• Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
• Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.
• Garage Sale, Thrift Store and Dumpster Diving pictures and the stories behind the treasures you found including how much you paid for them.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com.

Go  HERE for the official rules.