crafting with soil

when we first moved into our place, this is what the garden looked like. only imagine those little sprouty bits of grass weren't there. for my nothern hemisphere readers, that white stuff isn't snow. it's dead grass.

now, i don't actually care much for gardening. but i do care about my belly, and i like filling it with vegie-stuff. and it killed me to have to shell out for fresh herbs (actually, i refused to buy them). so, i zoned in on one particularly large, empty bed. i put manure on it, and mulch (lupin mulch, of course). last week i planted some rosemary and parsley and thyme that mah mum grew in pots for me. they loved it. within two days the thyme was making little baby thymes.
emboldened by my gardening 'sucess' (nothing died within the week), i went out and bought some broccoli, and some beetroot.

i was going to mail order some heirloom beets, but was a bit scared about growing something from seed. when i went to the garden centre, what did lucky ol' me find, but mixed heirloom beet seedlings! i have high hopes for them. there's a regular red one (bullsblood), a white one, a yellow one (golden something), and chioggia. chioggia beets have pink and white rings like a lollipop! i think this is probably a chioggia:


here's out little bed all up.


the brown pot has mint, the purple is a spare rosemary. the really leafy thing is the parsley, and the tall thing to its left is the rosemary. a thyme and a wild alyssium. there's an odd yellow-fruiting chilli to the diagonal right of the parsley. badly coloured boy chose it. you can also see his terrifically complex reticulation system. which will be completely unnecessary once i install the grey water recycling system i bought. all the washing machine and shower water will land on the garden! the brownish stuff in the takeaway container is an organic snail trap. sugar, water and vegemite. so far the only thing to have drowned in it is a cricket.