In the garden

It’s a long weekend in WA thanks to today’s public holiday, Foundation Day. Foundation Day celebrates the arrival of the first European settlers to Western Australia in 1829. They made their home in the Swan River Colony which today is known as Perth.

Our original plan for the long weekend was to spend a night in Margaret River which is three hours south of Perth - touring the wineries, eating good food, and relaxing. We sold our 4WD last week and purchased a new one. We had hoped to take possession of our new car prior to the weekend for an inaugural road trip but that didn’t happen so we decided to leave the trip for another weekend.

In lieu of a lovely get away to Margaret River we did odd jobs around the house, went for a couple long runs, did some reading, ate good food anyway, and just hung out. It was warm and sunny yesterday and with nothing else pertinent on the agenda I decided to start that fruit and vegetable garden I’ve been contemplating for the past few months.

Winter is the wettest time of year and temps very rarely get to freezing which makes year round gardening quite easy. For a couple of reasons, I decided to stick to plants that do well in containers. First off, we live in a rental home so no point investing in anything that’s permanent and takes a long time to mature. Secondly, I have no idea how Bronson will react to the fruits and veg. What I do know is that his urine is lethal to the grass so selecting a large pot that’s higher than his raised leg is essential.

A basic herb garden seemed like a good place to start and apparently herbs are quite hardy which means less of a chance that I will kill them. The herbs I selected were basil (or "ba-zil" with a short “a” in these parts), oregano (“or-ri-gah-no” as opposed to “or-reg-ano”), thyme, coriander and mint. But, I wanted to be more ambitious than just herbs so I also selected spring onion (green onion), roma tomatoes, and strawberries. I had four large pots to work with so herbs 1-4 went in a pot together, the strawberries and the mint in another and the tomatoes and spring onion in a third. Aside from the herbs, I have no idea how the other four will do as companions but if they appear to not be getting along then I’ll just have to separate them. The fourth pot will remain empty as a spare room just in case.

Fortunately, this is a relatively inexpensive project. I purchased them all as seedlings at $3.50 a piece, along with three bags of organic soil at $12 a pop. Eventually, I’ll need to invest in some fertilizer. The large pots came courtesy of the rental home so if my project fails miserably, I’m only out $64. We eat a ton of spring onion and tomato and I love strawberries so hopefully by the end of winter our grocery list will be a bit smaller!