Tuesday 29 January 2013

Summer's Harvest

Happy New Year to everyone .......................
Best wishes for an exciting and weed/grub/critter/fungus free year ahead in the Garden !!

We had a very frightening start to the New Year with a bush fire coming within 150 metres of our home on New Years Eve, a couple of our neighbour's properties lost all vegetation and sheds but luckily their homes and animals were saved.
I've always planned to pack the dogs in the car, get the hell out and not stay to protect our home But this fire happened so quickly by a very stupid neighbour who thought nothing of burning off a little bit of rubbish even though fire restrictions were in place.
Ok so my husband took control (told me nicely to get inside and change my summer attire) do you think I could find a woollen hat for my curly hair I was worried about!!!
He got our fire fighting trailer(water tank with petrol driven pressure hose) in place while I filled buckets with water and wet down the garden around the house and madly threw all the fire wood stacked neatly on the front veranda into space along with any outdoor furniture which was timber.
Four hours, 3 water helicopters and 28 firetrucks later the fire was controlled..........

Looking out to our front paddocks from the veggie garden where the fire passed by our front fence.
Needless to say I'm a tad nervous at present as we haven't had rain for 85 days and our dams are shrinking  by the day........   
Ok not all doom and gloom....... the veggie garden is providing us with daily treats, plenty of lettuce, zucchini, peppers,spinach, eggplants,basil and the first of the Roma tomatoes are turning color !!
                                                                           
 I'm slowly making covers for all my veggies with shade cloth as the difference it makes is fantastic, here you can see how well my lettuce/cucumber bed is doing. Thanks LIZ for the lettuce seed the freckles variety are doing beautifully and make such a great addition to the salad bowl.


Heaps of tasty potatoes and in the plastic container....................................my favorite !!!

      Tell you next time...........................



                                                                      

5 comments:

  1. Oh lord Andrea that is scary. Glad it didn't come any closer. Those choppers are pretty amazing aren't they? I watched so many of them head to Harrietville last week. When I was a kid we lost all the vegetation around the house in Ash Wednesday but like your neighbours mum & dad saved the house. It was pretty ugly for quite a while but watching the regeneration is quite amazing. In the gullies near their place there used to be big ferns - those never came back but pretty much everything else did. Hope you got some rain this week.

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    1. Hi Liz, yes it was pretty scary but one of the positive things is we have become very good friends with our new neighbors, they had only been in their home 1 month before the fire.

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  2. Hey Andrea, what an exciting start to the new year!!!.....
    So glad everything is OK and you didn't lose anything.
    Was your neighbour charged? I can't believe the stupidity of some people......
    I hope you had some rain this week, we had a couple of mls today, need alot more, but it was so nice to see it, listen to it and smell it.......it's been quite a few weeks since we had any. Can't believe there are floods in QLD and we're crying out for it rain here...
    Elvis flew over here during the week, I raced outside to check it out, amazing piece of machinery.
    Nice potato crop and shade cloth makes a huge difference .....i have it over my lettuces......
    Enjoy your weekend,

    Claire :}

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    1. Well I suppose it was sort of exciting, happened on my 50th birthday so hope that isn't a bad sign !!!
      Yes the neighbor has been charged and would you believe its was the second fire he has lit!! We did get a lovely drop of rain only 6mls but enough to freshen up the garden and settle the dust.
      Helping hubby laying decking this weekend !!

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