Day the First

I thoroughly enjoy being in the garden. There's something about being the reason why specific plants are growing which makes you so very proud of them. Then again I might simply like playing in the dirt. I will let you decide which one is more correct.

Things in the garden are good. As of today the following things are in the ground, living and producing food:

- Beetroot
- Potatoes
- Tomatoes (Grosse Lisse, Rouge de Marmande, Principe Borghese, Swift, Imur Prior Beta, Sunray, Le Case di Apulia and a few Romas).
- Sweet Corn (Sunrise)
- Zucchini/Courgettes (Blackjack)
- Squash (yellow and green button)
- Cucumber (Lebanese)
- Runner Beans (Scarlet Runner and Purple King)
- Snow Peas (Roi de Carouby)
- Horseradish
- Globe Artichokes
- Jerusalem Artichokes (Which are in no way related to Globe Artichokes)
- Eggplant
- Fennel
- Kale (Nero di Toscana)
- Watermelon (Sugarbaby)
- Pumpkins (Jarrahdale, Queensland Blue and Golden Nugget)
- Chilli (Long Cayenne)

Yesterday the following seeds were put in (in order to take advantage of the rest of summer and in preparation of the winter garden):

- Beans (Borlotti)
- Peas (Telephone and Greenfeast Climbing)
- Carrots (Dragon [a purple variety] and All Seasons)
- Broad Beans (Aquadulce)
- Spinach (Viroflay and Southern European)
- Silverbeet (Ruby Red Chard)
- Parsnips (Hollow Crown)
- Lettuce (Lollo Rosso)

This list may seem like a lot. I suppose it is. But I like odd vegetables - especially ones that aren't the ordinary colour/shape/size compared to their supermarket counterparts. Now I can almost hear some of you saying 'But why do you grow those vegetables when you can just as easily buy them?' Well, the answer is that vegetables that you grow yourself simply taste better. 99.9% of food that comes from the supermarket is picked early and then the ripening process is prevented so that the produce is kept for longer. In doing that the flavours aren't anywhere near like they could be. For example, supermarket tomatoes generally don't smell, look or taste like home grown ones. I've eaten what has been labelled as a tomato to only have something that tastes like a cardboard box. The same thing goes for mass-produced frozen foods. Eat some fresh beans and you'll be amazed at their flavour and depth. We grow around five different types of beans in the summer because they all have different flavours, textures and smells. Plus, if you grow your own vegetables you can literally see how different the varieties of a vegetable can be. A classic example of this is in tomatoes - from the super-fast fruiting Swift, to the small but beautifully flavoured Principe Borghese and Le Case di Apulia, the sweet orange-yellow of the Sunray to the mammoth, almost hot-pink Brandywine. All of them are lovely, and most of them you won't find in a supermarket or fruit shop.

And for those of you who are sitting there saying 'But I don't have enough space to grow vegetables', don't worry. You can grow plenty of things in almost no space at all. For those who are saying 'I don't keep plants, I kill them', well, I will tell you about culinary plants that you should be able to keep (even if you forget to water them for a few weeks).

So I sign off for today. Just remember - Life's a garden, Dig it!

And Thus it Begins...

Whilst the family was at the dinner table one night last week, and listening to all the wonderful stories that the rest of the extended family were up to (including but not limited to jet-setting around the world, enjoying themselves in the cities of Australia and just generally moving up the ladder of success), I started to think about where my life would end up.

Thankfully the thought ended as quickly as it had begun, and I started to think about the vegetable garden. It's nothing special, but it keeps the family (and a few other people that we know) supplied with fresh food for most of the year (although it tends to drop off considerably in the winter). This is what I hope to show to you, the avid reader, for a whole year. Every day there will be a new post, keeping you updated on the garden, and the food that is cooked from it.

But before we do that, proper introductions would be best. The family garden is situated out the back of our house. The house is situated on a small (11 acre) piece of land that is located to the east of a town called Uralla in New South Wales, Australia. Uralla is nestled in the New England Region - a small sliver of high-altitude land in the northern part of the state. Summer temperatures have never gone higher than 34°C in the day, and they almost always drop below 20°C of a night. In winter temperatures can often stay below 10°C for weeks on end, and during the night they can drop to below -10°C. Most rainfall occurs in Summer through thunderstorms and the remnants of cyclones, and the landscape is often white (with frost) until near noon in the depths of winter.

I believe that this blog will serve many purposes. Firstly, it will show that gardening fruit and vegetables is really quite easy and can be done with a minimum of effort. Secondly it will show that cooking fresh food is even easier. And lastly it will help keep me 'On track' in regards to ensuring that the garden has always got something happening in it (quite often my enthusiasm drops off over the cooler months).

So this is my pledge - one post each day for the next 365 days. Hopefully someone will read it.