A City Farm's Nursery

I could while away many an hour at local nurseries immersed in all the garden goodness they have on offer. Everything from plants to fountains to mulch! My favourite nursery though is in at the city farm. I love to visit, to talk with and seek advice from staff and to browse their range of incredible and edible plants!

The colourful gates at the entrance to the City Farm Nursery.

Bright and early, on the Saturday just gone, I spent some time at the nursery choosing some seedlings to plant in my Autumn veggie patch. I came home with some tiny little lettuce seedlings and some silverbeet to plant out too. These will be the first things I tuck into the soil this Autumn. I'm looking forward to picking the leaves of our own lettuce again!

 An amazing selection of vegetable seedlings and herbs.

 My lettuce and silverbeet seedlings and a pot of lemon thyme.

I love to wander the little paths of this small nursery. Besides the interesting range of edible plants (herbs, veggies and fruit trees) there is so much inspiration to find...

Beautiful leadlight bamboo! 

(This has me thinking about Art for the garden.)

Gorgeous tumeric flower.

(I hope my newly planted tumeric will flower too.)

The nursery's native beehive. 

(Could I make a little roof like this for my own hive?)

There's a wonderful range of herbs at the nursery. Everything from tansy to thyme. I bought a pot of lemon thyme as I lost mine recently. Too much rain?? I'm looking forward to flavouring our Winter stews and casseroles with this wonderful herb. Such a zingy scent!

My new vanilla bean orchid.

I always find new-to-me or unusual plants too. Things that are a bit different! This time, I chose to bring home a vanilla bean orchid. (It was a hard choice between that and a pepper vine!) I'm going to plant it in the dappled shade that the trees near our back deck rotunda create. I really hope I can get it to grow! If I am lucky and it blooms, I will need to learn how to hand pollinate the flowers because there are no natural pollinators of the vanilla bean orchid outside of Mexico. No wonder vanilla is one of the world's most expensive spices.

A re-purposed laundry trolley full of liriope.

A visit to the city farm and its nursery always renews my enthusiasm for growing food and provides so many ideas of what is possible in the area where I live. I always leave with many new ideas and always more than a few plants!

Do you have a favourite plant nursery? What do you love about it?

Meg

A Peek into Permaculture: Producing Food at Home

There is something quite wonderful about a garden that grows food. For me, it is a joy that is made tangible in the:

*   "tucking in" of seeds full of potential;
*   tiny seedlings that emerge in nourishing soils;
*   edible greens, fattening pods, ripening fruits and expanding tubers;
*   baskets laden with food harvested not far from our very own back door; 
*   making of meals using some of our very own produce ...
&  it's in the sharing of excess with family, friends, neighbours and strangers.

Ripening mandarins on our tree beginning to blush orange.

But growing food in our own garden is so much more than that. It is about:

*   locally grown goodness (as local as it gets);
*   healthy food produced without chemicals;
*   fresh food tasted and cooked and appreciated just minutes after it's been harvested;
*   precious seeds saved and shared ...
&  it's about a measure of self-reliance.

Fresh, young silverbeet growing happily among the flowers.

I have not read much of the work of Bill Mollison, co-originator of Permaculture along with David Holmgren, but these wise words of his were echoing in my mind as I planted the first of this Autumn's seedlings:

"The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production,

even if on a small scale in our own gardens ..."

Just planted ... Perpetual Spinach, Tuscan Kale and Silverbeet seedlings in my garden.

The planting out of seedlings, a seemingly simple act of gardening, is so much more than that.  Perhaps, that is why growing some of our own food fills me with such happiness.

Do you grow some of your own food at home too? 

Meg