I found a weapons stash in the herb garden...

Today we worked in the garden.

Well armed with my shiny new garden tools and a punnet of Fordhook Giant Silverbeet seedings

I chose to tackle our little herb garden while Russell started on a little deck we have planned for our top garden. I tackled that earth with gusto! Weeded and fed and fluffed that soil until it looks so good 

I'm sure I'd grow if i stood in it.

And in the weeding and fluffing unearthed a machine gun, only small, made of plastic and left from a time when our back garden was used for so many other wonderful things.

Our garden is on the side of a hill and so we have three levels ...the Front, obviously the front of the house and although is steep and sloping its all counted as one section. The Back which is the immediate back yard. And then up a set of stairs that run off our back deck is the Top garden, where we are establishing a nice big vegetable garden. 

Its been on the go for quite a while now and we're really making progress but unfortunately the rain over the past three months has been pretty devastating; and just recently because of the amount of lush green around, we've been swamped by bugs, caterpillars and other critters. 

We've picked raspberries off our raspberry cane already. The passionfruit and chokoe vine are battling it out on the fence line, slow motion Matrix style. We've picked and frozen  three or four crops of beans. Struggled with fruit fly and managed at least a feed or two of tomatoes, some mean looking eggplant and some pitiful lettuce and chinese cabbage. Not a bad result I suppose but not an indication of the work we have put into it.

So now that the nicer weather is here we are planning to bring it back to productive with some weeding and feeding and replanting. In front of the vegie garden is a small section of spare space where Russell is building a deck and where we plan to sit at the end of the day watching the sun set and surveying our "farm". As the old retired Apexians say " the beer tastes better when you've worked hard for it. The wine too I must say.

  

 

ooooh...shiny new tools, and my shovel is red so I'm sure to be able to dig very fast!

 

Love the dappled light in our Back Garden, and a glimpse of our herb garden, fenced to keep out the doggies.

You can see who the real gardener is...although I love to look the part with flowery gloves and Jamie Durie utility belt.

The garden has become one of my favourite places to be, and even though I've known it for years, have advised my friends of it.... I always forget it myself until ...one day at a time of absolute hurt and need... I gravitate back to the garden, get my hands into the dirt and then I start to heal. 

Its peaceful, its honest

There is that place deep inside you where the joy lives 

and the hurts and worries of the  world can deplete these stores of joy.

Working in the garden, feeling the sun on your skin, 

smelling the earth, 

knowing by the feel of it in your hands how rich the soil is...

here is the tap to refill your joy again.

And in the quiet monotony of working the dirt

While you take the time to talk to our Maker

you restore and reprogram and return to you.

The kiss of the sun for pardon. 

The song of the birds for mirth. 

One is nearer to God's heart in the garden. 

Than anywhere else on earth.

We see this rhyme on cute little signs in peoples gardens and don't really think of what it means.

I think that until you've tried it, it will make no sense to you.

So for me?...Its about all of the above and more. Our back garden tells the story of our family. Secret plastic army stashes hidden strategically in rock walls and hidey holes. Unearthing while digging, that old mobile phone that the boys used when they played FBI agents. The nails in tree that have held Forts or booby traps, a billy cart wheel. 

One dog chewed thong. 

The constant rearranging, relocating, remodelling as our family grows and changes. Three different homes for the clothesline.

The tree we planted to one day hang a swing for Grandkiddies, is now more than big enough to hold half a dozen. The secret path that winds up through the jungle. The spectacular show our hydrangeas give us, and we all wait for Russell to say every year " they said you can't grow hydrangeas in queensland... and look at these!!!"

We still can't find the perfect spot for the barbeque.