Steemit Community Garden Journal Challenge: August 2018

So here in the southern hemisphere August is all about enriching the garden in preparation for spring planting! Today my family and I borrowed a truck and went to get A LOT of gorgeous compost - I couldn't wait to get started and get my feet stuck into that rich soft soil!

My wonderful husband helped me offload the compost and wheel it to the lawn and beds where I raked it evenly across the lawn and into the beds. Hubby then put a bit extra into the flower beds and vegetable garden beds.

My Potager Garden

This is my little "potager garden" (potager = french word for an ornamental kitchen garden). I decided to make it into a mandala type shape because I believe everything that is functional can also be beautiful. Also, when I wash the dishes I look out to this garden and it makes the chore a tiny bit more pleasant to look at this. This little potager is mainly for herbs and salad vegetables.

This little kitchen garden has sadly been a bit neglected this winter (I go into hibernation mode), and yet it seems to have self-seeded a bit from last season. These tomatoes came up on their own and still seem to be going - ready with lots of little flowers on the plant

Tomato blossoms

A few butter lettuce and broccoli plants have also popped up from last season so it can't have been too neglected

I read in one of my gardening books that planting a light ground cover in the beds significantly help with water retention so my eldest son and I sowed some Dichondra seeds late last month but for some reason they only coming up against the edging - anyone have any idea what we are doing wrong?

Disease?

I'm not sure what is going on with this broccoli plant - I thought it would survive the winter and be yielding broccoli by now but perhaps it was a bit too cold this winter? Any ideas?

Seedlings

One of the grocery stores here in South Africa had a great promotion recently: for every R150 (about $10) you spend, you get a seedling kit which includes a little compressed soil-pod, seeds, a little recycled paper box to plant it in and a little sign to pop into it. The kids loved the activity of planting them and have really enjoyed nurturing them and watching them grow a little more each day.

Kids love getting involved

My youngest just loved the truck with compost today, finding all the big sand clods, loading them in his monster truck and delivering them to the garden.

Gardening has become a regular activity with the kids this month and it's great because it gets them outside, gives them sensory engagement and it's an excellent teamwork activity that builds the bonds of our relationships even stronger!


Thanks Hive account@simplymike for this awesome community gardening challenge! I look forward to keeping it up for the rest of the year - it's going to be awesome to watch my garden evolve!

If anyone else is interested in joining this challenge please check out this post: SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge 4 - August