Rescued four FREE containers!

I was walking past the big skip bins at work today, taking a look in as I like to do, and discovered four huge cube shaped bottles. They had held oil for the kitchen vats, and so I 'rescued' them from the rubbish and put them in my boot. Four new square foot containers for FREE! Gotta love that.
Today we ate our first home grown mushroom, and it was big enough for an omelette for two people. It was as big as a bread and butter plate, but as tasty as a small young mushroom. I should have taken a photo of this giant, but we were just too keen to get it in the pan. We'll get a photo of the next one for sure.
The peas and snow peas are reaching for the sky and will soon be needing the support that my Man is building for them. He's using white plastic pipes and twine. The pipes will definitely be needing some help to stay upright. I chose twine because I have read in more than one blog that when the veggies have finished producing I can just throw the whole plant, still attached to the twine, into my compost bins.
I have planted two whole trays of Marigold seeds and that means 60 possible plants. I just can't wait to mass plant those little darlings, and see their sunny faces each day. The beauty of having such a huge untamed garden in front, and sides and back of the house is that I have plenty of spaces to put pretty much any plant I feel like growing. What could be better on this earth than that?
Nine carrots have sprouted! I'm so excited about the carrots, maybe because they are the one veggie I know my teenage sons will eat. The thought of slicing up carrot sticks to crunch on, carrots from our own garden, makes me almost giddy. A little OTT maybe, but it has been a few years since I have been able to grow a thing, and that will make any garden fairy crave dirt under her nails!
My list of jobs in the garden is so long I barely know how to limit myself to one section. The veggie garden is a priority of course, but the front yard has suffered from neglect as I recovered from my back injury for the past couple of years. It really needs a haircut and weed at the very least and this will be no small task. The Camellia's are such troopers, growing and flowering and looking so great despite a lack of TLC. The Bouganvillea is gorgeous, but out of control and almost takes my eye out when I walk under it to get to the hose.
I need to go update the Excel spreadsheet which has my garden plan. Thanks for visiting.
I just love hiding in my garden.

My 85c bucket garden...

This is my new garden, all ready for planting tomorrow. A double row of 85c buckets filled with compost and vermiculite. It's cheap and was fast to put together once I had all of the elements home from the garden centre.
I have searched 2 months for a free source of used timber or other material to make up my square foot gardens. Having no luck at that, I decided to go for the cheapest thing I could find that I could use over and over.
I am really looking forward to getting my seeds in the dirt tomorrow. I have a plan, but it's written in pencil because I'm sure I'll swap things around when the time comes to plant. A whole lot of seeds in the dirt, and a whole lot of empty spaces for the seeds to be planted next week and the next.
Our home made compost is rich and black and just gorgeous. I'm finding some bits of paper and other things that haven't rotted down completely, but mostly it is so good I'm almost jealous of the seeds being planted in all that goodness.

I bought a new hose for the tap on the old corrugated iron water tank. The hose came with a very simple trigger attachment, maybe because the water restrictions still require us to use an attachment and not just a running hose. I had to smile as I screwed the fitting onto the tap. At long last, after living here in this place with the big old garden for two and a half years, our water tank can be put to good use supplying rainwater to my veggie garden.

Living without fresh tomatoes from the garden has been so hard. I just can't wipe the smile off my face knowing that it will be Spring in just a couple of weeks, and my tomato plants will be greening my garden. Tomorrow we'll plant lettuces, carrots, shallots, peas, snow peas and rocket.
I am still hoping to find some free materials to build some real square foot gardens, like the ones in all the amazing blogs I read. I refuse to buy new timber. My buckets will do just fine for now.
I love hiding in my garden!