I noticed that the garlic seed plants from last year had re sprouted

The ones I had potted up for the market,

They died down, disappeared over summer.

Several times I nearly reclaimed the dirt..........

.........thank goodness for labels!

Then I though OK if they have sprouted...

What has happened to the ones I parked in the paddock?

I am a bit shocked by the weeds, where have I been?

Where is the garlic?

There they are.

Now I have to be careful when I weed to reveal the garlic

 the weeds blend so well.

Stella puppy is also a danger down here, nice sandy digging

She did dig one up

These 1 year old bulbils are now the size of a pickled onion and will be a guaranteed big clove

when replanted in fresh ground and left till December.

I will leave them where they are for now until I have prepared the new ground.

Garlic should be always planted in fresh ground.

We have a market free weekend coming up so there is a chance it might happen. 

Yesterday I accidentally pulled up a freesia when weeding with gusto.

I hadn't realised they had come up.

I am still in summer mode, not spring bulbs.

Made me think that I really need to start planning for spring.

I have to confess I came inside and did an online bulb order while the thought was fresh in my mind.

Cheques in the mail.

I am excited.

I call it Rogue Red

It's a salvia, one of the annual ones.

Some people might consider it a weed.

Once you have it flowering it will grace you with flowers here there and every where.

I did get annoyed with its rabid habits but,

Given it is so easy to pull out I have decided that I am lucky indeed

to have such beautiful weeds.

Its bright, cheerful and determined.

I gain a lot of inspiration from it's attitude and perseverance.

I also really like garlic chive flowers

My sculpture students are studying ephemeral sculpture at the moment.

We went out into my forest for a class the other day.

I have a new found respect for Andy Goldsworthy. I tried to emulate his stick aperture.

Its a lot harder than it looks.

I have started to wonder if he mostly uses pine sticks, they would be very straight.

I am going to continue to work on it

Might collect the sticks in anticipation of some spare time to play.

The dogs were very keen to help with the sticks.

Tina wove a dress from the grasses.

She used leaves to make the frill at the bottom of the dress.

Back in the garden I have been busy with a new circle.

This next photo shows the previous new circle in full production, silver beet and rocket galore.

And now for the new one. I have continued with the doughnut experiment.

I have planted the centre with garlic.

I planted some of my best cloves in this circle so I am expecting

HUGE cloves from here in December.

Anyone would think it was warm

Stella is hard to capture on camera as she rarely sits still.

Autumn flowers

Autumn is the next best thing to spring!

There are flowers everywhere

Lovely

This is Tansy, it is a herb I grow for its beautiful button flowers and

because it is said to deter flies, just hang a bunch of tansy leaves indoors. I grow my plants near the back door to try and prevent the flies from coming inside in the first place. 

The flowers can be boiled for a yellow dye.

I have Zinnias from white through yellow into orange and red, purple, and a huge range of pinks. They are such good performers and the cut flowers just last and last in the vase. The only down side to the long lasting flowers is that my customers don't need to buy them as often, I try and encourage them to add to the existing bunch, extend and expand the display.

These are dahlias

I got a few in spring and they have been flowering ever since.

This is a dahlia also.

The flowers are stunning, and quite prolific. I have a variety of these in different colours.

The Cherry Rudbekia is still pushing out some flowers. Amazing.

Unfortunately many of the weeds are also flowering.

I will pick them but they will not make it into a vase nor be brought inside.



Vegetable flowers are beautiful too!

A visiting friend expressed her surprise at the beauty of vegetable flowers,

in fact, she did not realise that vegetable plants had flowers.

I guess she is not alone.

Rocket flowers have an antique feel to them,

Some brave folks eat zucchini flowers.

Chinese broad leaf celery has bright yellow flowers that I have been using as fill flowers with Zinnias.

Garlic Chives flowers are like fire works, they look fantastic but smell a bit like.......Garlic chives.

Eggplant have purple flowers, for the purple lover this is the plant to grow, the leaves have a touch of purple, the fruit is dark and shiny.

I finally grew some Queen Ann's lace this year and was mildly disappointed.

I thought it would be special but actually it just looked like parsley flowers but whiter.

Lettuce flowers have a distinct weed like look about them.

I have begun saving seeds to sell at the market so I am collecting the flowers and bagging up the seeds.

Its fiddly and time consuming but all part of the food forest farming concept.

I just had to include this photo, Skittles and Stella sharing a chair, my chair!

I decided that they won't be able to do this for long so it is ok for now. Skittles is an excellent puppy minder, Her ears have been well and truly pierced.