Friendship Garden

Planting is fun. I have been trying to garden for a long time, planting vegetables, flowers and trees. It is important to choose the right plants and decide what you want to have in your garden, to be sure that they could grow well in the area.  The garden now is well established, and it is a good friendly garden.  I do have a vegetable patch, and it has plants growing, some herbs, sorrel and asparagus have been there for a while but new seedlings I bought, were planted recently.
In the past and at present a lot of plants were given to us by friends from everywhere,  to fill up my vegetable garden, that makes my vegetable garden is a friendship garden. This spring I got seedling of butter lettuces from Anne, and they are growing very well.  Thanks, Anne, it is my favourite lettuce.
There are many varieties of lettuces, the butter lettuce is very soft and delicate, excellent for a salad served with light dressing, such as lemon juice and oil. You could dress  it with light mayonnaise mixed with cream and lemon juice.  Now, I have two lettuces are growing in my garden, iceberg lettuce is another one, which I purchased the seedlings from Bunnings.

 Potted Butter Lettuce

Potted Butter Lettuce

Soon I will be able to harvest the butter lettuce
In fact, today I harvested the lettuce and other greens for our salad. Other leafy vegetables I am growing are radicchio/chicory

Freshly picked butter lettuce
and other greens

and endive, they are bitter lettuces I call them because of the bitter taste.  I use them as a leafy salad, and also I cook them and served as the vegetable.  Grilled radicchio dressed in balsamic is lovely to garnish any red meat.

Potted Iceberg Lettuce

The first time to grow the iceberg lettuce, but I am not doing badly, as I was told it needs a lot of water, I have been watering and they are looking good, and healthy.
Two bitter lettuces, self-seeds endives, and radicchio I have, these plants  are easy to grow and to care for. The other day, I found the leaf of the bitter lettuce, it has cute patterns and I don't know what it is, it does look pretty but I am not sure that I could consume it.

 Bitter Lettuce Leaf with Drawing Pattern on it

The Leaf

The other side with patterns

Pictures/patterns on the leaf

Curry Tree

Last time I got zucchini seedlings from Irene, and you know Zucchini is a very friendly plant, is easy to grow.  They did grow successfully in my garden, I had a good crop and they were a lot of dishes made.

I plant herbs in the vegetable garden, and also in pots, I must say I have a good collection of herbs,  the golden oregano a gift from Anne years ago, is here to stay and flourishing beautifully.
The latest herb plant added was a Curry Tree.  I am looking forward to using the fresh leaves for my cooking!

The standard bay leaf has a lot of yellow leaves, but the sage and cascading rosemary are at their best, so green and so fresh.

Sage in flower

Rosemary

This year I was surprised to have this very important herb for Asian cooking 'lemongrass' of Kay's garden.  Thank you.  I am very proud to say that they are settled well and taking off beautifully.  I planted the lemongrass plants onto pots, now I have two.

Two Potted Lemongrass

Savoy cabbages, tomato, and chilli which I planted this year are growing well too.  The tomato and chilli have flowers already and the cabbage is taking its shape.

My vegetable garden is small but suffices for two.  Sometimes I am able to share the harvest and the fresh herbs with friends and family.

Vegetable Garden-Friendship Garden

The weather was warm,  a rather too warm for my liking, I did do garden and planning to plant my spicy basil, but I did not, it was Too Hot!. But we had a lovely tea in the garden.

After a rest we both were back in the garden, Rayner was busy fixing the garden edging, and I was catching up with other work in my vegetable garden.

 I receive, I give, and I swap plants for my vegetable garden the Friendship Garden.
Yes, the vegetable garden tells stories and they are lovely.

The best thing is the harvest time, we enjoy the fresh produce and also look back thinking and thanking all our friends.

Mini Orange Cakes

I shared my baking, for morning tea with friends, it's mini orange cake filled with orange curd and double cream.  The cakes were small but sweet and garnished with herbs and nasturtium from my vegetable garden the Friendship Garden.
It was a gesture of my appreciation to our friends at our sports club, also congratulations for a job well done in the last ping pong (table tennis) competition.




The friendship garden has been useful, all the herbs, and edible flowers are so beautiful for my presentation of my cooking and garnishes.


Until Next Post
Susy