Puppy Proof Fence

I left the house for a few hours yesterday to go to work and came back to find Mr L'Orange had completed a garden make over. This would definitely be classed as a rare event, so I had to make a big fuss and give lots of praise (bit like dealing with the puppy really!).

Not only had Mr L'Orange cut all the grass and trimmed the edges and done a general tidy up he had also built a fence around the herb garden.

Before - Bailey & I tending to the garden

This is to stop Dog A L'Orange digging amongst the herbs, trampling eveything and biting off bits of spring onion. We are hoping that we won't have to have the fence forever, just until he moves out of his destructive puppy phase which I believe lasts 2 years!

After - the fabulous fencing

Mr L'Orange has also erected some fencing around the veggie patch as Dog A L'Orange is trampling all the seedlings and we now have 2 instead of 32 spanish onions growing. He has also managed to pull out the carrots - naughty puppy!

What a professional looking fence Mr L'Orange!

No more puppy in the veggie patch now.

He has been smacked numerous times when he jumps into the veggie patch but clearly loves going in there when we are not around - he is actually quite into gardening (just like his mum) except he rarely helps and instead just gets in the way.

For every two weeds I pull out and place in the bucket, Dog A L'Orange manages to throw one back on the ground and never seems to tire of this game unfortunately.

Finally,  Mr L'Orange also added some protection to our Japanese Maple which Dog A L'Orange likes to chew when he gets the chance.

Protected for now

Life A L'Orange - Garden Update

The veggie patch is producing lots of tasty beetroot at the moment, they don't seem quite as big as last year but they are full of flavour and we have been roasting them up with some olive oil and caremlised balsamic vinegar to have with bbq's.

I have added some dill to the herb garden as we want to start using it more with fish and to make nice wee dips over summer. We currently have enough different lettuces to enjoy salads every day of the week if we want, the spring onions are also ready.

The zucinni, eggplant and capsicums have all managed to survive Bailey and are growing nicely at the moment - it will be ages before we get anything to eat though. I planted 2 more tomato plants into the veggie patch so we will get some nice orange coloured tomatoes for salads and some larger red heirloom ones for roasting. Last year's tomatoes were rubbish, so I'm hoping there is a massive improvement this year.

The peas are growing well (see where the stakes are) and we have lots of berries on the blueberry bush this year. The newly planted raspberry plants are also still alive despite Dog A L"Orange tearing past them at high speed when he has a mad five minutes.

Most exciting news is that our fruit trees look the heathiest we have ever seen them, even the apricot and dodgy plum tree that was pretty diseased last year. Just goes to show what some love care and a fair bit of rain can do!

Small Herb Garden

We had to get rid of our fig tree this year as the roots had wound their way around our sewer pipes and nobody wants raw sewage oozing out from under their deck.

The fig tree in April 2011 - full of fruit

Once the stump was chainsawed out we were left with a concrete square right between our kitchen and deck that looked pretty terrible.

Fig tree to left of pic

Mr L'Orange had the excellent idea of leaving the concrete and putting in a herb garden to satisfy all our culinary requirements, especially because the location is so close to the house.

We added lots of manure and compost to the area and then have tried to plant a couple of different types of seedlings each week. This makes it much easier to maintain and grow rather than planting everything in one go. We already had quite a few herbs in pots dotted around the garden so we just added them to their new wonderful big home and then bought seedlings on the cheap from the markets (you can't complain with 3 for $5).

So far our herb garden contains: lemon thyme, a curry plant, spring onions, rocket, baby spinach, baby bok choy, mixed leaves and flat leaf parsley.

We have purposely kept our garlic chives, mint and rosemary in pots as they have a tendancy to take over the entire plot.

I disguised the ugly concrete with some rocks and boulders we had lying about the garden. So far, the herb garden is growing really well and we have already had a salad from the leaves, which was delicious.