I’ve just added the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden Society website to my resources list. It’s full of great local resources including an ‘In The Garden This Month’ section which I know I will be referring to on a regular basis.

Here’s what they say needs to be done this month:

Yikes, looks like I’m going to be busy!

Finally, the lillies have started to bloom!

I’m actually going to try and visit some other GTS bloggers today.  I’m usually too busy with the kids / garden or working to spend time on the internet but if I get a spare hour, I’ll be here seeing what’s new with everyone else!

What’s blooming in your garden this week?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Crosspost from my private blog:

Our driftwood sandbox is finally complete!  I hate it when a project takes weeks longer than planned.  We still need to scrounge up some more free gorgeous white sand from Thormanby Island to completely fill the sandbox but other than that it’s done:

Here’s how we made it:

1. Scrounge driftwood ($0 and a workout for Bart)
2. Remove turf and dig down six inches, stack turf for compost (workout for Anne)
3. Lay newspapers and landscape fabric
4. Lay driftwood
5. Secure driftwood ($12 hardware)
6. Sand driftwood
7. Fill with sand ($0 thanks to Duane and his boat)
8. Use an old lattice frame as a cover ($0)

So there you have it.  A gorgeous sandbox that fits in perfectly to our garden and when the kids grow too old we can fill it with soil for a raised garden bed.

I’m busy today thinking of all the ways I can bake with and preserve all this fruit!

I slept most of today away as I was recovering from night shift, but I was able to spend a good three hours working outside.  Also, my parents are visiting for a few days so we had a lovely dinner in the front yard, built a poor man’s firepit, then had a soak in the hot tub.  What a great Sunday!

Our poor man’s fire pit built out of an old tire rim we found in the garden when we moved in.  I still want a grate and maybe some sort of surround.   It’s not pretty and not kid friendly but it will do the job for now:.  Any suggestions on how I can tart this up on a budget?

Some hens and chicks that I stuffed into a driftwood border:

A flowering stalk.

‘Upon maturity (usually around 3 to 4 years old) the plant will send up a single stalk that can reach 5-15 cm tall. The head of the stalk is a cluster of star-shaped flower buds 1-2 cm in diameter, which range in color from dark pink to yellow and that flower for several weeks. After blooming, the plant will die. Usually by this time it has produced many offsets (’chicks’).’

What’s blooming in your garden this week?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Why do I keep buying those tasteless US strawberries when we have the sweetest, most juiciest berries in our own backyard!  Here’s Cailey with today’s harvest, and that just from one bed!

Some random photos from this week in our garden (we are still working on securing all the sand for the sandbox, but Bart lugged home 1/6th of it from Thormaby Island today).  Poppies in the veggie garden:

Veggie garden:

A few of the raised beds at the front of the house:

What’s blooming in your garden this week?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

What is this, the third day of summer or something and finally we’ve had a half decent day!

We’d been planning on making a wooden sandbox for the kids but since money is a little tight, we decided that rather than buy timber, why not get it for free.  So we spent this afternoon down at the beach gathering driftwood.  We came back and laid it all out, removed the sod and dug down a bit.  Unfortunately, and to the disappointment of the kids, that’s as far as we got as there are no building supply shops open on Sundays in our town so the completion will have to wait until tomorrow.

Now to source out cheap / free sand.  I suggested to Bart to sneak down to the beach after dark, every night for a week with a big bucket but he’s not to keen on that idea.

Here are some pics of what is blooming in my garden this week:

What’s blooming in your garden this week?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

And another week of neglect.  I’m working a lot the next few weeks but desperately trying to stay on top of things.  We’ve decided that it was really really dumb to sell our old utility trailer last year as there is no green waste pick-up here and yesterday alone I (over)filled the wheelbarrow twice with weeds.

This week, my daughter and I transplanted some carrots, more kale and a dozen or so jack-o-lantern seedlings from the greenhouse into a raised bed on the east side of the house.  I had to booby trap said raised bed as our black lab Agnes is fond of digging in that exact spot.

The beans are coming along and the apple trees are out of control with zillions of apples starting to grow, as is the plum tree.  I was sad in my discovery that some of the ‘weeds’ I pulled out of the veggie garden were actually giant poppies, but there were crowding the beans and strawberries, and I’d rather have fresh food over pretty petals.  I’ll save the seed from whats left and plant them next year. 

No pics, but the tea-tree seedlings are finally starting to look like little trees, which is quite exciting considering the age of the seed packet I found them in.

I needed a last minute hostess gift for dinner tonight, in addition to a bottle of wine, so I gathered some flowers from the garden and arranged this (not too shabby considering I’m no good at arranging flowers):