A new garden visualised.

This afternoon, after the Gorgeous Boy and I had finished all the chores, we set to mapping out the new garden beds for the vegetable garden. This will be a major exercise as it involves seventy two metres of retaining walls creating raised garden beds. Since we live on the side of a hill at the beginning of a beautiful valley there are very few true flat areas. A vast slab was cut before the shed was built to accommodate the shed and the house. The shed was erected and then, yours truly changed her mind (lets not go there!!!) and the house was built in a different area. I have to say, everyone agrees that it was the right decision but it did leave us with a very large flat area. We have utilised this, building our vegetable garden there and the "chook hilton". This had of course left us with a fairly significant bank behind. To ease maintenance of this area, we have decided to build an 800cm retaining wall along the base which will enable us to plant potatoes, melons etc which can sprawl to their hearts delight and slow down the never ending weeds. It will also slow down the flow of water in heavy rains, which tends to temporarily flood the vegetable garden.

So, armed with star pickets, a tape measure and some tape we have mapped out the area involved. I needed to "see" it! I can visualise how it will look but I wanted to be sure that everything would fit and there were not going to be any little "surprises" once the work began. A girl can only change her mind so many times!!!!

We are very happy with the results of our afternoons work and we both now have a clear idea of how it will look. The next move will involve the Gorgeous Boy and his tractor leveling off the area and drilling holes for the support posts. We are not kidding ourselves that this will be a simple task as we have MANY submerged rocks, which I have no doubt will be just where we want to sink a post! I am hoping that we can get most of the work done before the hot weather comes. A) we need to get the melon seeds in before spring and B) it gets awful hot out there some days. :-)

We had a load of wood delivered a few days ago, it should last us through what is left of winter. Hopefully there will be enough left to keep the wood fired oven going for a while.

Isn't it lovely.

Last night I made two more jars of preserved lemons. The lemons were on "special" at the supermarket when I went grocery shopping. $1.99 per kilo. At that price I couldn't walk past...they all whispered to me " preserve me, preserve me" who am I to ignore their call ;-) They look beautiful, so bright and fresh looking. I also pickled a jar of radishes.

I have read a few "random" foodie blogs recently written by American ladies who espoused the simple radish as delicious when pickled. I have never seen or tasted these before but since we love radishes here at Bellavista and we have a few growing a little large I decided to have a go.

I brewed up a pickling vinegar. 500ml cider vinegar, 500ml good quality white vinegar and 130g of sugar (courtesy of The Great Dane) and poured it over. Aren't they pretty? They are now in the fridge. I think we may need to taste test then next weekend. You never, never know if you never, never go!!!! That's my motto ;-)

I am off to bed for an early night tonight. We are heading down to Brisbane early tomorrow morning for a "De-gustation Lunch" at the Restaurant Manx with our wine tasting friends. I have looked at the menu and will definately be juggling my diet plan to accomodate it ;-) So sorry Gemini and the Great Dane will not be there to join us. They certainly seem to be enjoying their cruise.

S'all for now.