My Summer Harvest
Walking with my dogs often through the forest I am always amazed by the diversity and the inter-dependency of the many organisms in the forest. No matter how many times I walk down the same path the scenary will be different. A new branch could have falled in my path which I just pick up and throw to the side.
Wild orchids or mushrooms could spring up on a tree stump which was not there before. The different seasons will bring about changes in the atmosphere, the colour of the forest. Sunlight filtered through the leaves during different seasons and at different angles can take the same scene and turn it into something else. So no two days are alike even though I walk down the same path through the same forest.
This is how God created life. Varied. Colourful. Diverse and full of surprises. In an earlier article I explained how different does not mean bad as the world will have you think.
Mankind has turned life into an ordered structure where they have replaced vasts forests with one crop plantations and in the process destroyed fragile eco-systems that depend on each other to thrive. Watch this video on how important bees are and you’ll get an idea of how every little action we take that disturbs this fragile system has dire consequences on the whole world.
So with this article I want to celebrate the diversity of the wild forest and show you how my garden is mixed up with a variety of vegetation all growing together in a mish-mash. Not ideal for some people but that’s the way I like it
These beans and tomatoes share the same frame and they grow together like one plant
My papaya trees had trunks so black at one time as in the photo on the left. I almost gave up on them, but I gave them good nutrition and waited. I could not believe how the blackness disappeared and the trunk began to clear up and look healthy. It is the same with our body. It is never too late to redeem an unhealthy body. All it takes is good nutrition. You are what you eat.
The photo on the right is of the window above the kitchen sink. There is a fly screen behind the window. I deliberately allowed the bitter melon to grow off the frame onto the lemon tree because they look so pretty merged with bitter melons hanging together next to lemons as though they are both growing from the same tree
Many fruits on these papaya trees. They had a slow start due to setback from last winter but with proper nutrition they have bounced back so well that the tree is pushing up the net covering it.
Radishes is normally a cool climate vegetable, but this one and two more came out nicely this summer. The miracles that happen in the garden [sigh]. Bottom left is Turkish eggplant. They are now sitting in a jar fermenting and being turned into cultured food. Strawberries on the right we get all year round.
I mixed Jap pumpkins and Queensland Blues together and let them grow on an old log. And in between I also planted white cucumbers and ginger and tumeric. I got a lot of white cucumbers for about a month and then they died out but all the rest are going strong and nice to see a variety of pumpkins curing in the sun for long storage over winter.
