Friday, July 15, 2011

Mid-winter


 It's been a long, cold, grey winter here in Melbourne but today began with one of those gorgeous mornings that makes the whole of the chilly season seem worthwhile. For some unknown reason (perhaps because I cleaned my bedroom windows last night and the light was brighter, perhaps because it's the second last day of the holidays) I was wide awake at 6am. Looking out through the clear clear glass of the window I found the world outside was waking too. To the east, the gold domes of the Russian church were glimmering against a sky of palest pink. To the west, the sky was a deep blue backdrop for the round, gold setting moon. Perfect morning for an early dog walk.






Lucy and I stepped out to find the park shivering under a layer of silver frost. It was unbelievably, cheek burningly, paw freezingly beautiful. After a run across the icy grass we skipped down to the plot to see how the veggies were faring in the frost.

Which brings me, in a round about way, to my point. It's been a long time since I've written here and the fact that I've turned into a bad blogger has been playing on my mind of late. I feel that it's only good manners to explain my long silence. Putting aside the usual "busy busy" excuses, there are two main reasons for my lack of posts. And the first, is winter.

Growing up in Queensland, where you can plant tomatoes all year round, I never much noticed the change of seasons in the veggie garden. But here in cool-temperate Melbourne there's no getting away from it.... winter in the garden is kinda dull. Compared to glorious, bountiful summer fruiting crops like tomatoes, capsicum and eggplants, winter veggies are boring to eat and boring to grow. They tend to be green and good for you and there are no fascinating flowers or fruit to follow (broccoli, kale, silverbeet) and even when they are worth eating (potatoes, carrots, beetroot) most of the action happens underground. So I've taken the opportunity, over winter, to rest my plot under a layer of lucerne mulch. I've got a few pretty little self-seeded lettuce, and more recently some candy striped beetroot but other than that there's just not alot going on to write about.



The second reason I haven't been writing is.... the other blog. At the beginning of the year I started a blog at school with my class. The kids and their parents love it (really, love it) and keeping up a regular two posts a week on the class blog leaves me with very little blogging energy to spare. If, for some reason you're at a loose end and you desperately need to know how to play "race to ten" you can check out what my class and I have been up to over here.

At the moment I'm putting together the posts with my class but I'm hoping to train them up to write their own posts. With a bit of luck I'll have them writing and publishing and I'll manage to find more energy for blogging come spring, just in time for the start of the tomato season.