As you can tell by the title of the post, I have gone bean mad. I’m talking about the long green beans which are sometimes called french beans.

Out of all the vegies I’ve dabbled with so far in my first year of gardening, none have been so easy and rewarding as my beans. It’s really as simple as popping a bean seed into the soil and reaping the rewards as quickly as four weeks later (with some regular watering of course and lots of sunshine). I’ve been picking handfuls and handfuls of beans each week, more beans than we know what to do with.

The best thing about beans is they are so low maintenance – they don’t seem to attract any pests or diseases, and they are not fussy at all about soils. In fact I tried planting a batch in some fancy potting mix I bought thinking that they would grow better, but instead they turned yellow and became quite stunted. I suspect the potting mix may have been too acidic for beans which like a neutral pH. The other batch that I planted in my non-fancy ordinary garden soil with a little bit of compost added, flourished, and have been rewarding me ever since.

I chose a dwarf bean variety which takes up virtually no room, so they would do extremely well in pots on the patio or balcony. They don’t climb, are easy to harvest and are actually quite pretty to look at with their pale flowers and lush green leaves.

Like me, beans enjoy the hot weather so they are best planted in late spring and throughout summer. Last weekend I potted up some yellow butter bean seeds that I picked up from the nursery. I’ve never seen them in the shops before but they just looked so interesting I had to try some. There’s nothing like the crisp freshness of your own home grown beans.

A few weeks ago I spotted something curious in the garden – a little pile of bird droppings all in one spot under the wisteria. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I did notice a bit of fluttery commotion occasionally when someone would walk past.

It wasn’t until we gave the very overgrown wisteria its usual summer prune, that we noticed some shiny little eyes peering out at us.

It was a baby pigeon sitting on a very flimsy looking “nest” (if I could even call it that, being a few precariously placed branches). It was perched so quietly and serenely amongst the untamed and overgrown branches that no one had noticed it until then. I thought it was very funny that we had walked underneath the vines so many times without knowing that there was a little bird sitting right above our heads!

Thanks to the long lens of our camera we were able to snap a few shots of it without scaring it too much, although it definitely noticed us – its little head moved up and down trying to catch a glimpse of what we were up to.

It was only then that we noticed there was another baby pigeon behind it!

We kept a watchful eye on them over the next few days. We noticed their mother making many trips, flying in and disappearing into the wisteria, no doubt bringing many tasty little treats for the babies.

One day we got back and the nest was empty; the little ones had flown off! I felt a little bit sad to see them go but happy that they chose our wisteria as their first home.

We get a lot of pigeons around our yard, everytime I see them I always wonder if one of them might be our little feathery friends.

After surviving a very bizarre Christmas day, with thunderstorms, hail and everything else mother nature tried to throw at us, I can finally say that we are now truly in the midst of a Melbourne summer. We’ve had a few days in a row now in the high 30s, which combined with all the rain, has done wonders for my garden.

In particular, my blueberry. I waited all winter, patiently watching the little green flower-shaped berries ever so slowly fatten up, wondering if I would ever get to taste them. The first to ripen was a monster-sized berry almost the size of a small grape – so plump and succulent, you wouldn’t see one like that on the supermarket shelves!

Given my inexperience, I decided to leave the berry on the bush as long as possible to make sure that it ripened – I’ve read that they’re not ready until at least a week after they first change colour and can taste very unpleasant. I kept a watchful eye on the berry for a number of days, but one day when I came out to check on it, it had disappeared much to my dismay! Most likely it had become a snack for some very happy bird. I didn’t want to take any more risks and netted the bush to keep the little sticky beaks out.

Gradually, with a few more days of hot weather, more berries began to change from a light green to a pinkish purple and finally, ripened into a deep blue. I was very proud when I harvested my first batch of blueberries! Taste wise, they have a very subtle flavour and are on the whole quite sweet without the tartness of some of the store bought blueberries.

The rest of the plants are chugging along nicely too. The capsicums, chillies and tomatoes are soaking up all of the sunshine.

Just the other day, I planted some red corn, from the kernels that a friend kindly gave me. I have never seen red corn before so am very fascinated as to how they will turn out. It has just started to sprout and I am amazed at how quickly it grows. In a few days it went from a small green point poking out of the soil to a proud little seedling standing tall. It is great for impatient people like me!

I am now starting to reap the rewards of some of my hard work in winter. I harvested my first ever batch of garlic which I planted months ago. I did my best at braiding it as I had seen others do it online but I think I need a little more practice! And yes the bulbs are quite small – I think I might have gotten less than what I originally planted, but I’m still very happy with my harvest.

I also got a few “baby” beets.

This is my first post and I wanted to share with you what inspired me to get into gardening – my blueberry.

Every second article I read was touting the health benefits of the blueberry as a superfood. Over the coffee machine, I started talking with some colleagues about my fascination with growing a blueberry plant, only to discover that two of them had tried, but failed in the past. Blueberries can be quite fussy and picky plants. The challenge was on!

I was determined to give it a go and with the promise of those luscious silky bursts of flavour, I couldn’t resist. After hours of research and digging around on the internet about the optimal conditions for growing blueberries, I finally gained the confidence to buy one from the nursery – my first foray into the world of gardening.

It has been a part of our family for almost 7 months now. Since I brought it home, it has virtually doubled in size. Here it is today, in the heart of Melbourne’s winter, bare of all its leaves.  So far so good, the plant looks happy and healthy, although I’ve still got a lot to learn.

In just one week of warm weather – Melbourne’s warmest August days on record – the swollen buds at the end of each arm had burst open to reveal delicate white bell-shaped flowers:

Once it reaches its peak, around 5 years of age, I’ve read that blueberry plants can produce up to 5-7 kg of blueberries per plant a year! At the moment, my fingers and toes are crossed that these flowers don’t get damaged by the cold weather with the frosts that are around the corner.

My blueberry has spawned my passion for gardening and even in the short 7 month period I’ve had it, I have been inspired to dabble in growing a whole variety of different vegetables – some successful some not. In coming posts, I will show you around my garden and hope to share my gardening journey with you.