ANOTHER DELICIOUS WEDNESDAY

I love Wednesdays because, as I wrote in the previous post, it's garden group day. However that was meant to be all over for this year with that lunch at Kathy's last week. Then, a couple of days ago Kathy rang me and said that she and her husband were going blueberry picking at a place near Mt Compass on Wednesday and would I like to come. They had made friends with a couple down there who had bought some land cheaply because it was a bog and couldn't be used for anything ! Well, blueberries grow naturally in a bog so they planted a few acres and now they have huge, luscious blueberries this time of the year. Unfortuately I forgot the camera but the upshot of it is that in 1 hour we picked 30kg of blueberries !

Kathy grew up in Canada in an area famous for its blueberries and told me it was below sea level and had a dyke, like in Holland, and high rainfall so bog was an understatement. Anyway, this place at Mt compass was heaven in a drought - so, so green with a garden to die for, a huge weeping willow in the middle of the greenest lawn I have seen for years and so cool on that hot and humid morning. A bog is my new heaven !
Of course that afternoon was our seedsavers picnic and we all met at the Economic Garden. It was a feast for the senses because, after 1 minute of rain, there was that smell of moisture on a parched landscape. Obviously the Botanic gardens have a bore or something because it was all so green and healthy. I have noticed before that the fragrance of herbs is intensified in the heat and this was certainly the case yesterday.

All the usual suspects were there and Denis, one of our newest members, came along too. If you haven't been to the Economic garden you are missing one of Adelaide's gems. It is planted out with annual and perenial herbs and vegetables and any plant that has been grown for economic use, such as papyrus, bamboo, gourds etc. They grow unusal varieties of vegetables like the purple okra and paprika capsicums and there are beans, citrus and pumpkins growing on an espalier, which forms the backdrop to the whole thing. As you can see in these photos it is packed with plants grown in a most enjoyable arrangement.

Although it was hot and unusually humid, the green lawns along the paths and the magnificent and gigantic shade trees, such as planes, moreton bay figs and others made it so perfectly cool...oh,no don't get me started on how plants are the solution and not the problem, again , and we should be preserving our green environment instead of killing it by not watering it and making our part of the world even hotter! Governments...Just thinking about the pleasure of being there in that garden stops my blood boiling with anger.



Anyway, after some sustenance, we went off to see the new house for the Amazon Lily and that shows what you can do when architect meets glass-house maker.

Now we won't meet again until February when Deb has invited us to Nirvana - another cool spot for a hot day. Aren't we lucky to be able to enjoy all this together. Meeting with all of our seedsaver friends has been another thing to have made 2007 so wonderful for me. Merry Christmas to you all and see you in the new year.