gardening endavours and lemons

Ever since I moved to Australia I have had this fascination with growing my own food. We don't have a backyard, but books like The Edible Balcony keep this flight of fancy alive despite its varies issues.  My maiden name was Garden and for some reason, I carry this idea that I can do anything garden-related if I just put my mind to it, because, you know, with a name like that, how could you not :-) Oh, what I would give for a balcony like this ... (it's from the book)

We had a variety of plants on it over the years, but the strawberries have always gotten some sort of mouldy disease, the tomatoes also struggled, and the lettuce is bitter. On the herbs side we were slightly more successful. Thyme, Oregano and Dill do really well. Basil is a bit temperamental, but okay. Rosemary always dies eventually and coriander, when it actually germinates, gets eaten by something.

My husband dream of an orchard, so for 3 years we had a dwarf avocado tree, that eventually died due to some type of grub eating it's roots. I tried to get rid of the grubs, but they always came back. Eventually I bagged up the tree and the soil and threw it out. Not to be defeated, a year ago, we bought a lemon tree ... inspired mostly by Carolyn's lemon tree.

And looksie ... 6 lemons survived to ripen. 5 on the little tree ...

and we picked one ...

for our lovely Greek inspired lamb roast on Sunday. Disaster struck when our internet went down on Saturday and we had no recipes printed out ... only a shopping list. We decided to improvise on the recipe (a mix of oregano, rosemary, thyme, mint, lemon, garlic) and defer the baking part to a later date, but the leg of lamb looked and tasted great. It made for wonderful leftovers that were put in some pita bread with some yoghurt, garlic and cucumber mix :-)