Endless Summer

 Livinia picking apricots in the new year

 Seems I lost my blogging mojo over summer, but here are some productive garden snapshots from the last 3 months.  We had a bounty of apricots and nectarines, the trees were well pollinated by the bees in spring.

 A little bit of soap making, lavender and peppermint

 And beeswax candlemaking from our beeswax and our eggshells

 Some of our almond harvest... scorched almonds for Easter?

 Golden delicious apples have been picked this week

 Butternut pumpkins coming along

 The second flush of raspberries ready for autumn

 Banana rockmelon, hopefully will ripen before the cold sets in

 Some of our 43kg honey harvest from 3 hives this season

 Garden looking good after the huge rains we got on January 27.  The sedums are at their best and covered in bees at the moment.

February garden

 It is getting closer to the end of summer, and we're getting some good harvests, and starting the autumn clean up.  We're enjoying our first blooms from this dwarf flowering gum, after planting it nearly a year ago, I'm looking forward to it growing to it's full height, and being covered in blossom every summer.

 The pumpkins are taking over, though not sure if we'll get a lot of pumpkins from them.

 Avocados continue to get bigger

 Freshly planted dwarf black mulberry

 The new bed chugging along- 35 degrees celcius today, so it's a bit wilty

 Cantaloupe Minnesota Midget

 Watermelon moon & stars

 Backyard beds

 My new echinacea flannelette pyjamas- I'm having a break from making new items for Etsy, and making a few things for myself.  These will be great for winter.

 Liv with Violet

 The next flush of raspberries!

 Andrew's cantaloupe

 Bee enjoying an artichoke flower

Burr comb

The bees are exploding in population now, enjoying tasty treats in our garden

Mid January garden

 Artichokes flowering- the bees love these

 A new garden bed- I've been layering up used chicken house straw, with rabbit poo, chopped up comfrey, banana skins, rock dust.  I've put in a border of comfrey (there are some comfrey roots buried in there that are yet to come up.  My salvia "bee's bliss" is in there, and in a few months, I'll plant an almond tree.  You can see the quality of the "grass" next to this bed, it's quite compacted and sandy.

 Golden delicious apples, only it's second summer.  I had to thin the fruit, as it was way too heavy for the poor tree.

 Sweet potatoes are starting to take off

 The pumpkins are also starting to take off

 The new beds are full of life

 Kiwi fruit plants are surviving, but they need a lot of soil improvement

 Cox's orange pipins getting quite big

 Driveway garden is progressing

 One of 10 (10!) avocados still on the tree.  I've put little drawstring organza bags on them to keep the beasties out, fingers crossed.  Andrew is very excited, he'd be happy with just one reaching maturity.

Part of the apricot harvest, halved, de-stoned and now in the freezer for my breakfast smoothies.  We've been lucky with rain this summer, things are surviving nicely.  I'm just hoping that February is not a scorcher!

A day at Heronswood

 A week ago we went to Heronswood gardens at Dromana, on the other side of the bay,  Heronswood is a Diggers garden.

 You can see how close it is to the ocean here, but it's quite elevated.

 Heronswood House

 Baby chickens

 The herb garden

 Echinops- I hope mine flowers this year!

 Allium Drumsticks

The remains of the cafe that burnt down last summer at the back