November garden in the morning

 After an unusually hot and dry October, yesterday we woke to thunder and lightning and lots of rain, such a relief.  There was 17mm in the rain gauge by the end of the day, and the garden is much happier for it.

 My experiment for the summer- growing in straw bales.  The idea is that the straw insulates against extreme heat and retains water, it breaks down over summer, and you're left with some good humus rich soil.  I added compost into the planting hole.

 Pumpkins coming up

 The garden bed that not much grew in, with lots of manure and mulch is growing much better.

 Lots of apricots on the tree

 Lots of almonds on the tree

Lots of raspberries and (not pictured here) lots of boysenberries, which I think will be an early crop this year due to the heat.

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!

Livinia is 6

 Liv turned 6 yesterday, and we forgot to take some birthday photos.  To our defence, she was at school, then had a couple of friends over for a "party", then we went out for dinner, then it was bed time.  And it started raining pretty much as soon as we walked home from school.  Today was a much quieter day with lovely weather.

 Poor kid, who'd have a birthday in December? 

 The garden is still growing well, probably the best time of year, before summer really heats up.

 Violet in front of our newest garden beds

 Flowering dwarf apple gum, I'm enjoying watching the bees buzz around it

 Yarrow 'Coronation Gold' is always a winner

 Avocados getting bigger- this is the biggest we've grown them so far, they normally drop off when they are the size of a pea.  Will this be our year for avocados?

 Golden delicious apples getting bigger

 Another favourite, the curry plant

 The grapes are growing very quickly

Dinner tonight- cold boiled eggs, lettuce, carrots, snowpeas, yellow cherry tomatoes.  Doesn't get much better than this.

From carrots to carrot cake

 Fresh picked carrots this morning plus fresh eggs from our chickens equals

 Yummy carrot cakes!

That's what it's all about

February garden update

 Sedum 'Autumn Joy' with a lavender cotton border.  These two are drought hardy, and look great at this time of year in our front yard.  The sedum brings in the bees, and it's an area I don't have to water.

 Cucumbers still going- must go and pick the next lot before they get too big!

 Capsicums coming along after the first crop was burnt by severe heat.

 Cape gooseberries have taken off, and one of the fruit forming below like a little lantern.

 Autumn fruiting raspberries (fingers crossed for a first year fruit, I only planted them in December!)

 Leeks thickening up.  We lost some in the heat, but I'll fill in the gaps soon with some I'll grow from seed.

 Basil- pesto making this weekend

 Trombocinos have taken off, they were a bit slower than the other zucchinis

Beans of some sort that I pinched from some dry pods.  They were purple with black specks on them.
We had some good rain on Wednesday, and can see the difference in the garden.  The tanks have been topped up after being very low too.  It's still summer, but feels like autumn at the moment.  I've been spending a lot of time cutting things back and tidying up in the garden, fingers crossed for no more extreme heat.

Early January garden

 The garden is producing well at the moment, luckily, we've only had one extremely hot day at a time, rather than a heatwave so far, so the garden has recovered pretty well after a hot day.  We've even had some rain this week, so I've confident enough to plant the next round of carrots, some leeks, and some cosmos (to attract beneficial insects) in the beds that the potatoes came out of.

 The biggest pumpkin so far.

 Cucumbers making their way up the teepee

 Leeks up one end, cosmos up the other

 The backyard in full bloom, attracting lots of Honeyeaters

 More rambling pumpkins

 Zucchini

Pumpkins taking over, with some watermelon and sweet potatoes in the foreground