David Holmgren's Permaculture garden tour

 Yesterday, Andrew and I attended a permaculture garden tour at Melliodora, David Holmgren and Su Dennet's property in Hepburn.

 The thing I most took from the tour was about improving soil.  We've been attempting to do this for a number of years, but really stepping it up this year.  2015 is the International year of soils, very appropriate.  We have quite sandy soil here (being not too far from the beach), and I have heard from older generations that the area we live in used to be market gardens, which has probably robbed the soil over time as well.

 David in the orange shirt

 The grand old pear tree that dayes back to about 1860.  I think I need to take some time to absorb all the information from the tour, little snippets come back to me, and i need to figure out how it applies to where we are and what we're doing (on a much smaller scale).

15 new plants that came home with us, from Digger's St Erth, Frogmore Gardens, Maldon Market, and Daylesford Market.  I'm reclaiming yet another piece of grass, that is mostly dead dust bowl at the moment.  I'm putting chook poo and straw mulch from the chookhouse, bunny poo, and some ash from the wood oven, just piling it up like sheet mulch.  I've just planted a couple of salvia bee's bliss ( a groundcover sage which attracts bees), and a few comfrey as a border (all from the above photo) in there, away from the rich manure.  When the weather cools in autumn, I'll probably plant an almond tree, which is deciduous (provides leaf mulch), has beautiful, early blossom (bees love it), and it will provide much needed summer shade.

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

Inside the hive

Andrew checked on his bes on the weekend to see how things were progressing, all looks good, and some honey is being made as well as lots of baby bees.  Our sunflowers have started to open over the last few days, it's great to see bees on them.

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.

We have bees

 Andrew has been doing a beekeeping course over the last couple of months, and yesterday some bees came to live on our roof. 

 Andrew in his beesuit. 

 This is a nucleus hive.  They will stay in that box for about a week, then will be moved into a proper hive.  They can get in and out of the box, they just need some time to orientate themselves before being moved.

We hope they are happy, and help to pollinate our plants, and give us some honey.

Into summer

 We are now harvesting yellow cherry tomatoes.  This photo was taken a week ago, and that is why the sun is shining, unlike today which is very soggy.  We've had over 25mm of rain since early yesterday morning, which is great to soak the garden and keep our tanks full in the lead up to a hot summer.

 Grapes developing nicely

 Our new beds filling up- we constructed gravel paths about 5 weeks ago.

 Little artichokes

 Boysenberries growing on our old gate that we removed from the front yard- we've started to pick these

 Golden delicious apples

 Sweet potato

 Rockmelon, watermelon, peas climbing the trellis, netted strawberries

 This year's garlic harvest waiting to be cleaned up

Evie's mint patch has taken off.  She has peppermint, apple mint, and chocolate mint.

And we have raspberries

We picked our first raspberries yesterday, it would have been earlier if those pesky birds hadn't gotten them first.  Liv and I had one each yesterday, then I netted the row.  Today, a small handful were ready.  I think most were from the Willamette variety, and one or two from the Sandford variety.  The Diggers Gold will fruit a bit later.  I'm liking the Willamette's, they don't have spikes on the stems, which makes it much easier to pull them out when they stray from their designated garden bed.  Very tasty too.  I think my old canes were from the heritage variety, but I had a series of mishaps with boggy soil and lost them all.  So I started with these new ones last year, this year we have fruit.  I hope to put some of these Summer treats on the Christmas table.