May Catch-up

It seems like forever since I last updated this blog.
Mainly because the bearded wonder has had his heart surgery and I've been busy taking him to doctor's appointments and rehabilitation. He is coming on very well as we have also been out and about on photo expeditions to relieve his boredom as he isn't allowed to work for several weeks.

The price of oranges was low this week so I bought quite a lot and made it into cordial as the bearded wonder loves homemade cordial.

Remember that I was growing a black round variety of zucchini. Well the top orange thing is one of the black zukes that has been sitting on my bench for 6 weeks and its changing colour and the skin is hardening off like a pumpkin. This is interesting to me so I am doing a kind of experiment to see what happens next. If it looks like its going to go soft I will use it as an ingredient in Django's homemade dogfood, otherwise I will see if it lasts as well as a pumpkin.

Well the chickens that I got in August are about to come online to lay. A couple of them are laying tiny practice yolkless eggs. Out of the 5 chickens I received then, 4 appear to be hens and 1 was a rooster which I gave to a neighbour to eat. The 8 chickens that hatched out just before Christmas are growing fast and will probably begin laying in spring if not before. It appears, at this stage, that only 2 of the 8 were roosters which were passed on the the neighbour to eat. Even though I am capable of knocking them off and preparing them for cooking, I really can't be bothered. My neighbour is a struggler who really wanted my roosters, so I was only to happy to help him out to a free feed or three.

The last of my tomatoes hanging up to ripen. I had to pull them out because I needed to room for the broad beans which I planted last week.

I trimmed my espaliered fruit trees and cut off all last season's fruiting canes off the thornless blackberries. The ones remaining will fruit madly for us this coming summer.

The peas are flowering, so if the frost stays away we will harvest peas in a month or so.

One bed of the garlic I have growing. This year, Django has been a naughty boy and dug a few out which I have to replant. He got bored when I was spending every day at the hospital.

I have harvested loads of potatoes and I doubt I'll have to buy any this year at all. They just keep on coming. I harvested my sweet potato and already ate them and forgot to photograph them. I have cuttings in getting ready to be planted out again this season if I have room. I have plans to move the position of the sweet potatoes as I'll explain shortly.

I have onions and leeks popping up from the self seeding that has occurred.

I'm trying Kale out for the first time. The seedlings are looking quite healthy.

I still have in loads of spring onions. As I harvest these, I have not pulled them out but just cut them off at the base and they have been regrowing so can be harvested again and again.

and Swiss Chard mainly for the chooks but I do put some into soups, frittatas and the dog food.

Still loads of potatoes growing happily.

I have a dwarf Meyer lemon that has lost its leaves because it didn't like the salty winds here, so when I was harvesting the sweet potatoes from this bed, it dawned on me how lush and rich the soil was there and how sheltered it was so I moved the lemon there as well as my mandarin which still has its leaves.

 

When I was at the nursery, I found a lemon tree called a Lemonicious (a patio tree which thrives in a pot, supposedly) which claimed to be good for coastal areas, so I bought it as an insurance, in case the other one doesn't take advantange of its cosy new digs.

My brassicas are growing well without holes caused by cabbage moths and caterpillars, even though the old mossie net I'm using to protect them has several large holes. Today I just had a flash BBQ delivered as it appears that I won it. I'll put it on Gumtree tonight as I have a smallish one that is more suitable for our needs. Looks good hey!