17th November 2007

The food garden is doing splendidly. It is still early days for produce, but I have had many lovely new King Edwards from the feral potato patch, and likewise 2 kilo of delicious peas from some peas which grew from the winter spread of pea straw. I am eating my way through the beetroot I pickled last summer, and still have leeks available. The spinach and silverbeet (swiss chard) are also providing lots of yummy greens.

As well, I have about a dozen capsicums growing, and some of the tomatoes are beginning to fruit. I had put the tomatoes out into gigantic terracotta pots ... and most are doing well, but one of the pot's drainage holes have blocked and one poor tomato is now dying from an overabundance of water. I did my best to protect these drainage holes, but not enough, I guess. It has some fruit ripening on its dying vine, though, so I will achieve at least two tomatoes from it. My winter onion crop is still bulbing up - I am desperate to get it up as I need that bed, but these onions are taking their own sweet time about maturing. They are almost there, but not quite. The garlic, and all the herbs are growing on well - the garlic should be ready for harvest soon.

The damned bloody blackbirds dug up my seedling carrots, but my strawberries are producing and the raspberries are going to give me a huge harvest in a few weeks' time.

Finally the hothouse has arrived and is now up and running. Many thanks to Joanna and Tony for their help in this - I am hopeless at flat packs anything more than a metre square. Thus far (early days) it appears a great success. I have some new baby tomatoes in there, as well the capsicums Today I put in trays of peanut seeds (a great experiment, I really hope it works) and some Japanese climbing cucumbers (to be used more for gherkins, I think).

Boy does it get warm in there! As well as providing a happy home for heat loving plants, it is also a terrific place to raise bread dough. I bought a fluorescent lighting system (solar powered) from ebay, so hopefully that will provide light and a bit of warmth on cloudy winter days.

The flower garden is delightful. Many of the roses have really sprung ahead, the lupins are blooming, the giant rhubarb have flowered and all the new mop-top robinias have transplanted well - the apple trees, still tiny babies, are also forging ahead.

And now I am off - I have run out of perlite for my seed trays.