Apples and oranges

and paris market carrots and purple dragon carrots and cylindrica baby beets and gourmet delight bush beans and zucchini and mixed heritage radishes and there are jaune flamee tomatoes as well in there somewhere and - oh yes - eggs. And a long green chili. No pattypan squash today, but there will be strawberries later, I think because I'm hoping to re-do the netting a little bit later (if the rain holds off). At the moment, the netting is so cumbersome that I need to send a neighbour-child in under it - and then pay him in strawberries, which is fair but unphotographed.

The oranges surprise me - they've been hanging around since winter, and the tree is flush with new growth, but these are still as sweet as anything (though hard to pick without climbing.)  The apples from the hen's run are gorgeous - but we didn't net them. We will next year. The others from the ballerinas are not quite ripe - we only netted half a dozen of those just to see if they're worth the trouble.

A possum pulled the netted nectarines down. Clearly we need to think this through.

Made up a couple of dozen pitticelle and *gasp* froze them - but we've already tried it with latkes, and we know that if you blast them (frozen) at 240 degrees fan-forced for ten-fifteen minutes, they crisp up very, very well.

The next lot will go into the dehydrator for soup mix.  :)

Food

We're currently (really - right now as I speak)  eating Jonathon's kipfler potatoes, my massey peas cooked in butter and Jonathon's green garlic with a little of the McKeith rosemary and salt that we bought in the Carmargue. A side of kale salad and radishes. Not too bad.

The pea thing is huge at the moment - I have the ones we're harvesting and two more plantings to follow. I probably planted too much chard, just enough spinach and there can always be more radishes.

The cauliflowers are just forming heads, also the broccoli. I transplanted the brandy wine and jaune flamee which are looking very healthy.  The weather is totally stupid. 37 degrees one day, 18 the next. There's no need to factor it into the planning - just plant everything all the time would be my advice.

We're back -

We had to go away for a few days while the floors were sanded.

The weather this week has been most odd. Very cold, and three days of rain, then very high winds and rather hot (25+ degrees). The garden seems to cope better than I do. One of the Rockets has started to lay  :)

The apple trees are flowering, the plum is beginning to plum and the michaelis hedge is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. I adore this place!

Today I put in another row of spinach, two rows of fennel, a row of carrots and radish (we're eating those other radishes now) and a few more beans. But I was watering most of the day because oh! those winds!

My regime at the moment in the vegie garden is weed one and feed two beds each day. Full watering happens every second day for ten minutes.

In seed news, the brandywine and jaune flamme tomatoes are up, but still a long way from transplant sized. The yellow and red grapes are flowering.

Imma start a garden journal and keep it here

View to the front garden today. Beautiful, yes?



It's very warm here today.

CURRENT CONDITIONS IN BOWRAL, NSW
Current Temp:23.7°C	Humidity: 25%	Pressure:1021.8hPa
Feels like: 23.7°C	Wind Speed: 30kp/h (Gusts: 48kp/h)
Dew Point: 2.5°C	Wind Direction: N/A

Despite the advice of the Old Locals, I put some tomatoes in yesterday (not till Labour day! No tomatoes in before Labour day!) and I'm sure they'll be proved right, but honestly how patient am I expected to be? I put in four Black Russian, two Yellow Pear and a Red Grape - all heritage. The Yellow Pears I put into containers (thank you, The Helpful Gardener blog) - and the red grape as well, just to be sure.

I also sowed six Jaune Flamme and six Brandywine.

Tomorrow I'll take a shot of the vegie patch, and note how everything else is going. Also, tomorrow - Jocelyne's hollyhocks go in :)