A pregnant quenda

We caught a pregnant quenda on camera although they're shy and come out at night we see them at dusk. This one was trying to get into the seed garden - no doubt it had a craving for peas. It's right in the middle of the photo next to the top daisy.

Lisa's herbs and roses

 Lisa's been busy planting roses

 .....and her herb garden is looking amazing!

Potato fruit

These are potato fruits - you can grow potatoes from seed. Normally they're grown from "seed" potatoes, that is small potatoes grown above 250m altitude. You can breed you're own potato varieties this way (otherwise they are the same as the parent plant).

Wild seed garden

 The seed garden is looking a little like wilderness - I'll have to do some more work in there.

About to harvest some onions - good, they will make some more space for something else. They take up such a long time in the garden bed.

The radish forest

 Abandon all hope ye who enter - the Black Spanish Radish Forest.

I'm collecting these for seed - they're over my head and tricky to get past.

A fair bit of food

 We're now getting a fair amount of food from the AP orchard garden.

Baby carrots and turnips

 The same plus purple radishes

We're getting a large amount of baby carrots.

Globe artichokes can feed you

 Contrary to what other gardening authors say, I think globe artichokes are well worth growing. We have whole meals of artichokes in early summer.

They are very easy to grow - a kind of low-maintenance food source, just waiting around to be picked. A bit fussy to process but once you get the hang of it - well worth doing (they're delicious!).

Globe artichokes cooked in butter with warrigal greens.

First earlies

Here's some of our first early potatoes (and a "Black Spanish" radish). Earlies are always much appreciated but there's never enough.

Spring - WOW!

Here's the view from our kitchen window, paulownia trees flowering and into the young citrus forest.

The gates to the seed garden.

The arch to the plum tree that gave us 12 crates of plums in the driest year ever with no watering.

Clive's garden - named for a departed friend - looking blooming wonderful.











The kitchen garden from outside the window below.

   

Lisa's herb garden going mad.

I love spring!

Truth, liberty and radishes!

Here's Lisa's looking like Joan-of-Arc with a Spanish radish.

 Lunch was a radish salad from the garden (with borage flowers)

 

The gardens are alive!

 It's spring and our gardens are brimming with life and new growth. Row crops in the AP orchard are coming up.           Carrots ->

 <--  "Purple Plum" Radishes

 "Black Spanish" radishes    ---->
(more than I'd care to eat)

and spring onions (mostly for next year)

 A happy looking frog in the lounge garden. Must have eaten a lot things in the garden that would have eaten our food. A good friend to have and a sign of garden health.

 Lettuce seedlings coming up in a seed bed in the seed garden. These ones are "Butterhead".

 The nursery is starting to fill.

 Lisa's pot of pansies.

 Snow peas ("Roi de Carouby" - my favorite) coming up in the kitchen garden. The quendas didn't find these ones.

 Some things are flowering already in the seed garden. Broccoli, Chinese mustard and Alexanders.

These Dutch Purple-podded peas are looking OK. Definitely better than last year in the drought. I think it's going to be a good season.

The mystery of the disappearing peas

For the last 2-3 weeks my pea seeds have been disappearing. Mice, I thought, after the first few holes. Next night - more missing. Filled the holes in. Next night even more - way more than I'd ever lost at once in any previous year in my life. I had to replant two whole trellises of peas and a quite a few off a third trellis. OK - I covered all the pea trenches with 1cm mesh - I do this some years when the mice are bad.
Next night - more peas gone. They had dug under the mesh. Most unusual.
Next night more peas missing. This kept going on for a while. I'd fill holes in (the mesh couldn't quite cover all the peas) and the smaller pieces of mesh weren't that heavy. Then one night I noticed larger pieces of mesh moved quite a way back from the trellis.
I put pieces of wood on top of the mesh to hold them down - that should do the trick.
Rats - I put it down to - big buggers and lots of them.
This kept on going for a while. Then it dawned on me - it can't be rats - even rats couldn't move the wire that far - it must be Quenda's (short-tailed bandicoots). I've seen a lot of quendas around recently. So I quickly found some old cupboard doors to act as low solid gates to the seed garden.
This morning - no peas eaten.
Problem solved - gourmet PEA EATING QUENDAS.  Quenda's have a taste for garden peas so watch out!

PS. My war with the quendas is over and finally we have peas.....

NZ spinach for bread

We swap NZ spinach (also called warrigal greens) with the local cafe for loaves of bread. It's much easier for us to grow greens this way than produce bread - although we still do that too!

Spring In the Seed Garden

The seed garden is looking good this time of year.

 I cut back some of the black wattles from behind the garden to reduce root competition.

 Too much ruby chard!

Still getting broccolini - leaving the rest for seed.
Letting the berries grow up the trellis this year - the plan is to cut them back after fruiting so we don't get too many spiky leaves in our seed bed.

 Chinese Kale is doing well (about to flower)

 Here's natures pest control at work - a ladybug eating aphids on a broccoli. If you squash some of the aphids the ladybugs are attracted to the scent. Ladybug nymphs look totally different (kind of like a striped earwig) but eat a lot of aphids all the same.

 There's a spider waiting in the beet.

 A bee pollinating the broccoli.

 The beets are almost too beautiful to eat!

Seed pods (siliques) forming on the broccoli.

Mulching madness

The Seed garden is nearly mulched up

Lisa has mulched up a new herb bed (what a feral!)