Summer has now begun in earnest, the once green "lawn" actually a mix of roman chamomile and winter grass/weeds/clover has turned dry and invaded by grasshoppers.
Some recently planted ornamental shrubs have been severely attacked - lesson here for me! .
The beans I planted and protected on their frame with two parallel layers of GrowCover and doing well. So it must have protected them from snails and slugs and wind. Only about four of my original beans planted on another unprotected trellis have survived and and now flowering - so it's the young seedlings that the slugs and snails seem to love.
I've mismanaged by lettuce planting or they just have not survived the sudden heat so we have finished up with very few for Christmas lunch. Fortunately the peas are doing well and are so sweet. The rocket and strawberries are a bit nibbled but still usable.
The self sown leaf amaranth is growing well along side some capsicums seedlings which need a bit of encouragement so I watered them with some fish and seaweed solution then mulched with hay.
The zucchini seeds collected last year have germinated in profusion so they have been thinned and mulched and are growing in a low hoop house for now. Once they are big enough and start flowering I will remove the GrowCover. That worked ok last year.
A mass of pumpkins germinated so has be radically thinned out and are now covered with a hoop house.
The Egg plants in the walk in hoop house are flowering - this is really exciting as they need such a long growing time and I am hopeful that we will get some fruit this year. The Capsicums in the same hoop house are beginning to fruit too.
Harvested some potatoes because the leaves died back, lack of water I suspect. The potatoes were pretty small but they didn't have much compost when I planted them as I didn't have enough to spare. There is never enough!
We have enjoyed a few raspberries from some canes given to us in Spring. I wasn't expecting any fruit until next year so it was a wonderful surprise - they really are my favourite cane fruit. We also had our first boysenberries.
The lemon tree is at last producing well and I love the perfume of the blossom. The nectarine, a couple of year old, has four small fruit, it's a start. The two young plum trees that are supposed to cross fertilise didn't flower at all this spring - someone suggested they might need more potassium.
The cherry trees, again only in their second year, have been attacked by cherry slug and I some kind of leave eating insect - large round shaped nibbles, so they are looking very sad at the moment. I was told that sprinkling with wood ash helps to protect from cherry slug. I was just too late.
About four cucumbers near the lemon tree with their own climbing frame are looking ok, that's a first and are developing flower buds. The ones planted by the big trellis all disappeared along with the beans. I'm growing some more in seedling pots too.
The corn did not germinate, I got them from a seed swap and I'm not sure how old the seed was so I wasn't altogether surprised.
The tomatoes are beginning to fruit but won't be ripe for a few weeks yet. We are eating our last lot of dried tomatoes from last year. I dry them and store them in the freezer. As needed I fill a small jar with the tomatoes, fill to a third with vinegar, top up with olive oil and add black pepper corns, mustard seed and coriander seed. They are great added to salads or eaten with cheese and biscuits. The flavour is intense, and I confess to eating them on their own too.
So it's watering, mulching and reading time of year and hopefully harvesting summer crops if they survive.
