Thursday, June 28, 2012

Too cold, or not?

You would think that it was too cold for anything to be growing in the garden when the ground is white over with frost when we wake up in the morning, but get a blast of the winter sun and start mooching around in the garden and you get all fired up that things are still ticking over quite nicely.  There is an abundance of new growth going on out there.  There are  tiny seedlings popping through where I thought it was too shady and the seeds would rot in the cold damp soil, well they surprised me and here they are in neat little rows.  Bulbs that I had forgotten about have leaves to give a hint of where there will soon be bright flowers come the spring time. In the veggie beds in the midst of winter things are still moving along giving us something to harvest for our evening meals, rocket, and silverbeet the main harvest, the pumpkins all harvested now and stored away, the citrus trees young and old filled with fruit....take a look....

 Tiny little seedlings of pok-choy, lettuce and silverbeet and the broad beans standing proud..

 Silverbeet and corriander here, this is where the potatoes will be growing.....


In the blue post creeping up the sticks are snow peas with herbs around them. The mandarin tree has sweet fruit..

 Oranges and a sunny blue sky.....
 Limes a good crop this year......


Lemons, lemons, better get baking.....


The brassica bed, I keep peeking the sprouts haven't moved yet but look at the brochili and rocket...

The young citrus trees, lemonade, tangelo, manderin all with good fruit....


The trusty silverbeet, if we haven't used it and its got a bit large and bitter we give the leaves to the guinea pigs and wait for some smaller ones to grow....

 A view from up on the rock as I was up there with M and the dog....


Back down the other side....


Lettuce


 Seedlings look at them all coming through, quite exciting....
Tea bags, great for the soil and encouraging worms and good mulch too, and when banked up and supported with twigs makes a good damn wall for when we get heavy rain to prevent the soil washing away around the roots of the trees.  Another excuse to drink more tea! Happy winter gardening from here.

Here is Billy

 A sunny winter day and we get out into the garden, above is M checking the guinea pigs


And checking on me...
 And keeping an eye on Billy, here he is in his winter coat, he is 5 months old, we got him last weekend, he is settling in well....
 Miss Molly cat having a rest....







 'Oh an itch just there, and please get my good side on the photos', ok Billy!


 If you can just keep still for a moment Molly cat, M wants to give you a pat.....








OOPs tooo close watch out for that left claw of Mollys.....

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Out and about and furry friends...

 A bit of fun at the supermarket a ride on the ice-cream van and....
 a race car.....
 What better way to enjoy a mandarin - fresh from the tree on a frosty winter morning..
 A dividing wall in the guinea pig hutch to keep the male from the females, you know the reason for that?
 More furry friends, 3 of the guinea pigs had babies all but one gone to the pet shop...
 This is Biscuit the male, long haired and quite a size now.
 Baby 'piglets' having cuddles with M.
 Her new one, called Miss Fluffy..

 Shes very fluffy and sweet



 Inspired by Masterchef, Grace being creative in the kitchen, here she made piklets......

 Served with cream and jam, they where tasty..
 Enjoyed by all!

 Here is Billy, 5 months old, little sweetie.....