Bees and weeds

Weeding. Seems to be about the only thing I do out in the garden these days. Have just come inside for a bit after spending a couple of hours out there. I close my eyes and all I see is weeds!

At least the bees are happy out in the garden, they don't seem to mind whether the flowers they visit are from an actual plant or from the many million trillion weeds that are growing so prolifically. Wish the garden would grow with such abundance :)

The first rose of the season

'Whiskey'

Hoping Mum's comfrey plant keeps growing and then I may be able to have a small piece to plant out, I have read that it is a very good compost activator.

The crustless broccoli, feta and sundried tomato quiche I made, tasted really good will have to make another one. Still have so many eggs. Might have to make a pavlova too!

Enough sitting down I guess, time to go back outside and pull some more weeds out. Also have a couple of small plants and some seedlings to get in the ground. Found a nice healthy tomato plant that had self-seeded in the gravel path in the vege garden so will go and transplant it into one of the garden beds. Really should be doing some work inside, but I think that can wait a bit longer, the garden wins.

Wet, wooly and wild

The post title pretty much sums up what the weather is like today. The exact opposite of yesterday where the sun shone and it was quite warm. What a difference a day can make!

The whole garden is waking up and flowering like crazy. Not much is happening in the vege garden yet, it is all about the flower gardens and the fruit trees.

So happy to see the cherry tree finally starting to bloom, pretty much all the other fruit trees have finished and this is the last one. The flowers look so delicate. I have my fingers crossed we have better luck this season as we only had four cherries last season.

Seeing the apricots made me very happy too!

I think they are my favourite summer fruit.

I got such a shock yesterday when I found this flower on the passionfruit vine. I had been thinking recently about ripping the vine out as it appears to only be rootstock. We had a stray dog here not long after I had planted the vine and she had chewed the main stem quite badly, to the point I didn't think it had survived. Quite awhile later I noticed it starting to shoot, but it just went straight up the fence and then twined all the way along the top. To me it didn't look right it just looked like rootstock, hence why i thought I would pull it out and then a couple of weeks ago I noticed what looked like buds but wasn't really sure and then yesterday the flower!! Does anyone know if it will come to anything?

The flower buds! It's like this all the way along the fence. If these flowers were to go on to produce passionfruit, then we would end up with a reasonable crop. I have my fingers crossed!!

Lastly handsome Harry

I was snapping a few photos the other day and managed to capture him mid-crow.

I was hoping to spend some time outside in the garden this weekend especially as we have a long weekend, but not much if anything will be accomplished out there today. Maybe tomorrow might be a better day. Think i might go and make another quiche seen as we have an abundance of eggs at the moment. The chooks have been very busy :)

Willy Wagtails and Wisteria

I took my camera with me this morning and after finishing at work I called into my parents place. They have a very beautiful as well as productive garden. I wanted to take some pictures of the gorgeous wisteria. It is planted along their side fence and can be seen out the kitchen and dining room windows. It is absolutely covered in flowers and so beautiful.

The other day when I was there we were sitting out the back having a coffee and a New Holland Honeyeater was catching his mid-morning snack mid-air. There was mozzies buzzing about and he was having a great feed. I was hoping he would be doing the same today as I didn't have my camera with me the other day. Today it was the Willy Wagtails turn. He couldn't have cared less that I was standing there with my camera pointed at him. They are cheeky little birds and so nice to see them in the garden.

The wisteria really is beautiful and I need to plant one in my garden!

More signs of spring

A few more signs from around the garden that spring is here. We have had beautiful days for the last week where the day time temperature has been in the low 20's C. Tomorrow is supposed to be our warmest day yet with the top around 30C. Unbelievably it plummets Sunday and next few days thereafter to tops of 14C and rain.

The cornflowers are just starting to flower.

Can't wait to see the magnolia out in flower. The poor shrub is not looking too healthy though with very yellow leaves. Not sure what nutrients it is missing and what to feed it with.

The almond tree is covered in almonds!

There are lots of fuzzy baby peaches too :-)

A visitor to the yard, not sure what he was in a flap about.

Around the garden

Spring has sprung! And with that the garden has come to life. The weeds have gone berserk and I just don't seem to be able to keep on top of them. So today I ignored the weeds and took a few photos of what is flowering in the garden at the moment.

Hmmm, noticing that most of the flowers in the garden are purple. There is lots of yellow too, but I chose not to take photos of those as that would show just how many weeds there are :-(

Blueberries! Yum, can't wait until our blueberries are ripe and ready to eat.

The mulberries haven't even been making it inside, we just stand out under the tree each day and savour these beauties.

The tray on the left has two different varieties of tomatoes which the photo doesn't really show very well. There is a lot more tomatoes that have germinated than what you can see. The tray on the right has bush beans of which there is only about eight that have come up. Next to them is watermelon which six have germinated, next to them is cucumbers of which none have come up so far and lastly is basil. I have also put corn in and so far only two have germinated out of about thirty seeds I put in. I am really hoping with the weather warming up over the next few days that some more of the seeds will come up.

The vege garden is pretty bare at the moment, most of the winter crops have been pulled out and the only things we are eating at the moment are kale and a few beetroot along with some herbs.

It's been so long since I was last here I had to really stop and think about how to get back into my blog and how to do a post! Towards the end of June I could see things deteriorating with my elderly neighbour who I was spending so much time in next door helping her where I could, that when she passed away in early July I felt lost for awhile. We had been neighbours for over eight years and in the last couple of years in particular she had come to rely heavily on me. Between saying goodbye and spending way too much time on Instagram I seem to have neglected my blog. Looking forward to spending more time here once more. I really have missed it.

Sunny Weekend

The brassica bed after I had taken the netting off to fertilise the veges

I had only had the netting off a minute or so and Jess hopped up into the bed

and decided it was a good spot to curl up for an afternoon catnap!

Looking forward to having fresh broccoli to eat for our meals.

The lettuce are finally starting to grow.

With all the sunny days we have been having, that means only one thing...

frosts at night.

 I am absolutely amazed none of the capsicum bushes

have been touched by jack frost!

How good is it to be still picking red capsicums in winter!?!

Okay, they may be small, but they are tasty :)

I set out to take some sunset photos yesterday evening, but left it too late.

I love these photos anyway of the fading light and the lovely soft

muted colours.

This past weekend was absolutely gorgeous. Freezing cold starts to the day but outside in the sunshine in the afternoon was perfect. I managed to get quite a bit of weeding done in the vege patch, but still so much more to do. I have set myself a goal of little bits every day and I will get there in the end. Three years of buggered shoulders and instead of letting myself get frustrated anymore, I am just going to set myself small goals to achieve each day. That way I will get there in the end!

Today is our last day of sunshine as some rain is due to come in  tomorrow, fingers crossed it does, as it is getting dry out there again. As much as the sun is nice, the rain is very nice too.

Sunshine after the rain

We have a small grove of Casuarina otherwise known as She-oak trees in our paddock. The other day when I was backing out of the driveway I noticed how pretty they looked. We had just had a heavy shower of rain and now the sun was shining brightly on them and all the raindrops looked like diamonds sparkling in the trees.

I drive or walk past these trees all the time, I see them out my kitchen window and yet, I very rarely notice them. I am so glad I stopped the car the other day and got out and took pictures. I only wish my photos were better to truly show just how clean, fresh and gorgeous it looked out there. I know I will be appreciating these trees a lot more from now on.

It's amazing how something so simple as raindrops and a bit of sunshine can stop you in your tracks and make you take a deep breath at the wonder of nature.