The garden also had a visitor a week or so ago.  Nicely disguised in the shadows:

DON’T scroll down if you don’t like snakes!

Because you can see it quite clearly in this close up – cropped from the above photo:

It is a dugite – yes, venomous – yes, we kept well away and kept all kids and dog inside (I could see it from the kitchen window) – and yes, we weren’t too worried about it as it was trying to dig its way into the chook yard, but we have snake proof wire at the bottom (extra small holes) so there wasn’t too much concern.

I would have preferred that Michael was home to safely catch and release it though!  (He is a licenced reptile relocator – don’t try this at home – call someone who is trained!!)

The garden is (finally!) producing :-) - and we have tomatoes galore! Mostly yellow cherry toms, but enough red ones to make them into pasta sauce too.



A few hours in the oven with fresh herbs and garlic:



Roasted goodness to bottle up – YUM!

School holidays have long gone, but they did involve a fair bit of yard work, as I promised the kids ;-).

Piles of sticks for bushfire cleanup.  We will run these through the mulcher (we need the mulch more than the environment needs the wood smoke from burning the piles).

Strawberry patch planted – this involved sifting the sand to get the gravel out (yeah, that was pretty heavy, hard work); adding compost and mixing it in, then planting and watering/settling in with seaweed brew.  The strawberry plants were gifted to us from our neighbours – thanks so much Sue and David J!

And while we were there with the seaweed brew, I used it (in combo with some fish emulsion) to add some lovely nutrients to the fruit trees.

Because I love photos of our flowers for bees, here they are:

The bees are also loving the leek flowers. 

 

We are pretty happy to be providing for our food producing friends J.

The tulips are coming along J.

And the bees are buzzing J. 

I so love having flowers in the garden.  We added another two lavenders this last week – gifts for me – how lucky am I?

And it was perennial planting time according to the moon calendar, so they were good to go in the ground.

What does an hour in the garden get you?

Fresh air for me?  Check!

Greens for the chickens? 

Check!

Lavender blossoms to dry?

Check!

The discovery of your first tulip sprouts J?

Check!

And finding out that you can have fresh asparagus for breakfast tomorrow J?

Big YAY and check!

And all this while I was avoiding having to come inside and cook up the 3 very large cauliflowers that I discovered  yesterday J!

Very happy day J!  Check!!