Six monthly update on garden planted last October.

After considerable effort and lots of horse manure, mulching hay and compost, the garden is looking half decent. I am actually looking forward to the next six months.. so far i have taken a huge crop of loofahs, cucumbers, eggplant, chilli and pumpkins from here. the trees are still going strong and will be the foundation for this garden when big enough, in the meantime i have planted strawberries and parsley around the bases of the trees.

The trees consist of two mulberry bought from market last december, they have grown twice their size, Kaffir Lime, Loquat, Cumquat, Apple, Peach, Plum, Soursop, Avocado, Jackfruit, Baytree, Olive, Miricle Fruit, Tangerine, 2 x Lemonade and a Mango. There are a few others but i cannot honestly remember what i planted, surprises for later.

Vines include Red Passionfruit, 2 x Banana Passionfruit and 2 x Purple Passionfruit and 1 lonely Grape Vine the other one couldnt handle the wet..

Planted amongst the trees and in clumps of their own Lemongrass, Tarragon, Sage, Basil, 2x Chilli, Eggplants, Strawberries, Parsley, Capsicum, Cucumber, Loofah, Spaghetti Squash, Borage, and Chives..

I am hoping to finish filling the gaps in between the trees this time next year. (so no mowing for me)

Christmas was brilliant!!

A $15 bingo set kept everyone entertained all afternoon... from the littlies 5years thru to the teens and of course the oldies...

There was far too much food and plenty of drink, everyone had a wonderful day..

New Years Eve was spent at the Jupiters Casino where my wonderful neice booked us all rooms for the night...

The garden has come to a complete halt over the silly season it rained it poured and rained some more... after a week of dry i mowed for 5 days, everything looked neat and tidy with lots of mulch in the compost bins.....

Produce wise i am picking cucumbers, mulberries, loofahs, eggplants, capsicums and pumpkins...

Before christmas i decided to plant up under the raintrees to create a rainforest.. i plan on putting a wood oven down there to cook pizzas and bread..

my personal choice of plants after the obvious tree ferns were heliconias and gingers..

i have left a centre garden for cyclads and bamboo but the heliconias are my personal favorite so i am madly buying, begging and swapping to get my hands on as many varieties as possible...

my absolute favorite at the moment is the blue ginger closely followed by a white globe..

will post photos as they flower..

I love frangipani flowers!!! I also like the trees, i haven't managed to kill one yet. Actually apart from mulberry trees, frangipani's are the only other tree i have success with striking. So i do actually have more then a few in my garden..The flowers smell lovely as you walk past and will last a few days in water inside.. I dont bother drying the cuttings out, just straight into a pot of soil and a few months later a new tree! Frangipani tree are drought resistant, they dont like alot of water during the winter months, which is fine by me i dont water a lot in the cooler months, and then the rain takes care of them in the summer.

Chicken Tractor

This is our baby chicken pen built from scraps around the yard. The only thing i bought was the polyshade from Bunnings $12.95 metre. Polyshade is waterproof as well as providing shade.. the three little chicks in the pen were hatched two weeks ago last thursday so are now on their own, the hen that hatched the chicks was mean and kept knocking over the water dish so she is now back with the other chooks... The pen has a door at one end which i rarely use, it is light enough to pick up, it can be drag along to move it by one person.. it was construted with a frame on the bottom dont know what it original use was, some poly pipe and an old canoe oar. it is all held together with zip ties...

The next pen to be built consist of a old swing set.. but as these chicks may turn out to roosters i may not need it in a hurry.

Geese in their new pen..

My DS & DD had a open party saturday night so i didnt get much sleep and slept in sunday morning, so i didnt get to the markets which i was really quiet upset about. But on the upside, outside in my chook pen were these two magnificent creatures. I had asked everyone i knew about getting a goose, we had one a few years ago and he had to have been the best guard dog i have ever had, nobody will enter your property with a goose flapping his wings and honking at you... pictured above the geese is a very sooky susposed to be a guard dog. The only thing he chases is dogs and rats. He loves people!! I am positive he would drag strangers in from the road if he could.. I will let the geese out in a day or two.. they are not very happy about being locked up with 2 roosters and the chooks. I am not going to be gardening for a day or two as i fell off the back step while hanging out the washing last night.. my L ankle has a pulled ligament, my R knee is the size of a baseball and has absolutly no skin left on it and my R palm is badly bruised.. So today i am in pain and i cant walk to far or very fast.... i have been to the shop only because if you have to lay on the couch and watch tv you have to have chocolate and i never buy chocolate unless i absolutely need to have it...

The party was a huge sucess the kids had about 100 local teenagers ranging in age from 15 - 20 and all were well behaved... the place was clean and everything back in place when i woke up..

My dehydrator stopped working after 12 years of service...
So i just had to buy a new one pictured with the dog biscuit mix drying..
Every Sunday i throw two chicken carcass and the scraps for the week in a pot to make the mixture you see above and make two big bags of dried dog biscuits.... the dogs love them.. but this Sunday my dehydrator didnt do anything lit up but no sound on heat..
I paid $45 for the first one mail order didnt have the internet and the electrical stores didnt stock them... Today it cost me $170 to replace..
So the dogs are happy they can smell their doggie bikkies drying and i have a dehydrator that works, with more racks and multiple drying settings very cool!

I bought a olive tree today!!

Do not know how it will survive our climate but i got one regardless!

i absolutely love olives but will continue to buy jars of processed olives whether this fruits or not i am just happy to have one!!