There were some pleasant surprises in the garden on our return too. The chicken run is about half covered by a passionfruit vine which we only planted late last year. The vine has grown prolifically and is now sporting quite a number of fruit. These passionfruit don't go purple, rather turn a yellow colour and have almost orange pulp. We tasted the first ripe one today.
Loretta (the lemon tree) has also come up with the goods this year, after around seven years of dormancy. She gave us one lemon last year, her first fruit, and we were pleasantly surprised to return home and find she has five fruit growing.
Larry (the patio lime) is also oozing with life this season. He is sprouting blossom everywhere so hopefully he'll be a very healthy litte tree and might even bear some fruit.
Given none of the chickens are laying at the moment (I suspect two of the four cochins are roosters), I've given them another important job - preparing the rear vege garden for sowing. They're doing a great job of weeding, turning and fertilising.
The front vege garden is also coming along nicely. We edged it with old railway sleepers and Hubby has just finished the reticulation for it, adding a zone to our bore retic just for the vege gardens (which were previously watered manually via mains water). Once the chickens have done their job, I can start planting!
As one of my favourite Australian bands, The Waifs, say: "everytime you water the garden, you also water the weeds". Here is one of those weeds that is just too pretty not to photograph. I think I snapped this shot about half a second before Chicky plucked it from its stem, sending seeds everywhere. What can you do?
I have to say I was very pleased with the garden after 10 weeks of neglect. Nature never ceases to surprise. I'd love to hear what's going on in your garden this Winter (or Summer, if you're on the warmer half of the planet right now).
Pam, you made me laugh at the thought of waiting for roosters to lay! :) Our lemon tree has given us two lemons so far, but we are now getting more fruit. Still struggling madly with leaf miner, though. The lime trees have all just been planted and seem to be in stasis at the moment. I'm sorry to hear about the storm damage! And our neighbour's passionfruit vine which comes over our boundary fence hasn't made any fruit at all! Not sure why - do they need a couple of years go get going? Thanks..
ReplyDeleteI've been in denial about the roosters Celia, but one started crowing the other day. There's no avoiding it now. We have to decide what to do with them. I am still hoping the hens will lay one day. Passionfruit do seem a bit hit and miss. We have 3 vines and one has never fruited but the other two have in their first established year. The flowers need to be cross-pollinated by bees to fruit, so the recommendation is to plant something like lavender near the vines if you're having fruiting issues. Oh, and our lemon tree is plagued by leaf miner too.
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