Summer in the garden.

I have been busy in the veggie garden harvesting all the silverbeet which was starting to go to seed, I gave most of it to the rabbits and chooks we had eaten all the good stuff, also removed all the onions and got a beautiful crop of large red onions and a smaller not so successful lot of white onions.

I have usually just give the beds a turn and add a few buckets of compost for the next lot of crops. Am putting celery, some more lettuce and coriander in the two vacated beds.

Also brought a Rosella plant which I had not heard of but apparently its very high in Vit C, I will plant it near my Jostaberry, really hoping all these unusual plants don't need another plant to bear fruit as Ive only brought 1 of each!! My Elderberry is doing really well and I can either see the beginning of berries or its flowering.

My kiwi fruit plants of which I know I do need male and female have grown a good 2 metres in height since Spring, amazing can't wait to get some fruit!

The potatoes which Rylan planted this year have really grown well above ground I can't wait to see how many potatoes are growing under ground.

I was given free a ton of sunflower seeds and pretty much planted the lot in the sunhouse and everyone has sprouted so I need a ton of space to plant a big lot of sunflower plants! I am thinking of just putting them all along the front fence just to get rid of them rather than making a new bed for them although I suppose I could just use one of the beds in the veggie garden. Will see what I decide and update you later.

The other week I added some fish emulsion to the veggies and the lettuce is now pretty much ready to eat and looking so healthy and the corn has shot up! My cucumbers are really slow again I am beginning to think I have a black thumb with cucumber, perhaps its just not getting quiet enough sun.

With the animals I have a Hamburg chicken sitting on 3 eggs, there were 8 but upon candling the eggs only 3 were viable so the others got removed. They should hatch within the next 2 weeks I imagine. I wasn't really wanting anymore chickens this year as the limit of 20 per property in Ballarat had changed during the time I have owned property here and its now 6 per block and I am sitting on 15 chickens! I did have one death of one of the old girls and a Barnevelder over the past 8 weeks, but I didn't really wish to replace at this stage so will probably advertise and sell the babies.

Sian and her babies are doing fantastically well, the babies are just gorgeous, I have new homes for nearly all of them now which is lovely, still have not decided which one I will be keeping though, such a hard decision.