Have not posted for a few weeks.
Some picture might say a lot more than I can right now.

Tomato seedlings about 3 weeks ago.

Nearly all of the remaining tomato seedlings as of today. A lot will get given away.

The last of the carrots got picked about a week ago. The season was not too bad.

The asparagus has been steady but unfortunately there is not enough of it.

Got an artichoke harvest.

Roasted in the oven and served with a shoulder of lamb.

I have not had much success with capsicum germination this year, just a few so far and very late. So I had to use store purchased peppers and capsicums.

The main vege patch. Potatoes on the left and plenty of tomatoes on the right. I have planted 20 plants and will be planting a few more. Leeks can be seen as well.

Some non related yard shots. 

Home made dumplings for home-made wonton soup. 

Then someone had the bight idea of frying them. It was all over at that stage.

I ate about 3 times what is seen in the below picture.

And finally. Taking a walk on a windy plain.

First planting

Planted the first of my seedlings today in the vege patch. Eighteen corns. Stupidly enough I didn't take a picture of these babies in the patch. But I do have one of them in the punnet before planting out.
They are Golden Bantam variety and it is the first year I am trying this variety out. I've heard it is not so sweet but that is ok as I usually slather my corn with salt and butter so there is no room for sugar.

I think next weekend I will remove my artichokes to make room for more productive plants in the front yard. Whilst I love artichokes  there is not enough plants to get a good harvest all at once. Having one artichoke at a time is a tease I cannot live with. Sort of like what is happening with the asparagus. I did get a couple of scraps after the kids got stuck into it.

 I suppose I can dig up the dreadful lawn at the front and fill the area up with artichokes. hmmmm, maybe one day...
So I picked the largest artichoke before it flowered up.

Then I promptly peeled it back to get to it's heart.

And I scoffed it down raw. Uncooked. Yes I know that is ruthless but sometimes you have to be.  Wasn't too bad either. Not the way I would usually eat artichokes but there was not much of this one after it got peeled.

I also have a couple of the purple ones growing. They seem to be smaller that the standard green ones. Maybe it is because the plants are still smaller.

My tomato seedlings are coming along quite well. Depending on the weather this week I may start planting them out next weekend.

Cucumbers are coming along as well joined by the zucchinis. None of the zucs are in the pic below but there are a few about.

Run to the hills...........

Tomato Seedlings

As mentioned before tomatoes are my favourite thing to grow and I'm hoping for a good year.
These are my seedlings three days ago. They were all sown over the last 3-5 weeks.
I have about 30 different varieties growing and will hopefully plant one of each. What I don't plant I hope to give away.
I originally thought this was about half of them but on closer inspection it is about a third of my total, so as usual I have sown way too many.
Many thanks to the kind growers of OzGrow for providing many of the seeds.

Some of the smaller ones.

Most are about this size.

And some of the larger ones.

I'll post my final grow list at a later date. But there is a good mix of cherry and beefsteak varieties.

Donuts

This is post of the blue but I must say these are some of the best donuts I have ever had. 

Made yesterday afternoon and tasted just as good today.

Kudos to the cook/s.

More gardening stuff to follow.

Spring

Is finally here for us.
Not as much got done this weekend as I would have liked but nevertheless progress is being made.

Some potatoes got planted. These are Desiree of which there are two kilos. One kilo of Nicola was also planted out.

I picked a few more carrots. Not much luck with them. I have mentioned in the past that I cannot seem to grow large ones. Maybe my soil needs adjusting.

The second last cauliflower was picked. That will be eaten with tomorrow nights dinner.

And finally. The asparagus is starting to show up. We started eating some last year and I hope the plants produce well this year. There are seven plants in total.

Another lovely day here and a lot of work got done again.
I really should have taken the before shot of the patch out the front but I was focused on weeding it in good time. This is where some artichokes, rhubarb, African basil, sage, nasturtiums, bamboo, hops and some barley alive passion fruit  are growing. I think that is all.

The weeds were out of control. About eleven  twenty litre buckets and three hours later there was some semblance of a veggie patch.

If you look closely you can see blue snail pellets. Shock , horror...yes I do use stuff like that when I have to.
Now may be a good time to mention that in the last two to three weeks I have personally crushed about 2-300 hundred snails.
It seems I have had an infestation of sorts and I really need to eliminate them as much as possible. Since I cannot use snail pellets in the back yard due to our animals I have to seek them out and squash them.
Clearing out the front patch today I squashed another fifty or sixty of them.
The only animal that is smart enough to not eat the pellets is the cat. Cat is also an excellent mouser.
The dog (story for another day) and the chickens are gutses and will eat a lot of things they should not.

Early in the morning my wonderful wife used up the remainder of spinach from last weekend.
Some spinach and ricotta rolls with home made flaky pastry were prepared.
They made a great lunch.

Here they are before they were cooked.

Cooked and nearly ready to eat.

The main patch has two cauliflowers, carrots, leeks, lettuce and silver beet left in it.

The garlic is still going ok. I hope to harvest a few bulbs in the next couple of months.

And the two types of parsley that are always growing next to the oregano and mint are still providing us with this much loved herb.

Finally..after all that green is a picture of a chilli plant that has been alive over winter. As you can see there are  still a few fruit on it. Not sure of it's name but there is a medium heat to the fruit.

The warm weather has continued all week and I have continued preparing the beds for future planting.
Four more days and winter is over here.

Harvested some endives and a cauliflower for tonights dinner.

Some of my tomato seedlings are starting to emerge.

And here is a picture of my dwarf lemon tree growing in an old dryer stainless steel tub.

Warm winter day

It has been a busy weekend here. The weather has been marvellous. And a lot got done today.

Before I proceed any further I have to tell you that after looking at today's photos I noticed there was a smudge on the lens. So these pics are a bit blurry in the bottom right hand corner.

I cleaned up a lot of the winter produce today. Once again I have not had any luck with the Brussels sprouts.
They seem to open like a flower instead of staying firm. I ended up pulling them out. One day I hope to grow great Brussels sprouts.

I harvested all of the spinach. Looks like a lot but once it was cleaned up I would estiamte that there was about a 25% loss.

Half of it was blanched and frozen and the other half got used to make spinach and ricotta ravioli, which will be cooked for tomorrow nights dinner.

Which reminds me of the pasta that was made yesterday. Have a look at this. My great grandmother would be proud. Nice thick slices of pasta. when I asked what sort of pasta it is I got told "el thicko". That is good enough for me.

This was eaten with a mushroom sauce and as I have mentioned in a previous post, beware if you can get a steady supply of this stuff. It is addictive.

I should mention here that I am not the cook in the house so I cannot take credit for this. All hail my beautiful pasta making wife.

All of the snow peas were picked and the plants removed. it has not been a good snow pea season. Along with the last broccoli plant some carrots and silver beet. 

Oh. There were also a  few Jimmy Nardello peppers. This plant is still producing. The peppers are very small. But it has been producing all winter. I will probably try and over winter it.

All cooked for tonight's dinner. Vegetarian stir fry. I did want chilli in it and was told no. Oh well.

I should also add that I did start the seed sowing last weekend. Mainly tomatoes, peppers and chillies at this stage. I'll post about my tomato list in the coming weeks.

Slim pickings

It is the first week of the last month of winter here and i want to clear the patch up and start preparing it for the coming summer.
That means tomatoes. Lots of them hopefully. I am already salivating at the thought of fresh home grown varieties.
I'm starting to clear the patch out and hope to have it cleared and piled up with manure in the next two weekends. What I plan and what actually happens is not always the same, so I'm going to try my hardest.

Here is todays small harvest. Nearly all the broccoli and some snow peas. I pulled one of the carrots to see how they are going and they seem ok. There was a couple of stray potato plants in amongst the snow peas and when I pulled this one there were these two tiny spuds attached to it.

No escape for the baby potatoes. In the pot they go for tonights dinner.

We are having a bit of a warm spell here at the moment. The weather bureau has warned us that it will not last.
I've been harvesting some winter veggies but have slacked of and not posted pictures of them all.

I got a nice load of chicken manure delivered for the veggie beds. I would prefer sheep manure but I cannot get it and the chicken poo has served me well for the last two years.

This was the first endive harvest a couple of weeks ago. I love these.

The first cauliflower was picked last weekend along with some more broccoli.

And todays lot. Another cauli, broccoli and a few snow peas. Oh look, a stray pepper. Not sure which plant that came from as the Mrs did the harvesting.

I don't think there will be any Brussels sprouts at the moment but time will tell.