Late April days

It is mid autumn here and as many years before us the weather has been divine for this time of the year.. Typical sunny days and cooler nights.
I'm waiting for the winter veggies to grow and that will be some time away.

Bees are still enjoying whatever flowers they can find in the sunshine. In this case it is an African blue basil plant. It is great having this plant around as we can get fresh basil all year round.

The spinach is starting to come on.

As is the silver beet.

Our beautiful chickens continue to provide us with fresh eggs. Some very nice pasta was made yesterday. I was not quick enough to take a picture of it before it was turned into the most scrumptious pasta bake. The baby pumpkins are from another self sown plant that was very late producing so it got pulled out.

And here are the girls on another one of their free range forays. You can also see here another one of the self sown pumpkins. The kind posters at Ozgrow have identified it as a Jarradahle.

More autumn days

I've been trying to prepare for some autumn plantings and in the process harvesting the summers leftovers.

I started by pulling out the last of the cucumber plants and harvested the cucumbers. There were another three that had started to yellow so I left them out of the picture. These ones will be good to eat. The worms can have the yellow ones.

I was also going to pull all the butternut pumpkin plants then found a couple more immature pumpkins so I left the plants and harvested the pumpkins. Hopefully there will be a couple more pumpkins in the next few weeks. We have already eaten about five of these and they are superbly delicious.

The beans are still going great. These are Blue Lake. Some were picked for last nights dinner.

Looks like it is the end of the potatoes. It is sad as they taste so good. We have been eating them for nearly three months now. It will be store bought ones from now on.

Of course our beautiful chooks gave us some more eggs.

All together now.

And some red to offset the other colours. This is a Jimmy Nardello in a pot. There are still plenty of chillies and capsicums around.

Old Friends

Heard from old friends yesterday and they ended up coming around for dinner. It was good to catch up as it has been a couple of years.
My, how some people have grown.

I warned them before they came over that I would be busy all afternoon in the yard as I had a lot to catch up on.
I am now at the pulling plants out stage. Cleaning of all the ripe and green tomatoes. Not sure if I will make green tomato pickles this year. Made it last year and it was a huge success with everyone that got a jar. We are not big eaters of it. I can assure you it is delicious. Just that eight 600ml Fowlers jars can get a bit much.

Pulled about five plants out and harvested a lot more ripe fruit from a few others. I know that when I made my first post I said that most of my tomato harvesting was done but I have once again underestimated.
Lots of peppers coming on that should last a few more weeks and one lonesome dried up corn that I had totally missed. I'm toying with the idea of drying it and trying to make popcorn. It may not be the right variety but what the heck.

Had a bumper cucumber crop this year. Best ever, and there are still more to come. Also still have a few potatoes hiding around the place.

And of course some eggs from my lovely girls. The chooks.

As you can see there will be more tomato salsa making in the next couple of days.

Brandywine alert bottom left hand corner.

After having a great time catching up all afternoon and having a nice dinner, old friends departed with a big bag of home grown produce. I know they will enjoy it.

More goodies

This is the last of my corn for this season. Most of them were a bit too starchy as they were left too late. Only the one in the bottom right hand corner was sweet.

And here is another picture of eatable goodness picked over the last few days.

I also have a few chooks. That is why the eggs are in the picture.(more about them later).

I also try and preserve what I can, for future eating.