A walk around the backyard

The hours spent at home during Autumn are the sweetest of the year. It's almost here, I feel the change of seasons upon us, and it calls us to do that seasonal work reserved for this, our busiest time. We plant our main eating crop in March, so as February draws to a close, I plant seeds in trays and Hanno prepares the gardens with compost, worm castings, blood and bone, cow manure and old chicken poo mixed with lawn clippings. It's a healthy brew and it's loosely dug and raked in to enrich the gardens for another year of backyard organic vegetables and fruit. One plant we never fertilise is the lemon tree (above). It's planted in the chook run and with its roots protected from scratching claws with wire, it produces bucket loads of lemons every year.

The first of the new seedlings went in yesterday. Above are some corn seedlings - we are hoping for a quick crop before it gets too cold, next to them more bok choy, which we grow for the chooks. They love all the brassicas - the cabbage family - and anything with a sharp, strong taste. Bok choy grows really fast so it's a good one for them. In the photo above you can also see THE pineapple plant. Hanno will transplant that to the front garden soon and we will see if it gives us another pineapple from the new shoot its grown.

Here is the potato patch. They still need another month or so before they'll be ready to dig. Beyond that is the bed that was under shade over summer. The shade tunnel was removed yesterday, folded up and put away in the shed. The garden looks untidy now but Hanno likes to start with a clean slate each March, and while some beds still have crops growing, they're all given their feed of compost, worm castings etc, weeded and raked to straight, lump-free perfection.

Inside, bread is set to rise so it will be ready for lunch. Yesterday's loaf was wholemeal with a sprinkling of cornmeal. While it was rising and baking, we had a visit from Jens and Cathy, my step-son and daughter-in-law, who live nearby. It gave us the chance to have a break and to sit and catch up with their news and talk about, what else, the wedding. ; - )

I also bottled up some hot bread and butter cucumbers which finished off the last of the summer cucumbers. These will be stored in the fridge and will probably last until the end of winter.

Those red blobs in with the cucumbers are hot chilli peppers, which we grow in the backyard. I have a hand full of them to pick and dry for use over Autumn and Winter because now the cooler weather is upon us, the bush will stop producing. I'll cut the bush back and it will probably give us another crop later in the year.

We have some new tomatoes coming in. These are oxhearts and they're filling in a gap until the Brandywines, Moneymakers and Amish Pastes tomatoes are producing.

And here are the tomato seedlings growing happily in the bushhouse. On the left are the potato leaf Brandywines, my favourite tomato, next is the medium sized Moneymaker, with its regular tomato leaf. Moneymaker is larger than a cherry tomato but smaller than a regular tomato. and it grows bunches of little tomatoes that hang on the plant like really big grapes. Next to them, and out of the picture, are the Amish Pastes which I use for cooking because of their deep rich flavour. They make a really good sauce because they don't produce as much juice as most other tomatoes. We will also grow cherry tomatoes - we have Tommy Toe here, but they are rarely planted and just come up wherever they feel like it and are left to grow for Alice. My Airedale Terrier, Alice, loves to pick her own tomatoes, and she likes the cherry tomatoes most of all.

And what would a post about the garden be without photos of our girls. Here are best friends Martha (buff Orpington) and little Heather (salmon Faverolles). They always do things together and although Heather looks like a sweet and fragile little thing, she is like a machine when it comes to turning over leaves and scratching in the undergrowth down by the creek. She has those little feathered legs but no matter how much digging and scratching she does, she always manages to look clean. I wish I knew her secret.

You know when the cooler weather is here when we start giving the girls oatmeal porridge. They love eating it and it gives them a protein boost that keeps most of them laying over the colder months. The grass looks really green, much of the back yard is that lovely shade of natural green you get after good rain. This summer we have gone back to the good old fashioned wet season. Like the tropics, here in the sub tropics, we get most of our rain in summer. So over the past couple of months, we've had a good fall of rain a few times a week. It's freshened up all the trees, water tanks are overflowing, the creek is running fast and it feels like the cycle of heat is over for another year.

Thank you to everyone who helped Frogdancer's friend Jarryd. This is more than just sending a book. It's helping a young man, via the kindness of strangers and the power of books, rediscover that life is not always so cruel and unpredictable.

Welcome to all the new readers who have come this way. Please say hello if you have time. I hope you enjoy reading here.

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