Since I haven't been posting my normal monthly garden pics over the last few months, I thought I'd just do a catch up by posting some photos from this past summer, so you can see the continuing development of the garden.

With help from my son and his friends (fortunately all well over 6 feet tall!), the beginnings of my seating area was erected - 4 posts, with old fence posts across the top. The plan is to have a swing seat underneath and trellis up the sides and over the top, covered in fruiting vines, creating a shady place to sit in summer and survey the garden.

This year I finally did something I've meant to for several years - grew swan plants for monarchs! I ended up having to buy and plant more and more plants, as well as netting them to limit the number of eggs laid. Next summer I'll also grow some milkweed as extra food for them. To my surprise, the swan plants don't die over winter, so I trimmed them back a bit after the caterpillars were all done, ready to shoot off in summer.

The cosmos just kept on blooming and blooming and blooming - and getting bigger and bigger! They were supposed to be dwarf ones....but ended up over 1.5m tall! The bees loved the flowers, and the finches loved the subsequent seed, which are also very easy to save (if you beat the birds), so more cosmos will be seen next summer too! Frost tender, they died off as soon as the frosts came.

This is also the first time I've successfully grown nasturtiums - next year I might even try pickling some of their seeds to use like capers.

In the front yard, we installed some tractor tyres filled with soil and compost, to act as a barrier between the soon-to-be expanded driveway parking area, and the front garden area. These were then planted with extra potatoes in 3 of them, and various flowers in the 4th.

I planted 4 different varieties of corn this summer - Rainbow Inca (a multi-colored, multi-purpose corn), Golden Bantam (a yellow sweetcorn), Kaanga Ma (traditional Maori corn, seeds saved from last year) and Strawberry Popping Corn (a pinky red colored popcorn) - all are heritage varieties. I've stopped buying or planting regular packets of corn seed, as almost all are imported and/or treated with a fungicide which is systemic - it's residue is throughout the growing plant and is bad for the bees, bugs and us. Unfortunately I was running late with planting corn this year, and while I got a reasonable harvest, it wasn't as good as it could have been. In this pic are the young Rainbow Inca patch in Feb. As I planned to save seed from each of the varieties, I had to make sure they were planted at least 8m apart to prevent cross-pollination. I have discovered that the first season I grow any given corn, it often produces so-so cobs, but if I save seed from the best of them, and replant the following season, I get really excellent, large cobs.

It turned out to be a bad season for both Tomato-Potato Psyllid (TPP) (will write a separate post about this major but tiny pest) and blight in my garden, but I still managed to get a reasonable amount of tomatoes from the first bed I planted - seen here surrounded by marigolds and underplanted with dwarf beans. The marigolds are lovely and cheerful too, as well as being good for the bees. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to avoid TPP next season - probably planting as early as possible, and possibly using quarantine cloth known as Wondermesh - the only really effective organic non-spray way to keep the little blighters off your crops!

The "wild corner" blooming nicely - and in front of it, a no-dig bed I put in early Feb as a demonstration for some lovely visitors who came to stay and learn about gardening. We mowed the grass short, lay down overlapping newspaper, wet it down, piled on compost and soil, then mulched with woodchip, and planted some late zucchini.

First Monarch to emerge from it's chrysalis, which takes around 2 weeks, depending on the weather. Their long, curling tongues are fascinating to watch moving in and out! They hang like this for several hours to fill out their wings and dry, before flying off.

The main garden beds as of Feb 4th - lots of things growing. The netting is over a bed of Tiny Tim tomatoes with a row of Rainbow chard (multi-coloured silverbeet).

Thanks to the TPP substantially reducing our tomato harvest, I ended up buying in an extra 60 kg of tomatoes when they were at their lowest price for the season - they were in the store for $2.50/kg, and due to buying in bulk we were able to negotiate a price of $1.60/kg. Together with what we harvested and didn't eat fresh, I was able to make a nice amount of tomato soup, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes to use in winter dishes, and dried tomatoes. I would ordinarily use quite a lot of tinned tomatoes in cooking, but cans are lined with plastic which leaches BPA and other chemicals into food. Acidic canned goods (such as tomatoes) cause higher rates of leaching. Wanting to avoid that, I prefer tomatoes preserved in glass - easy to do at home.

After fully pruning our grapevine by myself for the first time last winter, we yielded crates and crates of luscious grapes this summer. They were very popular with the local kids! I managed to make some grape leather too, but it didn't last long. The bunches were very large! Pruning can be a bit scary - you reduce this huge mass of growth to just a few selected canes, tied in to the trellis. But it's definitely worth it - lots of good you-tube clips on the two different methods of pruning (cane pruning or spur pruning) can be viewed online.

Summer saw another first for me - growing watermelon! I honestly didn't know if they would grow and ripen here, so I just planted 4 Sugar Baby watermelon plants in a patch I dug under one of the washing lines. They did very well, considering my lack of experience, late planting, and a summer drought, giving us 6 lovely watermelons. Will definitely try more melons next summer!

You can also see in this pic the Stauntonia vine I've planted on one side of the seating area trellis - an unusual vine, it apparently can handle the cold, is evergreen, has nice flowers and produces a passionfruit-like fruit. Time will tell.

I planted some cornflowers behind the wee Chilean Guavas, and they provided a mass of colorful blooms all summer - in fact they continued most of the winter too, getting bigger and bigger, finally coming to and end in late July. The bees love them, the flowers are edible, they self-seed prolifically, and are easy to grow. What's not to like?

Herbs growing in brick squares, carrots surrounded by chives behind them. Yacon underplanted with buckwheat. Choko vine sprawling over fence. The yacon grew more slowly this year than last, and never got quite as tall.

The pallet beds turned out not to be too good for lettuce over the summer, as the sun was on them longer than I anticipated, and they dried out constantly - needed to be watered every day, and even then the lettuce all bolted. Have now added some trellises to two of the pallets, to grow beans up, and shade the pallets a little. More greens being planted.

Strawberry popcorn looking good!

Tired of the fact that every winter the area under the washing lines turns into a muddy bog, I laid down cardboard, covered it with old woolen carpets, then mulched with woodchip. We also dug a swale out along the end of the garden beds, where water tends to pool, then filled it with woodchip. I hope that this will reduce surface flooding.

A bed full of brassicas - broccoli in the fore, with brussel sprouts behind. I have found that brassicas planted out in Feb reach a good size by winter. Any later and they never grow very well, remaining small over winter then bolting in spring. The nets are to keep the white butterfly off - originally I had windbreak fabric over them, but now they're getting bigger I wanted to give them more light. Some butterflies still squeeze through the bird netting, but by the time they're this big, it's not too unmanageable.

Pumpkin patch, late March.

The following photos show the garden as of 1st April 2014:

Some of the critters enjoying an over-ripe watermelon

We've enjoyed a steady stream of visitors here since Christmas which has been lovely, but it's meant that I've had no time for blog writing or posting updates. So, somewhat belated, here are the photos from the beginning of January this year....

My main vege beds. A garden is an ever-changing thing; always something coming out, something new going in, nets being added or removed from crops, compost or other treatments being added,  and so on.

In order to keep track of it all, now that my garden is so much more involved, I created a rough (not to scale) sketch on my computer of the beds etc in the main part of my vege garden, and have added this to my 2014 garden diary, along with pages for each numbered bed where I can record what has been planted, harvested or otherwise done to each bed when. This should making things like planning crop rotation and soil improvements easier to keep track of.

This bed is filled with three types of crop - Bright Lights rainbow chard on the left, parsley in the middle, and tomatoes on the right. There is a Sweet 100 at the near end, lots of Tiny Tims along the rest of the bed, with a Russian Red at the far end. Soon to be netted.

The parsley were transplanted from another bed, and initially all appeared to die off, but they soon made a come back.

This bed is still full of beetroot ready to be harvested (I've decided to wait until a mother and daughter who will be staying with me for two weeks to learn about gardening and preserving arrive at the end of the month). The surrounding spring onions are still growing well, and the leek flowers in the back half are being enjoyed very much by the bees.

I've decided to create a new leek bed in a part of the garden away from the main beds, where I can leave it to do it's thing as a perpetual crop, and just harvest as needed. Leeks take a LONG time to grow, and like to bolt just as they're gaining some size, if conditions are right (or wrong, depending on your view point). My research indicates they do well in a permanent spot, allowed to bolt and drop seed then re-plant themselves as they will.

This bed has three zucchini at the front I planted early in the season to get a jump on things. We didn't have any late frosts, and they've done fairly well, but I'm considering removing them to make way for new plantings in this bed.

Behind them are a few shallots of the multiplying kind; they've been rather overshadowed by the zucchini, so when they are done I will take whatever bulbs I get and replant them in a better spot. The back half of this bed has been cleared from the last of the broad beans and is awaiting replanting.

A bed full of Roma tomatoes, in early growth. These will be "staked" using strings suspended from a framework above. I've interplanted with a few calendula plants.

Sunflower plants are now as tall as the fence, but I still have no idea what colour or size of flower they will have. The borage also planted in this bed is starting to look the worse for wear.

I have undersown the sunflowers with some heritage beans given to me by a neighbour - variety unknown; I'm working in the supposition they are climbing beans and will climb up the stalks.

The strawberry patch is still producing well - over 25 kg of strawberries so far! However, I've only managed to make one jar of jam - my kids have scoffed the rest! Clearly, can never have too many strawberries - soon time to start pegging down runners to produce new plants for next season. I'd really like to do some in some sort of narrow suspended channel or guttering type set up, so the berries hang down both sides, keeping them clean and making picking easy. In a regular bed full of plants, it can be a challenge to find all the berries among the foliage. On the other hand, smaller areas of soil/growing medium suspended above the ground require very consistent watering, so I'm considering an aquaponics set up.

The next bed over contained my garlic and experimental broccoli crops - both did well and have now been harvested, and this bed has been replanted with a heritage strawberry popping corn. I was too slow to order some from Koanga Institute before they sold out, but fortunately a friend had some seed which she kindly gave me.

Another bed full of Romas and Calendula - must get on to staking and pruning! Looking very lush at this point.

The first tomato bed I planted, looking good! The Silvery Fir ones at the front end of the bed don't grow very high, it turns out, but they have large fruit forming on them. The Money Makers are doing well, and the Cocktails at the other end of the bed are also doing well.

The marigolds planted underneath are beginning to look lovely. The dwarf beans with which I planted under all the tomatoes aren't very big, though they have a lot of small green beans on them.

My daughter's wee patch is doing well....

The peas have all died off now - I really want to move that Rosemary out of this bed, and offer the bed to my youngest daughter so she can have a plot too.

Carrots...despite having been in this bed since before last winter, the carrots have not gone at all woody. We just harvest them as needed. Either we haven't been using as many carrots as we used to, or this bed is a magician's box, as it never seems to run out.

Bed full of raspberries and boysenberries - have been producing a lot, but they just aren't as sweet as usual this season. It's been a funny summer weather-wise here - very hot, dry November followed by rain and gales most of December and into January.

In this photo you can see my herb ladder, behind which are carrots edged with chives (hopefully the carrots will get to useable size before the other bed runs out). Behind those are buckwheat surrounding yacon - the buckwheat needs to be laid down as a mulch.

Further away is the potato crop - I noticed in mid Dec the first signs of potato-tomato psyllid on my potatoes (a major OH DEAR!) and sprayed them with pymethrum and neem oil. Since then, the plants have started to get blight due to the humid conditions and cool nights. Such a shame as they were looking so huge and lush! A decision on how to proceed is pending.....will post about TPP and blight separately soon.

My choko vine is happily climbing the fence - I wonder just how big it will get?

My bed full of zucchini as well as silverbeet and blackcurrants is producing masses of zucchini, though unfortunately most of them are yellow (I prefer green). A couple of plants have been broken by the high winds - I plan to thin them out and prune off some leaves to allow more room for the currants/silverbeet.

My "wild corner" is looking good - the pearl corn is getting big, the celery is happy, and the wildflowers are just starting to bud - should look very interesting in another month.

I dug up a big patch of lawn and planted a bed full of Rainbow Inca sweetcorn. I WAS going to make it a "three sisters" planting with beans and pumpkins, but upon researching the spacings required, I changed my mind and decided to only plant corn, which I did. Seems a bunch of pumpkins decided to plant themselves! I'm going to have to pull most of them out, or they will completely overtake the corn.

Dug up some more lawn and planted a mixture of blueberry bushes. The ground was prepared with peat moss added, and some acid plant food. At least two plants are needed for good pollination - I have 10. They have been mulched with a thick coating of old sawdust, which apparently they like.

This narrow strip on my newly created raised area has been planted with six fragrant and delicious Chilean Guavas, which in time will be clipped into a hedge. Meanwhile, they are underplanted with alyssum and cornflowers behind them.

Hard to believe the difference in this border since December's photo! The phacelia that were also in here did really well, got much bigger than I expected, and then died off when they were finished, so I pulled most of them out to leave more room for the zinnias. Meanwhile the cosmos and zinnias keep giving and giving and giving - I looked back at the seed packets and laughed when I realised I'd planted "dwarf cosmos" - just as well they're not giant lol - these ones are over 1.5m tall and still growing!

Grapes everywhere! Yum - I can't wait!

A self-sown pumpkin vine was growing in the corner, so I decided to lift it up over this structure and let it do it's thing. One day I'll be ripping all this out and building a garden shed, but meanwhile the space may as well produce more food!

Really enjoying the flowery-border to my vege gardens; can't believe the size of everything when I realise just over a month earlier it didn't exist! Have been harvesting gherkins from underneath all the cosmos on the right side, and stalks of celery whenever I need it for soup.

Border by gate from other side - giant marigolds are really huge! I had not idea they would grow so tall. First time I've had success with nasturtiums - bed is really getting very overgrown and soon I'll need to do something about it.

Pallet beds - everything bolted; I've replanted the front pallet with some seedlings and seeds, but I'm not sure how successful these pallets will prove to be for lettuces over summer. They really need watering every day, and more shade.

I'm undecided whether to remove the pallets and just put in a mulched lawn-level bed, or see how they do over winter.

I've decided to block the chickens out of a run they don't use much, and have planted extra silverbeet and celery along one fence. A patch has been been cleared and will soon be planted with Sweet Bantam heritage sweetcorn.

I've decided to spread around all the sawdust and horse manure mixture my kids brought home from the stables, and plant pumpkins here - they can just ramble around and fill the area, and when they are done hopefully I will have had time to figure out just how I want to develop this area. When this photo was taken, I'd just planted out some seedlings at the front end, and intend to transplant some of the seedlings from the corn patch here too.

My old rose bush is doing well this year - accompanied by the face my son carved with a chainsaw. Otherwise the front border garden is pretty undeveloped this year (last year I used it for zucchini) apart from the citrus and herbs I've planted further along. Needs more thought/work.

Coming soon - posts on my garlic crop, Tomato-potato psyllid, blight, using mulch, and more photos!

November turned out to be the month of digging, and digging, and digging! Not to mention lots of planting. It's also a month of enormous growth, so if you were to compare the following pics with those taken a month ago, you'd see quite a lot of differences!

This month's photos were taken quite late in the day, so apologies for shadowing; I kept forgetting to get out there with the camera!

The main vege beds - lots of growth in most of the beds, with a couple cleared and being prepped for new planting. The old brassicas are all gone now.

This first bed has been cleared of brassicas and weeds, had compost, Rok Solid, blood and bone and dolomite added. I've planted some Bright Lights Silverbeet seedlings down one side.

I also transplanted some parsley seedlings down the middle, from another bed I was clearing so my daughter could grow some veges. Parsley does not like to be transplanted, but I figured I may as well give it a go, since otherwise they were going to be tossed out. As expected, most of the existing leaves died, but new ones were sprouting from some of the transplants. A week later, after quite a bit of rain, as I'm writing this, ALL the transplanted parsley is putting up new shoots.

I have also planted two tomatoes so far in this bed - a Russian Red and a Sweet 100 bought from a church market sale. The rest of the space will shortly be filled with Tiny Tim tomatoes.

The beetroot and chickweed in this bed have grown a lot in the last month!

Spring onion flowers being enjoyed by the bees. Flowering lettuce not yet ready to be removed (for seed). Still haven't pulled out the leeks in the back half.

The three early zucchini plants I put in here are doing well, and are ready to start picking. Two turned out to be yellow zucchini; the third is green.

Behind the zucchini are some shallots growing slowly, and one broccoli plant which I'll mention again in a moment.

In the back half of the bed are broad beans, which are doing well. The spinach I planted between the rows has not done well, however - all but two have been dug up by birds or otherwise failed. A small nasturtium I put in is just starting to flower.

I've never grown broad beans before - next time I would put them somewhere they can grow around the outside of a structure that will give them plenty of support. It's also a bit of a trick learning when is the right time to harvest the beans.

Buckwheat cover crop is flowering well. I planted this as a cover crop until I need the bed for tomatoes. It is reputed to take 4 weeks from sowing to flowering in ideal conditions. It's taken closer to 6 weeks in my garden to have the flowers open, but that's just fine. I will shortly be pulling it all up, prepping the bed, then laying the pulled buckwheat back down as a mulch.

The flowers are tiny but pretty. Definitely attracting lots of pollinators.

This bed will be planted in Roma tomatoes.

The strawberry patch - comparing this photo to last month's, there has been a lot of growth. We're also enjoying yummy berries every day. The bed was originally prepped with compost, Rok Solid, blood and bone, and mulched with pine needles. A week or so ago, I sprinkled some Sulphate of Potash around the plants, mulched with compost, and watered with a horse-manure tea brew.

It is important to feed the soil around heavy-producers as the season goes on, if you want production to continue well.

My garlic and experimental broccoli plants. I put the broccoli seedlings (obtained free from a supplier) into this bed because 3/4 of my garlic failed (my own fault) and I wanted to test the theory that brassicas planted following garlic wouldn't suffer from white butterfly. I figured there were still garlic cloves in the soil from the failed planting (along with a few that has sprouted) as well as the 1/4 that is growing well, so when I got the free plants I figured I may as well pop them in and see what happens. Normally I CANNOT grow brassicas at all in summer here.

Results so far: The plants are noticeably thriving - the ones in this bed are much, much bigger than the "control plant" put in another bed (behind the zucchini). They are just starting to form heads. I have discovered only 2 or 3 white butterfly caterpillars on them so far, in the entire bed, (which I squished). So not completely free of them, but not overwhelming numbers like I've dealt with in the past. There have been small populations of aphids and whitefly on the leaves - I simply "rub them out" with my gloved hands. It looks like, a few pests aside, I might actually succeed in growing broccoli for summer eating this year!

I cleared this bed of gone-to-seed silverbeet and celery, and am in the process of prepping it for more Roma tomatoes. What WAS very fascinating what the huge array of bugs I found on even just one silverbeet plant. I took pics and identified most of them. I will post about that separately. Even a single plant can be a fascinating eco-system in it's own right, and avoiding sprays and chemicals, as well as planting to attract beneficials and attending to soil (and therefore plant) health, helps keep everything in a healthy balance, with both the environment AND the gardener winning!

This bed is planted in three variety of tomatoes (Money maker, Cocktail, and a Russian heritage called Silvery Fir), underplanted with dwarf green beans, and surrounded by marigolds.

I forgot to write down exactly how I did this (you always think you'll remember these things, but then never do!), but this bed was either prepped with, or the tomatoes had added to their planting holes: compost, Rok Solid, sheep pellets, blood and bone, and Dolomite. Dried, crushed egg shells were later sprinkled under each tomato plant on the soil surface too. Everything looking good so far. I've written more about growing tomatoes HERE, and will also post more as the season progresses.

This bed has been given over to my 16yo daughter (the same one who nominated me for NZ Gardener of the Year, and who claimed she hates gardening lol). So far she has planted a zucchini, an Italian parsley, a chive, several celery, one gherkin, two peas, some carrot seed, and there are some parsley plants at the back I left in the bed. The cycle rims act as a trellis to the peas and gherkin. She has sown flower seeds in the greenhouse and wants to add calendula, cornflowers and asters to any available spaces.

After prepping and planting her bed, she came and told me maybe gardening is kind of fun after all. ;-)

Peas are coming to their natural end. A huge sow thistle (puha) has grown up in the middle of the tepee, but I left it there as it's supporting quite a few of the pea plants.

The rosemary at the front is due to be moved. I also learned recently that they should be regularly pruned, so avoid them becoming too woody (it's the fresh green growth that is used in cooking etc). So I will move it and prune it. It's not flowering right now, so it's probably a good time to do this.

I never did get around to thinning the carrots. Now I'm simply harvesting the biggest ones first, and leaving more room for the smaller ones to develop. Oh well, they don't seem to mind too much.

And boy, they taste good!!

Raspberries and boysenberries developing well - a bird netting cover high on the do-it-soon priority list!

The bees have been absolutely LOVING the flowers of the berries - raspberries, boysenberries, blackberries and strawberries. Strictly speaking, berries don't NEED bees for pollination (they are self-fertile and can be wind pollinated), but bees do improve pollination. In some ways, I think the bees need the berries more than the berries need the bees, and for this reason I would recommend planting a berry patch to all gardeners, even if they don't want berries for themselves. (Though who doesn't love fresh summer berries??)

One of the new beds created this past month - we dug a strip along this fence, then edged all sides with old brick sunk into the group. This helps to prevent the roots of couch grass and creeping buttercup from moving into the bed from under the fence or the garden path. After tossing in some compost, I planted out 3 borage seedlings I had started in the greenhouse, and sowed the rest with some sunflower seeds I had been given (variety unknown). The fence should help give them some support in the wind, as well as reflecting more heat (it faces north). I need to thin the sunflower seedlings, and then I'll just let them do their thing. They are for the bees and food seed.

Borage is apparently the ideal companion for strawberries, greatly increasing their yield. I didn't know that when I planted my strawberry patch, and anyway they grow so big they wouldn't have fitted under the netting I have over the patch. In this bed is as close as I can plant them to the strawberries, so hopefully they will do some good there anyway.

My gooseberry (pictured) and red currant bushes are doing better than I've ever seen them - they're really thriving and growing this year, and have their first fruit in small numbers. The bees have been enjoying the lavender. I plan to take cuttings from the lavender and start more plants  - it's something you can't have too much of, I reckon. It's good to plant (along with rosemary) around the chicken house as a pest deterrent, can be used to make hair rinses and other herbal things, smells great and both are SO good for the bees and other beneficials.

I noticed last year that my red currant LOATHES tap water - hoping to only water it with rainwater this year.

A combo of bee-pleasers - blackberry in the corner tyre, a tractor tyre full of cosmos, phacelia and zinnia which are just starting to flower, and lavender.

Last summer, as regular readers will know, was my first attempt at the vege garden. I saw very few honey bees all summer, but quite a lot of bumble bees (which pollinated my pumpkins, zucchini etc). So I started thinking about how to help and attract more bees (as well as other beneficial insects for pest control), and what to plant for that purpose. I started seeing more bees in June, when the red hot pokers in the paddock came into flower, followed by the lilacs. Shortly after, some of my brassicas went to seed, and I left them for the bees as I know they love those flowers. That seemed to get the ball rolling and they were visiting my garden looking for food. I had rosemary in flower over winter too. Meanwhile I started planting other things for the bees, and now I'm seeing a lot of honey bees and native bees, as well as bumble bees in my garden. Flowering right now I have blackberries (raspberries and boysenberries have just about finished), buckwheat, lavender, cosmos, phacelia, zinnia, marigolds, nasturtium, calendula, cucumbers, zucchini just getting going, potatoes, tomatoes, buk choy, spring onions, chives, lettuce, broad beans (peas have just finished), parsley, comfrey, borage is just starting, roses, lemon, geraniums, Sweet William, impatiens, and then other things that are coming along and will flower soon. In terms of pollination AND pest control, there is nothing so important as making room in your vege garden for some flowering plants! Ideally, you want a variety of plants flowering at all times, year round. I'm still learning how to plan for that, but it is my aim.

Another new creation - the beginnings of my "wild corner." Dug up and edged with some lumps of concrete moved from another area we were digging, this has been planted in a bit of a random assortment which will mostly be left to do their own thing. There are four white "maori" corn (stalks left behind shelter ladybirds over winter), a damson plum I was given (turns out they are ideal for a small garden - don't grow too big, don't need pruning, suffer no pests or diseases, self fertile), a pumpkin to wander the lawn in front of this bed, some celery (just because this is a spot they will have cool roots and sun on their leaves), dill, a few cornflowers and cineraria, a packet of mixed wildflowers.

November's biggest new addition, thanks almost entirely to the hard work of my eldest daughter. This area was dug over, which included digging up and removing three enormous concrete blocks we hadn't known were there (suspect they once supported a water tower), then edged with pieces of corrugate iron, sunk half into the soil to keep back the roots of the couch and buttercup. We removed some rotten iron from the fence, used the hole to shovel through a couple of trailer loads of compost/top soil mix, then replaced the iron with some clear-light offcuts to allow a bit more light through the fence.

Along the fence I planted black currants, with mixed green and bright-lights silverbeet in between. Along the front are planted a mixture of green and yellow zucchini, and at this end are planted leek seedlings - I'm going to let that spot become a "perpetual bed" for the leeks.

I'm going to either underplant with red clover as a living mulch, or mulch the bed with some other materials - yet to be decided.

I've started work on this area - which ultimately will have a pagola-type structure with a seat under it where I can sit an enjoy my garden, as well as various plantings. Because I hadn't quite decided what and how, it's been left to grow weeds up until now, but this last week I started work on it. Originally, this was the site of an old, ugly greenhouse which we removed some years ago. Last year I covered it in newspaper, compost and sawdust and grew an almighty crop of zucchini in that no-dig bed, which I edged with what I had to hand - a steel chimney and two long fence posts.

Now the chimney has been replaced with some concrete house-piles that were in the chicken run, and topped with large (heavy!) rocks that had been in the front garden, awaiting me figuring out how to make use of them. This is, obviously, a work in progress. My plan is to finish clearing it, plant a hedge of NZ Cranberry (Chilean Guava) - fragrant and delicious - right behind the rocks, create a path across the area behind that, and then put in the structure and seat, with a stauntonia climbing it, some peas against the fence behind, and a lemon verbena in the corner where those plastic chair are sitting, as there is a much-used gate to the paddock right there, and brushing against the lemon verbena will release it's gorgeous fragrance. I'm going to replace the two fence-post edgings with more concrete piles (as soon as another useful teenager or young man is available to shift them for me), and use the posts as part of the framework for the shelter/structure (don't really know what to call it) I plan to build. Add a few potted plants, and I think this is going to look great in time! Watch this space.

Another patch of flowers for the bees and beneficials. Cosmos, phacelia, and zinna all now flowering. This bed also has small feijoas in it which are growing well. This bed borders a path, and forms one boundary of what will be the pond area in time.

My first compost pile is almost finished, and will soon be spread on a garden bed. The second pile (in the third bin) is due to be turned. The grapevine is absolutely loaded with developing grapes; clearly I did manage to figure out the right way to prune it last winter. :-)

My three pallet beds have been growing well, and we're eating salads out of them most days. Since the rain just before the end of the month, the bok choy in the closest pallet has all bolted, though the plants are still small. I've decided bok choy is pretty much a waste of time, unless you harvest and eat when only finger size. On the other hand, it's fast and easy to grow, and produces flowers very quickly. Bad for me, but the bees LOVE brassica flowers. So I've decided from now on I'll just scatter some bok choy seed in out of the way places and let it do it's thing - the bees will appreciate it, and if we get a feed or two, that's a bonus.

Yet another new development this month - this area was grass lawn. We've dug it over, created a series of squares with free bricks down one side (each will be planted with one of the herbs I use most often, as this is just inside the gate that separates the house from the vege garden), and the middle has been planted with my yacon crowns, and underplanted with buckwheat. This photo was taken only a week after planting - as you can see the buckwheat has already sprouted and is growing strong. There are 10 yacon plants; they should yield a good amount of tubers in autumn.

Right behind the brick squares I have sown a long strip of carrot seed, edged with young chive plants. Chives keep carrot fly away, and when this all grows in time, I think it will look really cool!

The potato plants are growing tremendously! Planted on Oct 24th, they were barely showing above the ground on Nov 9th. Two weeks later they are big and lush, and starting to flower. They seem to have responded well to the goodies I put under each seed as it was planted - Rok Solid, Neem, dolomite, gypsum and sheep pellets.

I'm hoping what's going on under the soil is as productive as what's happening above! The plants have been mounded up well once; I'm going to need to add mulch or similar soon to increase the mounding.

I have positioned my two choko vines, still in their pots, next to fences where they can grow - one here near the potato patch, and the other in the chicken run where it can grow over the enclosed run and provide summer shade to the chickens.

All the plants I planted last month under the newly constructed fences are doing well. This side has 5 gherkins - the middle one was one I raised from seed while the other four were purchased seedlings. There is a HUGE difference between them (now, a week later, even more so). The marigolds are expanding, the nasturtium is growing (first time I've had any success with them), the cosmos if flowering, the alyssum is expanding, and the celery looks happy too.

On the other fence (not pictured) my climbing rose is producing shoots, impatiens are flowering vigorously, and more parsley transplants are doing very well.

This is the current view from the back corner of my garden. Another month or two, and it will have changed significantly.  It's already utterly different from how it was a year ago.

My greenhouse still has a lot of plants that will be planted out soon, and I have lots of seeds waiting to go in. More digging to do in preparation!

Looking back at last month's photos (1st Oct), I can't believe how much things have grown or changed!! But then, this is spring, and everything is now growing at a rapid rate (especially the weeds and grass!). Next month's pics are sure to be even more astonishing. Meanwhile, let's take a wander around my garden as it was on the 1st of November....I've got lots of new ideas going on!

The main vege beds - lots of brassicas in flower, which the bees are LOVING, along with the flowers of the lavender, chives, strawberries, raspberries and boysenberries.

Coming to the end of the brassicas now, though there are still some good things to eat! Because I was not yet ready to plant anything new in this bed, I let some of the brassicas flower. The purple cauliflower in particular produced huge flower stems. I won't be saving the seed from them though, as I've decided the purple cauliflowers take up WAY too much space for the food they produce, and we just don't like them enough to justify it.

The front part of this bed has been cleared of all but a few of the lettuces which had gone to seed - I've left one of each variety, staked for support, at the back to produce seed. The spring onions around the edges are flowering; I've left these for the bees as well as seed, plus with spring onions when they flower, the plants go right ahead and produce new spring onions off the same base, which they are already doing.

I've planted the middle with beetroot seedlings, and left the chickweed that is growing across the front of the bed to add to salads.

The back half of this bed contains leeks. I've learned two things about leeks - they take AGES to grow to maturity, and in certain conditions they bolt easily, making the leek almost useless. Unfortunately, most of these are bolting - I'm going to harvest them for stock and plant new ones elsewhere, in a location they can become a perpetual crop as per the excellent explanation I found HERE

At the beginning of last month, this bed was covered in a mulch of lawn clippings. Now the back half is planted in broad beans, with alternating rows of spinach (they benefit from each other's shade). In the front half are three zucchini I planted out despite the risk of late frost - figuring if we didn't get one I'm ahead of the game, and if we did, I'd simply replace them. There are also three bok choy plants, just to see if they do ok or bolt. All of these are inside cut off plastic bottles to provide some wind protection when they were planted as we've had two months of howling gales almost non-stop. Time to remove those now that the weather has settled and the plants have outgrown them.

There is also a solitary broccoli seedling in the corner - more about that in a minute.

The broadbean rows have a wooden batten in the ground at each end, with string running the width of the bead and around both sides of the stakes, with multiple layers of the same. This provides some excellent support for the broad beans, which grow up between a line of string on each side. As they get taller, I add more string higher up the stakes.

This bed has been sown in a cover crop of buckwheat. I've never done that before, but the theory is that the plants will be flowering within 4 weeks of sowing, the bees love the flowers, and at that point it can also be pulled or cut and laid on the surface as an instant mulch. I'm wanting this bed for tomatoes soon, so we'll see how it goes. When this photo was taken, it was 12 days from sowing.

The strawberry bed now has the hoops and netting over it, and is beginning to produce lovely, luscious berries. The chives are also looking particularly magnificent! Frequent comments from visitors include "WOW, look at the SIZE of those strawberries" or "Wow, look at those chives!!" Something about this combination is working really well!

Since the garlic I planted in 3/4 of this bed isn't much use, but there are cloves in the ground still, when I scored a pack of free broccoli seedlings I decided to plant them in here, strictly as an experiment to see what happens with the white butterflies begin doing their thing (I've seen a few flitting around). One plant I put in the other bed with the broad beans, as a control.  The rest of the garlic is doing well.

The silverbeet and even the celery (which I molly-coddled under cover all winter and only planted out in Sept) are all going to seed. There are some peas doing ok, but much smaller than the ones in my other pea bed, and a couple of very large leeks that are going to seed. I think I'm going to leave the leeks and one silverbeet to produce seeds - everything else will be cleared out to make room for tomatoes.

There are a few small cabbages still growing along the front, but most of this bed is past it's prime and will also be cleared for tomatoes. I'm going to leave one broccoli plant in to produce seed. One thing that has astounded me is the sheer side of the purple cauliflower stems and root systems (at left in photo). When I pulled these babies up (a couple of days after taking this photo) I just about broke both a spade and a garden fork trying to lift them - and half the soil in the bed wanted to come with them! The stems are so thick my fingers don't meet (by a long shot) when I wrap a hand around them!

Brussel sprouts would have to be my major flop-crop this year! They bolted too fat to produce many useable sprouts, though the parsley underneath is looking good. I'm going to clear this bed and turn it over to one of my daughters to grow things in this summer.

Peas are looking good now that I've vanquished the snails! As soon as they are done, I'll be moving the rosemary at the front of the bed and turning this bed over to another daughter to grow veges in.

Carrots looking good - and still needing thinning. I keep saying I'm going to do it....

Raspberries and boysenberries are looking really great - and the first of the raspberries are ripening! I'm going to need to get a frame and some bird netting over these asap!

I've planted one of these tyres with cosmos, phacelia and zinnias - flowers for the bees and insects. I've under-sown the blackberry with some buckwheat too.

The red currant was getting really battered by strong southerly winds, so my husband helped me put up protection in the form of a spare piece of plywood, wired to two steel rods (rebar) inserted in the ground. No more broken stems - yay! The tyres have been mulched in sheep's wool from our sheep, and the bees are loving the lavender!

I finished digging over the potato patch, and it has been planted in chitted (sprouted) certified seed potatoes. There are four long rows, two each side of the boards I put down the middle. The boards are so I can walk down the middle without compressing the soil too much. Each spud had the following put under it:
1 heaped TBSP Neem Tree granules
1 level TBSP Gypsum
1 tsp Rok Solid
1 tsp blood & bone
handful sheep pellets

Because I was planting out 50 seed potatoes, rather than try to measure the above out as I planted each one, I got 50 paper cups from the $2 shop, lined them up on my table, and measured Neem into each one, then Gypsum and so on. When planting, it was a simple matter of dump a cup in the trench, stir in a little, then pop a spud on top. The cups are stored away in the shed to be used for similar garden projects, or to be used as mini-plant pots.

I put down my first pallet bed at the beginning of the month - this is laid on thick cardboard (for weed suppression) then filled with a mix of compost and old rotted down sawdust. I've planted it with leaf lettuce for salads. The location is next to a building that provides some afternoon shade - should be perfect for the lettuce which don't like it too hot.

Pallet beds are good for shallow-rooted crops. The wooden slats help to minimise weeds, shade the soil, and retain moisture.

In the last week of October, my daughter laid out and filled two more pallets, ready for planting in November

I've been wanting to put up a fence to keep the dogs out of the vege gardens for some time, and right at the end of Oct my darling daughter did most of the work erecting this, due to a shoulder injury that was preventing me doing much heavy work. It's perfect - just how I imagined! I will write a separate post about exactly how we constructed it. One side is high so I can plant a climber there; the other side is low so that looking out from our dining/living room I can still see across into the garden area, and if any livestock get into the yard I'll be able to see them too. Next plan is to build raised beds along the base of both sides.

This area here just behind the fence I'm planning to dig over and plant with yacons and who knows what else?

The newly created (last month) bed with feijoas in it has been underplanted in flowers for the bees (and to conserve moisture) - zinnia, phacelia and cosmos

With help from two of my teens, we've constructed a triple-bay compost bin set up out of free pallets. The middle one will remain empty until the grapes are harvested from behind it, so I can step into that bay and reach the vines. The bin on the left has partially-done compost I turned into it from the pile that was beside it. The one on the right is just in the process of being filled.

A lovely brew! Horse manure in a porous sack is suspended from a wooden batten in a barrel of water. Every time I walk past I use one end of the batten to lift and lower the "tea bag" in the water. It's quickly developing into a lovely, nutritious brew for the garden.

The bicycle rims you can just see the edge of are part of a pile I'm collecting to use to make various trellises. My son had collected a lot of bikes he used to make other projects, fix things etc. When it was time to clear the remaining junk I asked to keep the wheel rims.

Two worm bins set up - the new on top of the old. Compost, manure tea, and vermicast - three excellent ways to feed my soil!

A temporary fence made from pallets prevents the dogs from getting in from the other end of the garden by the greenhouse. When we rebuild a glasshouse instead, a more permanent fence will be put in. Meanwhile, the middle pallet swings like a gate, hinged on a waratah.

The greenhouse is choka with seedlings ready to be planted out this month (the picture shows less than half of them!)

I want to dig a large bed along the fence behind the washing lines. The fence shades it for most of the day, but I reckon there's lots of things I can plant along there!

My husband and I recently added wire to the top of the fences to keep the chickens out of the yard. Yay, no more chicken invaders. Well, except for this ONE....but that's another story!

And this area here....part of it is wet and low-lying; I'd like to dig a pond there. The rest of it...I have lots of ideas! I wonder what it will look like by next month's photos?? Lawn's are seriously over-rated, and I don't need any in my food garden area!

My awesome kids have collected 18 trailer loads of sawdust/horse manure from a stables so far - it's composting down on the front lawn. I haven't had time to do any work in this area yet - coming up as soon as I get the bulk of the prep and planting done in the back yard.

I scored a load of brand-new concrete bricks off of Freecycle last week - how cool is that? Got lots of ideas........watch this space!

Found this gorgeous wee bird-seed feeder at Pak 'n Save for less than $6 - couldn't resist. Wonder how long it will take the birds to figure out there's free food?

What do YOU have going on in your garden this month?

Sept/Oct is a time of change - the last of the winter vegetables are looking ragged or going to seed, some cool season crops are growing well, but it's time to clear most of the beds and prepare them for summer crops.

The bed of brassicas in the foreground of this photo needs clearing - one cabbage has gone to seed, the caulis are past their usefulness, and the brussel sprouts are also bolting.

Next to it is the bed of lettuces, spring onions and leeks. The leeks are starting to come into their own, but the lettuces are bolting. I'm going to pull the rest of these out this week. The spring onions around the lettuces are also starting to grow flower stalks - I will use some up, then freeze or dehydrate the rest.

This was the beetroot bed - they've all been harvested and bottled (recipe coming soon). I finished clearing the bed, and added various nutrients before giving it a light mulch with grass clippings. If we want our food to be nutritious, then we need to make sure it is growing in soil that is healthy and full of nutrients. So far I have added blood and bone, Rok Solid (ground rock organic fertiliser that contains some 60 essential nutrients), soft lime (calcium from it more easily absorbed than regular lime) and the lawn clippings (extra nitrogen). I will also add some manure or manure tea as soon as I have it available.

I haven't decided exactly what I will be planting in this bed yet, but I'm leaning towards planting each bed in rows of different plants, mixing some flowers in with the food crops too.

The strawberry bed is flowering well. The kids keep asking when we will have strawberries to eat. Won't be long kids! The chives in the middle are looking very healthy, and have a few flowers developing too. I'm looking forward to those flowers, as they will help to attract more bees to the bed, resulting in even more strawberries. The combination of the pine mulch and the chives in the bed seems to be serving well to keep the snails away. I've found many snails in other beds nearby, but the only one I've found on this bed was crawling along the wooden edge, and staying away from the plants.

Inside the garlic bed. I've been pretty disappointed in how many garlic cloves have sprouted. As you can see, the ones near the front left are doing much better than the rest, and from memory those were from a different batch of garlic as the first lot ran out. There are some popping through here and there on the rest of the bed, but I don't know how well they'll turn out. I'm tempted to pull them out and plant something else, or just put in some brassicas in the gaps and see if the garlic that is growing will keep the white cabbage butterflies away. Hmmmm. Will be moving the netting over to the strawberries soon.

This bed is a bit of a "miscellaneous" bed - nearly everything in it was stuck in there because I ran out of other places to put it - a few left over silverbeet seedlings are now huge, a couple of left over brussel sprouts - now gone to seed and to be pulled out - a few celery plants, doing well, and some left over peas I sowed here when I had filled another bed, and then forgot about, which are now sprouting fairly happily. Oh, and two left over leeks right at the back, which are looking very good. I think we'll eat one and let the other flower and set seed for saving. Really I'd like lots of silverbeet elsewhere, not here, but these plants will feed us for the next few weeks until other things have grown big enough to eat, so here they stay for now.

Another brassica bed - looks pretty full and healthy, but it all needs clearing. The last of the broccoli is flowering, which is good for the bees, so I may leave that row in for a while. The brussel sprouts (the row along the side closest in the photo) is all trying to bolt - will see how many sprouts I can pick off them before they just need pulling out. There is one more purple cauli to pick on the other side, and a couple of celery plants I put in recently that are doing ok and will be left in. Otherwise this is a bed that needs clearing, improving, and replanting.

This bed full of brussel sprouts are all bolting. There are sprouts forming on the stems. Will take off the tops and see if I get edible sprouts, otherwise they will all need to come out. They are under-planted with parsley, which will then grow big and cover most of the bed.

I have seen the first of the white butterflies flitting through my garden this week, so the days for brassicas are strictly limited now anyway.

Now, here's an interesting thing. My peas are doing pretty well, despite the plague of snails eating the back ones. But suddenly mushrooms have appeared all over this bed. I don't think they are edible ones, and I was contemplating what to do about them when I just happened to read a book that mentioned how mushrooms play an important role in breaking down old wood, and in cleaning the environment of toxins and other nasties. Mushrooms can transform, for example, a pile of treated wood or sludge from an oil spill into, eventually, healthy, growing soil teeming with life! I had noticed before I planted the peas that the sawdust mulch in this bed looked odd - it hadn't broken down, and had the consistency of bran with white cotton-y threads running through it. Turns out that is the vegetative state of mushrooms (the mushrooms themselves are the fruit). They are, no doubt, breaking down the sawdust, so I think I'll just leave them to do their thing in this bed. I did notice when clearing the beetroot bed (shown above with grass mulch) that one patch of it looks similar, but the rest is nicely broken down and looks dark and rich. So maybe there are patches where the sawdust I have used was from a different type of tree or wood, and it needs the action of mushrooms to break it down?? Nature doing its thing!

I WILL thin the carrots this week, really I will! The kale at the front has aphids all over it, so I'm thinking I'll just pull them out and feed them to the chickens. There is some merit in allowing a few aphids to remain in the garden as a food source for beneficials, but I think it's time this kale went. The white butterflies will get it soon otherwise anyway.

The raspberries and boysenberries are looking great! They're both starting to flower too - yummy berries coming soon! I've planted some extra raspberry canes in a bin behind this bed, and mulched the path behind it with pine needles, as well as this bed. Now to figure out how best to net them all in due course...

On the 30th I started digging up 10 square metres of my potato patch (finished digging it over on the 2nd). Now I need to make trenches, add amendments, and plant my spuds, which are well sprouted in the greenhouse.

Around the garden there are exciting things to see and
discover....

The grapevine and blackcurrants are bursting into leaf.....My three year old red currant and gooseberry bushes are showing signs of their first every flowers and developing fruit...the apple and quince trees are beginning to blossom, bees are working the various flowers....

I dug up the black currant cuttings that have been quietly growing in the corner by the caravan and potted them up as I don't have a good permanent spot decided on for them yet. Here are some of them, just coming into leaf.

My daughter dug this new bed along side of the path we use to the back gate. I was going to put raspberries here, then realised it's just too wet for them. So I raised it a bit, and have planted four small feijoas along there - will underplant with flowers as soon as the seedlings are ready. The feijoas can get quite big, but I plant to keep them clipped into a hedge in time.

The bed behind where I had zucchini last year is looking a bit bare. The miscellaneous silverbeet plants are making a good recovery now the chickens can't get into the yard. I have plans for this area - more on that soon.

The herb patch is needing some work - parsley is doing well, the lime tree has suddenly dropped its leaves, and the lemon needs feeding. I'm thinking of moving the Chilean Guavas I planted under the apple tree - not sure where yet. The passionfruit hasn't started growing again yet. I'd like to create a herb spiral, but haven't decided on a location, and this garden area needs mulching.

The tyre full of greens is still looking healthy, though the lettuces are starting to bolt. There are some beets and peas in there doing well too. I'm looking forward to clearing this out so I can move the tyre to another location and put up a fence.

Well, that's it for this month's photos. I'll create a separate post with some more photos of different parts of the garden, along with all the ideas and plans I have for them.

September 1st is the official first day of Spring here in New Zealand. With this winter having been the warmest since records began, it's been tempting to rush out and plant everything possible in the garden. But wisdom urges caution at this time of year. And sure enough, on the 2nd of September I woke up to a surprise sharp frost! There's nothing more devastating to a gardener than to plant lots of beautiful seedlings and have them all get killed (or severely stunted by an untimely visit from Jack Frost!

Pictured left is a beautiful purple cauliflower. Even then stems are pinky-purple and look good enough to eat! Which got me thinking - how come with broccoli and cauliflower we only eat the flower of the plant (the heads), and usually throw away the leaves and stems, even though they taste just as good and are generally even higher in nutrients?

Not this frugal Kiwi! We'll be eating the florets for a meal, and then I'm going to harvest and cook the stems and leaves too! I've been using broccoli stems for some time - they just need to be peeled before slicing and cooking as the outside tends to be tough when cooked. Now to try those beautiful looking cauliflower leaves.

Things are starting to move in the vege garden. The brassicas are getting to the point of harvesting most of them (one naughty cabbage is even trying to go to seed!), the first leeks are almost getting to edible size, the beetroot is ready to be all harvest, the carrots have sprouted and need thinning, garlic and peas are starting to poke their heads up, the strawberries are beginning to flower, and the raspberries have burst into leaf.

Being spring, though, it's been very wet. I'm seriously considering digging a pond just so there's somewhere for the water to drain into.

The late planted Brussel Sprout plants are getting bigger, though no spouts on the stems as yet. I may have to net these to keep the butterflies off them soon, but hopefully this week's frost will have kept the white butterflies at bay for a while longer.

The peas I transplanted are growing nicely, and the ones I sowed a couple of weeks back are just starting to poke through the soil. I soaked the peas in water for several hours before planting, to speed germination - a very helpful hint at this time of year when cool soils can otherwise slow them down.

Carrots ready to thin, and kale still going strong.

The various ideas I had for where to transplant my raspberries and boysenberries to have not worked out at this time, so I decided it was time to tame the berry patch right where it is - I finished pruning the canes, removed a bunch of suckers which are in a bucket awaiting planting in pots or giving away, and used an offcut of reinforcing mesh to train the boysenberries on. The raspberries are already leaving up strongly. Looking forward to yummy summer berries!

The brassica bed on the right is still producing small broccoli florets, which grow off the side of the stems after the main heads are cut off. (For this reason, one does not pull out the whole plant when the main head is ready). There are purple cauliflower just starting to develop heads, and brussel sprouts ready to start the first picking. The cabbages I planted to fill some gaps when I pulled out the buk choy haven't really grown much at all, so may end up being chicken fodder - we'll see.

The bed on the left has silverbeet, a couple of leeks that are getting to a good size, one brussel sprout plant, and several celery I've just recently planted out, after keeping them cozy in a plastic bin all winter. I'm covering them with plastic bottles at night to protect them from possible frosts.

The garlic bed is now fully planted. I read in a magazine that you should put netting over the bed until the garlic has sprouted, to keep cats and dogs off. I didn't at first, and sure enough they kept walking on it and leaving holes with their paws. Because there are some garlic in the back part that are several inches tall, while the rest are just beginning to sprout or have only just been planted, I couldn't lay netting flat over it. So I brought some steel rods (rebar) from the building supply store, and bent them over the beds to hold the bird netting up. I LOVE rebar - you can do so much with it, and it's pretty cheap! I used 10mm bars - and because the beds have wooden sides, the natural springy-ness of the bars causes them to press outwards against the sides, holding the hoops in place. I just pushed one side down into the soil against the side of the bed, grabbed the other end and pulled down while holding a hand in the middle to help it bend in the right spot, and then applied pressure so I could push the other end in too. I've threaded some lightweight straight rods through the sides of the mesh to hold it down on both sides (being new it tends to pull together in the middle). When the garlic is all up, I'll move the rods and mesh over onto the strawberry bed to keep the birds off all those yummy strawberries!

The left had bed in this picture is planted in 70 odd strawberry plants (with chives in the middle) and mulched with pine needles. The strawberries are just beginning to flower.

Brassicas coming along - lots of purple cauli starting to head, and some greyhound cabbages that are starting to race. The brussel sprouts don't look terribly great so far, but we'll see.

Good old faithful leaf lettuce! I'm planning on growing leaf lettuce in pallet gardens this coming summer, in a spot where they will be partly shaded in the afternoon, as lettuce does not like to get too hot.

Spring onions and leeks growing steadily.

Beetroot more than ready to be harvested - old leaves are fading, and new ones are starting to grow. Have been meaning to harvest this bed and bottle the beetroot - on the chore list for very soon!

Then I will freshen up this bed, and decide what to plant here next.....choices, choices! I really should plan a proper crop rotation - this year the beds have just gotten planted in whatever needed to go in. Now I have all 12 of these beds established, I need to start thinking about proper rotation and forward planning. Time for a session with my garden diary!

Third brassica bed. A few broccoli still sprouting, purple caulis doing well, but the brussel sprouts that are behind them are getting really hammered by the birds. This bed is at the far side of the garden, with the neighbours large trees over the fence. Every time I walk through the garden, blackbirds fly up out of this area. They must be hungry. Hmmm...been meaning to make some bird feeders.

A recent earthquake has caused a pipe under the far side of our house to leak, and I discovered large amounts of water seeping across this lawn. My boys and I dug a ditch last Sunday to carry the water away. I've been wanting a ditch anyway, as this area has problems with rain not running off. This will be my potato plot, as soon as I have time to dig it over and get it prepped. Meanwhile, a few of my hens are getting it started.

Inside the greenhouse - weeds have been cut down, trays of seeds are sprouting, and I've cut up the grapevine prunings which will make great kindling once they dry out properly. The greenhouse needs some serious work to finish it off properly, and I'd love to build some benches in here too. Thinking about growing peanuts in here this summer, as well as using it for seed raising and potting up things.

One of our sets of twin lambs - the girl (left) is being bottle fed, and the boy (right) is feeding off his mama, but likes to run over and have a bit from the bottle too. It always fascinates me how, even in a paddock full of other lambs, twins will always cuddle up to each other, even though they play with all the other lambs. Even when fully grown, twins are close and recognise each other.

June brought a lot of frosts and some wet weather, though quite low rainfall overall for this time of year. The lawnmower is still on the blink, but the gardens have kept on growing.

Two beds here filled with brassicas are growing well, though we haven't yet been eating any, except for some of the buk choy. The bees are still flocking to the buk choy flowers, so I've left quite a few in. The furthest brassica bed is just getting to where I will be picking broccoli heads soon. Yum!

I am finding that the first bed, planted at the end of March, are much better grown and advanced than those planted a month later. The earlier ones had to be covered completely to protect from white butterfly, and I didn't have enough covers for all three beds at the time, so the seedlings (which were all sown at the same time) were potted up and kept protected in bins until I could plant them out. But an extra month in the garden makes a big difference!

Third brassica bed. Purple cauli plants are growing well at the front there.

Behind it is a bed that now is partly planted in strawberry plants I dug up from elsewhere in the garden, and has been completely deep mulched with pine needles. Strawberries like the acidity provided by the pine needles. I plant to get more strawberry plants to fill the bed.

Next to that is a bed where I've planted the back half in garlic, and the front has a few carrots left, but will soon be also planted in garlic.

The tyre I planted in spare lettuce plants is doing well, and the parsley plants in the garden behind it are large and lush.

The yacon's leaves have been killed by the frosts, but they're still flowering, so I'm leaving them to it. There are new crowns growing at the base of the stalks, from which I will plant next year's plants. Can't wait to see how much there is in the way of actual tubers - they say you don't get much the first year. The flowers look like teeny sunflowers.

The Calendula is still growing at the base of the plants, despite being dug up a few times by the dog. There's also a wild mallow plant growing there.

Wet weather and lawnmower problems mean the lawns are looking a bit unkempt, but the main garden beds are coming along well.

What was my green bean experiment bed is now planted with some left-over brussel sprout seedlings. I'll probably put parsley seedlings between them.

The carrots have done very well in this bed - not many left to pull.

The herb garden is looking a bit bare in places since I removed all the tomatoes that were sprawling all over from the back. The parsley is doing well though - everything else is dying down for winter.

The Yacons are getting a bit frost damaged, but are still growing and are now starting to flower. Not sure how long they'll last.

This corner is still overgrown - going to cut out the blackberry, transplant the strawberries, and find somewhere el

I've planted two limes, a lemon, and some rosemary and lavender plants in one part of the front garden bed.

Orangeberries have continued to spread.

The geraniums by my daughter's room are still flowering well.

Tomatoes planted at the back of the herb bed (two plants) are getting pretty wild - they're growing all over the place, all but smothering some of the herbs. The parsley is still doing well long the front though.

The zucchini are starting to die back. The pumpkin vines are already gone - they all developed powdery mildew and then died off fast, so were harvested. But the zucchinis, which also have some mildew, are still persevering.

I panicked a bit when everything suddenly developed mildew - online research suggested that something must be done, or the fruits would be tasteless and not keep well. Turns out that this isn't the case - common for zucchini and pumpkin to develop mildew towards the end of the season, but doesn't seem to cause too bad a problem. All the pumpkin we harvested have tasted great, and the zucchini have been fine so far too.

The tomatoes have grown considerably since we erected a greenhouse over them 3 weeks ago to protect them from the frost! It's now a constant battle to find time to prune and train them. Green tomatoes are everywhere - looking forward to eating them.

Turns out there are a lot of life lessons and spiritual truths you can learn from growing tomatoes! I also realised I've never really grown tomatoes before - a few small plants in pots definitely do not count! Planted in the ground and well nourished, a tomato plant grows much bigger and faster!

My potato patch is looking rather neglected - I need to harvest the potatoes soon.