The Summer Garden

 There isn't much to do in the garden at the moment, except enjoy!

It has been a hot and very wet summer. Because of this I am having a few fungal issues in the garden. The grapes have an issue (possibly fungus and too much wet) and I may be lucky enough to get one small bunch (unlike last years soo many bunches I didn't know what to do with them all), the apple tree is fungus city and I am going to sacrifice what the birds have left and give it a serious prune (coming soon!). I did get some very tasty raspberries, nice and sweet, but there were really only a handful. I am considering moving them back to their previous location and just deal with their rampant behaviour (the bountiful fruit makes the effort well worth it).

I have even had pest trouble in the native sections of my garden! I have had to remove an Acacia terminalis and A. buxifolia as well as a Dodonea. Not sure what happened to the Dodonea it just up and died. The A. terminalis had some weird thing attached to it that I was watching and wondering what it was, and then it started to kill it. I think the A. buxifolia was just nearing the end of its useful life as a garden plant after 6 years. So a trip to the local native nursery is on the cards this week!

Mini zuc's

What is going well??? Well, the basil is recovering from the bruising it copped from a big hail storm a little while ago. The nashi, pears and quince are coming along well (so far). I have been getting a good number of yellow zuccini's (one plant is producing mini zuc's, maybe there is a new market there???), the corn is coming along and the stem lettuce is going to seed ready to provide me with lettuce next year. the celery has been great as has the silverbeet. The blueberries were producing some nice big sweet berries, but one small boy reached his little hand in and harvested all the fruit while a friend was looking after him :( No more berries this year!

Quince

Pear

Nashi

Lots of garden learning this year. I have been researching getting a couple of mulberry trees (not sure where in my small yard these large trees are going to fit, but there is a will and I will find a way :)). My chooks have scaly leg (something I have not encountered in any of my chooks in the past) and I am learning how to treat this. I am learning about pruning and setting trees up to produce maximum fruit. And I am thinking about grafting extra varieties of pear to my pear tree, so the process of grafting would be new (something I have always wanted to learn!). I am looking forward to more playing and re-arranging.