These are our new girls. Sadly we lost Pearlie and Toffee on that record breaking 46 degree day we had here in Sydney. I still can’t believe it. I was running around all day giving wet towels and frozen water bottles to the bunny and worm farm, but somehow thought that water and shade was enough for the chookies. The poor things. What an awful thing to happen.
Next time I will be ready with sprinklers, wet towels and cool water for these girls.
Finally we have had some figs that are a decent size and taste like figs should, sweet and fleshy. We had to move the potted Genoa fig tree because it was being strangled by the passion fruit vine. It is now up against the house, baking in the sun, and could not be happier.
We like them teamed with a creamy Gorgonzola.
Dave brought back boxes and boxes (literally) of succulents from his father’s garden last week. I have been potting them up with a bit of help from my apprentice, who looks less than enthusiastic in these pictures. I love the way they look against the pebbles.
The highs – bowls full of tasty, ripe, red jewels.
The lows – uninvited guests helping themselves.
I turned 4o a few weeks ago, and my friends and family have obviously been reading this blog and knew that I was looking for some guavas to plant in my citrus orchard.
I ended up with 4 bushes, 2 strawberry, 1 pineapple and 1 other variety which I have forgotten. A big thanks to my sister who nursed that big one all the way from the NSW north coast down to Sydney.
They are all planted in the orchard thanks to my lovely hubby, and I look forward to lots of guavas in the years to come.
The whole orchard area is looking very happy after the little makeover it received. The companion plants are all growing and their flowers are hopefully doing their job attracting beneficial insects.
My favourite are the borage flowers, They are so pretty and are edible too. Check out this orange cake topped with borage flowers. Yum!!
And of course the marigolds. 
My human match making efforts over the years have been pretty futile. There have been no weddings, babies or anything past a 3rd date actually. But when I saw my spaghetti squash struggling to get it togther in the pollination department, I had to get involved.
The vine had masses of flowers, but there were no squash developing beyond this. I remember my dad getting us to pollinate the passionfruit vines as kids using a cotton bud, so I decided to get involved and give this a go.
It isn’t hard to tell the difference between the male and female flowers.
These are females.
And this is a male. The males are much bigger on this vine, and of course they have the powdery pollen just waiting to be transferred.
You can see the smaller female at the back here…and my cotton bud.
And this time, getting involved has been resounding success!!!
Give the 3 year old a butterfly net to catch those pesky cabbage moths.
He certainly has his game face on!
