Over the weekend I removed all of the old brassicas (covered with grey aphids), silver beet (now much taller than I), spring onions and leeks (all about to flower).

I then used a broom and wide shovel to clean pea straw off the paths.  The birds have been having a merry time scratching for bugs.  However, the wooden edges on the beds have prevented much of the pea straw from ending up on the paths.  Hooray!  Paul put up the hawk kite – hopefully it’s flapping and flying will put some of the birds off visiting the garden.

It was time to cut back the comfrey.  I have laid this straight onto the garden beds as extra mulch.

Paul planted some blackberries from the roadside in the old bathtub.  The fruit are particularly flavourful.  We hope that they will grow in the containment of the bathtub.

Today I planted all of the beans and cucumbers.  I erected 4 bamboo teepees and planted 2 plants at the base of each.  Each teepee has a different bean variety, so 6 plants of each variety in all.  The varieties are scarlett runner (derived from Aunty Rita’s seeds), Pean, Bob’s and Dalmatian.  I also planted 12 Mother-in-law bean plants – these are a bush type, shell-out bean.  The 6 soy beans that I planted will be eaten when they are very young, in the Japanese style of Edamame.

The cucumber seedlings were also ready to be planted – 4 each of lemon, green apple and cyclanthera (a cucumber-like thing) were planted in a single clump of each variety.

The zucchini and oil-seed pumpkins are beginning to flower.

Harvesting was wonderful today – strawberries, asparagus, broad beans, artichokes, lettuce (3 types), rocket, nasturtium flowers, snow peas, pak choi, broccoli, celery and basil.  What a great dinner we will have tonight!  I’m also cooking a hogger and butternut curry (our own home-killed sheep and home-grown butternut from that has been stored in the larder overwinter).  Crops that I stored over winter – apples and butternut squash – are almost finished.  We have 6 apples left and 3 butternuts.