Autumn 2012

It is now May 2012 and not a lot has been done with regard to infrastructure, however the garden continues to grow, and harvests in autumn have been wonderful but erratic, feast or famine. 

Absolutely nothing like the taste of home grown bananas.
 I did an internet search and found a
Sth. African banana and ginger chutney recipe.

Modified the recipe to include some diced peaches and juice. Our golden Queen peaches were fantastic this year again.

The kamo kamo squash excelled themselves this year and were perfect
for using as a base for my mum's sweet pickle recipe.

The sweet pickle recipe requires celery seed and this home grown version 

seemed to be about twice as strong as the bought ones. 

Top jars are the S.A. chutney, 2 jars at right are kamo kamo sweet pickle,
middle jar is sweet pickled sauerkraut (cabbage). Last year we harvested 5 avocado, this year
we got around 25. Will definitely be planting more trees up here.

Most of the herbs are loving it up here, especially the parsley, rosemary and
onion families.

Comfrey and leek.

Comfrey and banana skins on compost heap.

I have been making my heaps in the garden in-situ so to speak rather than as proper compost bins for the meanwhile. Although the more intense weeds remain active they still break down enough to make a reasonable soil to grow in in the meanwhile, especially with some of the local seaweed added to the mix. Oh for a fit and young  body again.

 The lemons are struggling up here in the wind.