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I know, I'm far too keen.  There are a couple of quotes with regard to Melbourne Cup day and one of them is that it's the day when you plant tomatoes in Melbourne.  I'm about 2 months early of that date  ...  What can I say, the sun is shining, it's glorious to be outside again and I'm overexcited.  In the same way that my children are dragging out summer dresses and thongs in their enthusiasm to embrace the weather, I'm planting tomatoes.

We added two raised beds to our front lawn to grab a little more growing space.  I think Geoff was a little worried that I was going all Mediterranean on him, trying to convert every inch to something that provides.  They don't encroach at all and if I was the only one with a say in it, I would say we could fit another 3 in on the other side quite easily ......

Purple Haze and Early Nantes carrots - in.  Five types of tomatoes - Green Zebra, Tommy Toe, Principe Borghese, Black Russian and Tomato Berry.  It is early though and there is still weather ahead so until we're more predictably warm I'll bag them each night before the sun goes down to get them through to the next day.

Peas are big enough to eat, broad beans starting to flower, Broccoli delicious and with none of the funky smell of store bought heads.  Garlic, onions and leeks are slow and steady, emphasis on the slow.

Happy Days.

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Some berries from our patch.

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Another weekend.

This one spent with my parents, cooking for them and us at their house, drinking too much wine, eating well and laughing for the first time in a little while.

We woke far too early with over excited girls squealing Happy Father's Day and the younger daddy in the house straining to squeeze his eyes open.

Later in the morning Nan and Pa's garden was trimmed of its flowers and the girls set up a little flower stall, the arrangements which I'm sure are now inside around their house.

An afternoon pottering in our own garden, examining all the buds bursting open, the blossom already falling to the ground, the cycle of things marching ever on.

Today our daddy celebrates with his daddy at the footy - go Tigers. To all the dads out there, to mine and ours particularly, thank you.

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It's pouring down here. The garden is flooded and the heater is on. It's December 20th. Despite all that our strawberries are going gangbusters and oh so very sweet. Who would have thought it?

Red

San marzano, tommy toes and yellow grape.

No Heirloom Salad yet

This year I am growing 6 different types of tomatoes and had envisaged a gorgeous tomato salad, with different colours, shapes and sizes. My plants are full of fruit, but they're not very big and are slow to colour. I know I shouldn't complain, green fingered friends all over say it's a bad year for tomatoes. My mother has kept friends and family in tomatoes from November through to March, always, this year she has one plant - nothing took off (she grows from seed), the garden looks very barren.

So whilst I do not have my heirloom salad on a plate tonight, I am pleased with what we gathered this afternoon. The top photo could be deceiving, so a child of 2 year old proportions is below so it can be seen that I'm not bragging.

Fairies in my garden

Wiggly fingers & wiggly thumbs

We've got a lot of these guys in our garden, some of them are monsters!

Budding Marvellous

Are you fond of the try hard pun? For me it depends on how vulnerable I'm feeling at the time - if I'm a little tired and weak then I will giggle contagiously at anything remotely humorous.

This particular variety of clematis, montana rubens, has been an absolute star for us. It grows so fast, flowers beautifully, covers magnificently and needs little attention. I love the way the buds are so round and raise their heads to open. This one is on our front verandah which is about 9 months old - the clematis about the same age - I think it took about 3 months to run up the poles and along the whole length of a 5 metre verandah.

So good

The weather is warming and it is so good to be spending more time outside than in.

We did some more summer garden planting today and although we still have beets and cabbages going great guns, we also have made some progress to getting other guys settled in.
We live in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne in a 1950's weatherboard house. We live on the corner of a court so have extra space at the front of our house, but our block was subdivided about 18 years ago so we don't have a full block at the back. When planting vegies, therefore, not everything can go in the ground, we have to take advantage of all the space we have.

Out the back only the zuchinnis are along the side of the house near our shed. They're fairly self sufficient and as it's an area I don't automatically see every day, they'll have to be. The danger - monster zuchs rather than delish baby ones.

Out the front beside the gas meter there's an awkward space that has been the storage area for the council's bi annual hard garbage collections. Feeling frustrated with not being able to fit all the produce in I'd like, my dear dad helped stack all the out of commision pavers and now we have a cool garden "bench" for nuturing seeds and seedlings - so cool!

Potatoes are in two big garbage bins - one of kipflers, the other of desirees.

French beans are also in two pots.

Lettuces and basil will be on the garden "bench" once the seeds are all strong and able to manage on their own.

Broad beans have all set and are now just fattening up.

Strawberry patch is currently only half a dozen plants, but will increase to three times as many this coming week and will be heavily mulched to keep the fruit from turning.

Tomatoes - this year Black Zebra, Amish Paste, Tommy Toes and Roma will go in within the next month.

Corn - two varieties (Early Breakthrough and Sweet White) have been sewn today.

Carrots - that's what Leila was attempting to do, get their bed ready, two Diggers Club varieties there as the girls love the pulling so much.

What else - eggplants and fennel, they still have to find somewhere to live. I think it's probably too much for the space, sure it is, but what the heck, it's so much fun!

You want broccoli too?

I'll just go get some from the garden. Still always such a rush!

Fondue, Snow and Winter Veg

In our house the almost 5 year old and I talk quite a bit about the difference between needs and wants. I know it can be a difficult concept for a child, but it can also be tricky for an adult. I feel I really need a new digital SLR but I know it's really just a strong strong want. I had never owned a compact camera before this little digital one we have, I have three manual SLR's ranging from my steel Nikkomat to the more modern automatic jobbies, but never a compact. I didn't think I'd be the digital convert I am but how can you go back to being without one? I've started using my SLR's with film again, as there's no comparison to the fun of it versus a compact, but we got rid of our scanner and when you add the cost of processing (including onto a cd) to the cost a film, you're into the $30 mark for $36 shots - polaroids are looking cheap by comparison! Looking at the gorgeous shots everyone else takes - particularly Ella and Clumsy Bird, how could you not be inspired? My other need is a new computer, a faster, more reliable, more gutsy, fancy pants one - with the full Microsoft suite of programs and Photoshop and all the stuff others seem to have as standard. I'll save expanding on this rant for another day though.

The weekend included fondue with my folks,

A trip to the snow with Ella - the babe was unwell,

and inspecting the winter crops.

Dirty Riches

It's always exciting harvesting fruit and veg you've grown yourself, but I think there's something especially exciting about digging up potatoes. Ella and I were both saying "cool" a lot as we collected our lovely fresh kipflers this afternoon. I think it's because the potato plant is so unassuming, even unattractive, and you can't see anything going on, it's all hidden beneath the soil. Because of this you almost don't expect anything to be there and when you tip out the pot, or dig up the plot, and from the dark soil roll tiny creamy potatoes, it's very, well, cool!

Disappointed

We have been doing a lot of work on our front garden of late. We're finally managing to finish something. We tend to take on jobs around the house and then run out of steam before they're 100% finished. I do love the garden so it's not so much work, but it does take time particularly when you're moving barrow loads of little stones.

We've also spent quite a lot of money on new plants as well. The garden that we inherited was heavy on lavenders and roses, which at one time I've loved, but with water restrictions likely to be a way of life we have changed to a native garden. I know lavenders and roses are hardy creatures who never got much in the way of water from me and continued on quite happily, but native makes me feel better, as if we're making the right choice.

On the weekend we had a lovely time with my parents, an extended 70th celebration for my mum and got home around lunchtime on Sunday after 24 hours away from the house. We live in a quiet, conservative area. We know most of our neighbours and although there are a few at times loud teenagers, it's generally without any adventure. When we got home on Sunday, unloaded the girls and the car, when I got to the front gate the thing glaring at me was the fact that someone had removed the prostrate grevillea I had planted in front of our gate only 2 weeks ago. That's the disappointment part. When I say removed, have a look at the pictures, tell me what you think. Firstly I thought it was vandalism, so looked around for a hatefully discarded plant, but found none. Tell me otherwise please, because I really find the idea that someone could steal my plant to put in their own garden, so thoroughly disappointing, I can't begin to tell you. I actually find the idea of it being theft harder to understand than vandalism. And now what, do I plant again?

Macro 2

Broad bean seeds up and out of the soil in less than 2 weeks.

Beets, cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli, carrots and potatoes all strong and healthy.

New Plantings

Our weather has been unpredictable during the last month. We had horrendously hot weather late in the season and last week was very wet. This week it's cool in the mornings and at night, summertime has ended, but the days are clear and fine.

We had put off our winter plantings waiting for a fine spell and today was that day. After swimming we went to the nursery and Ella helped me choose our winter veg. Most of them I haven't grown before and my plantings aren't as neatly planted as I'd like, mainly because I wanted to cram in as much as possible and despite extending the vegie plot about half a metre, it's still on the small side.

• Kipfler potatoes although these are in a huge pot
• Carrots, two varieties although I think both are fairly pedestrian - baby and early crop
• Beetroot - which I love, but I'm the only one
• Cauliflower
• Baby cabbages
• Sprouting broccoli
• Broad beans

If I just manage to get a couple of everything I'll be pleased, although our summer crops just boomed so it will be interesting to see where things go at this time of the year. I'd love to say that I've studied the right plants for the soil given the summer crops I've had in, but I just don't have the time to investigate, for now. I seem to remember mum saying something about broad beans being good after tomatoes, but given they're away at the moment and I can't double check, I could be making it up. I seem so stretched at the moment, as we all are, so I'm just happy to have gotten them in the ground so we can start nursing them along.

My camera is still on the blink so I had to include a photo of one of the vegie nymphs in our summer crops!

Nose Bleed

Funny post name, funny photo, you'll figure out what it's all about after reading more.

We have been out in the front garden the whole day spreading mulch and river stones, cleaning up, replanting, it looks great.

Leila loves to play in her pram, she climbs in and sits there surveying the surrounds very happily. At one point in the afternoon Ella wanted a turn in the pram and when she went close to Leila "something" happened. Ella said "Mum Leila made my nose feel funny" but she wasn't upset, crying, more just relaying, I said something non committal like "you're alright, never mind". A few minutes later Ella screams "Mum, there's blood". I turn around and Ella's hands and face are covered, I mean covered, with blood and it's running out of her nose and seemingly her mouth - although I think one ran into the other. We laid her down, pinched her nose, Geoff got tissues which we plugged her nose with, cleaned her up, cuddled, sat on the couch, ate chocolate and all was well again. You know what happened, apparently our gorgeous blonde one, our 14 month old baby pushed her fingers up big sister's nose and gouged inside them causing a rather severe nose bleed. What more can I say??

The Pleasure of Green

In September of this year we will have lived here for four years, time has gone fast. This is our first home and it was a compromise in terms of location. The house itself is a good size, but it's on a subdivided block so our back yard is very small but our front the same as all our neighbours. We weren't concerned when we bought it because we knew that although we'd love a huge yard, not everyone likes the maintenance so didn't anticipate any problems onselling.

It wasn't exactly a feature - the back yard. We bought the property from a couple with one young child who had removed all the mature trees from the front yard to feng shuie and left the back yard alone. I could see exactly how I wanted it to be from the moment we first looked at the place - a green oasis.

The old lady who lived here when the block was subdivided wanted to still be able to bring her car onto the property and therefore she concreted the whole back yard - the whole back yard. It was covered in pressed thick, thick concrete from the house to the fence in all directions. It took us the first two years to remove it, concrete cutting, sledge hammers, layer upon layer of horror.

This is what it looked like previously - everywhere.

This is what it looks like now.

The Virginia Creeper covers the next door neighbour's horrible steel shed. The Pittosporums are now almost high enough to cover the unit next door. The wisteria on the screen at the end now shields the roller door and the grasses along the house, well, they're lovely and green.

I can't tell you the sense of satisfaction I get walking out here now and seeing the greeness of it all. I hardly ever water, although I couldn't even if I wanted to, and somehow it all stays really lush - I guess I chose well with the plantings. It's almost exactly as I imagined it, although that's not to say there still aren't things I'd like to change - aren't there always with works in progress? The washing line - where on earth can I hide that?!

Nasty or Nice?

In consideration of anyone who may have a certain phobia starting with "a" - please feel free to look away.

We have a lot of spiders at our place, in the garden, in the house. Thankfully I'm not afraid of spiders, although I don't like them. My fear, although I don't know the latin term, is of the smaller four legged creatures with long tails - they, they paralyse me with fear. Actually no, that's not true, they send me running for the hills. If I even saw any tiny, tiny evidence that one had been in our house, I would not return until it had left the house in a plastic bag.

Back to the sssssspiders though. We have a lot, as I've mentioned, but recently two have taken up residence in our front garden, where the girls and I spend most of our time playing. The first one spun its web between two rose bushes right next to the front tap. The second one, that I only found this afternoon, has spun its web between two of my tomato plants. I wanted Geoff to get rid of it for me. They're very striking, with an unusual web, quite active and also BIG. He assured me they're harmless - I asked him how he knew that. He said that the nasty ones aren't so colourful. Hmmm. Anyway, we decided to look it up on the internet and our spider is harmless (at most a bite will cause a weak local reaction - that's okay then) and is called a St Andrew's Cross spider.

They can stay, for now, I'll exercise less reckless abandon in picking my tomatoes and won't be diving into the zucchinis as much as I have. Ella isn't enthused though - she wants them to go - she dislikes all insects, despite buying her a bug catcher to try and help with her nervousness. She has only had sunny boys (slaters) in her bug catcher, butterflies are "too beautiful", grass hoppers "too scary", bees "too dangerous". She doesn't want to go outside until they're gone ..... oh dear, spiders days may be numbered - can we perhaps successfully relocate them via the bug catcher??

Eggplant, Aubergine, Melanzana