WINTER GARDEN

The boys have all had winter lurgies - coughs, chest infections ear infections. One gets better and the next gets sick and now they are starting all over again.
I haven't been spending much time in the garden, other than wandering arond with a nice hot coffee in my hands.

I have lots of tomatoes growing. When I emptied the ocmpost loads of seedlings shot up. They seem to be copeing all right with the cold so I will leave them and see what happens.

This year I planted small carrots in pots. These carrots only grow about 10cm deep. They are sweet and full of flavour. We have been eating them raw or with dips. Yum!

Lavendar is my favourite flower. I can't get enough of them. On my kitchen bench I have 4 mini vases and I pick lavendar for here. They give the kitchen a lovely scent. Last year I planted 4 new varieties in the front yard. Two are early flowering varieties and 2 later ones. I want to have lavendar flowering all year long. The bees and insects love this little unassuming flower as much as I do.

The potatoe vines are also flowering over a coupleof arches in the back garden.

The citrus trees are weighted down with mandarins and lemons. The orange and other lemon are still too small to be fruiting. I have been juicing the fruit and we enjoy a glass each day.

Finally a couple of the new fruit trees. These are the apple trees - granny smith and pink lady. I have duo planted them on raised soil. The blue pipes are for watering so we can get the water down to the roots.

FRUIT TREES

I have been making room in my garden for some more fruit trees. I went through Daleys fruit tree catalogue http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruitindex.htm and made a list of the fruit trees I would love to have in my garden. The list was long, more trees than I had space for. So I narrowed it down considerable to just four new fruit trees.

Then I had to decide where I would plant them. This wasn't easy as the garden is full. I have had to sacrifice some hebe bushes to make room. And dig up more lawn to extend the garden. My backyard is long and narrow. It is over 40 metres long and 4 metres wide. The house runs one length and the back fence the other.

In winter the backyard is mostly in the shade except for some sun in the later afternoon towards the fence. In summer this area gets a lot more sun though. I am hoping that the lack of direct sun in winter will mean that the fruit trees I have selected get plenty of chill hours during winter.

The fruit trees I chose are a fig tree (black genoa) - Fig Black Genoa
A large sized fig with purple skin and red flesh and a very sweet rich flavour. It is a high yielding fig making it popular for home gardeners.

Peach - Angel Peach Tree Donut Peach. The Angel Peach grows to approximately 3 metres by 3 metres, and has a beautiful spring flush of pink flowers. There are two varieties of the Angel Peach which can be grown around Australia - a high chill variety, which fruits in January / February, for the cooler areas and a low chill variety, which fruits in December, for the warmer areas of Australia. I brought the high chill one The fruit are donut shaped. It is a very sweet white fleshed variety, which is more soft and juicy in texture compared with standard peaches. Performs best in temperate climates. I have planted it closer to the house. In winter it will get mostly shade so should get plenty of chill hours.

Apples- Granny Smith and Pink Lady. I have plaanted these two trees as a duo planting - planted in the one hole, see the link for more information. http://www.flemings.com.au/documents/plant_a_duo_guide.pdf

The fruit trees I have now include the four above and 2 lemons, 1 mandarin, 1 orange, 3 passionfruit vines, 1 dwarf banana, 1 dwarf avocado, 1 mango, 1 plumcot.