Summer what summer?

Very nondescript weather in Wellington this summer, this has been challenging for my garden. Virtually no raspberries or lemons and the tomatoes are very slow, just not enough sunshine. The above pic is of my thornless blackberry, it is doing very well and has the most fruit I have ever seen on it.

Most of the flowers fell of my quince and I have been left with one lonely fruit. The first pic was it flowering in October and I was very excited  to see so many. I think some gale force winds were responsible.


The chickens don't seem to think that the rhubarb leaves are poisonous as they add it to their  varied diet from  the garden. It is doing well despite them as we have had a lot of rain.

This cloche works very well as a chicken deterrent so that I do get some salad vegies to eat. The concrete tiles lift up the edges and the chickens are just a little scared to venture in  as the top is wobbly and they are timid.

My chickens are growing rapidly especially the leghorns, they amaze me. The 4 who decided to be roosters have been re homed and I now have 9 chickens. These girls are the largest of the leghorns and still not fully grown. they are about 31/2 months old now. My one remaining barnevelder is my hope for speckled brown eggs, I will have to be patient as they are known to be very slow to begin laying. She is very pretty with her golden lacing.



My backyard dinner!

My Tomatoes

I am fortunate to have a glasshouse and every year for the past 12 years I have grown tomatoes. The last few years I have saved my own seeds and this year I have saved three types although because I didn't do any labels I can't remember what they are. It will be wait and see! I am tending to favour heritage types as the seed are true to their parents, sometimes I have saved commercial types and have come up with surprises. One year a very flavoursome green black small tomato resulted.

The wide window ledge in my kitchen is the perfect place to germinate and grow my seeds on. For tomatoes I dry the seeds out on tissue paper and once they are dry I fold the paper up to store them for when I am ready.The plants were planted in the glass house at labour weekend and as you can see they are doing well. The chickens were none too happy to have their favourite dust bath venue taken over though.

Chicken update

Well I have been a bit remiss on my blogging, blame my exam that is coming up next week. I have been very boring.

Anyways my last chicky that I cracked by mistake sadly died after I tried to help it out of the shell.I will know next time to leave the eggs for a good 4 days to make sure the slow ones have a chance. I think what happened is that the last egg wasn't  kept as warm by the mum so its' development was delayed. No photos of dead chick, too sad and too gross to do that.

Arrival of baby chickens

Well day 21 arrived and exactly to the hour (5pm) I put the eggs under the chicken I had my 1st one hatch, a white leghorn. Various others were pipping but very slowly so reluctantly I went to bed after one last look with a torch in the dark, I know, I am crazy. 7am I was up and out the door to discover only 2 more had hatched, 1 barnvelder and another leghorn. So very reluctantly off to work I go thinking of chickens all day of course. I came home to find there were now 5, 3 leghorns and 2 barnvelders, then an hour later one more barny to make 3 of each. This morning 3 more new ones . 6 leghorns and 4 barnies. 2 eggs left, 1 is infertile because it was all wooshy when I shook it. I thought the other one was as well as no pipping but cracked it to throw it away and inside the crack can see a live barnvelder! Oh dear! I have put it back under the hen. Not sure what its fate will be.

Backyard pig

Well after much getting ready and several months going by we finally have a pig. He is our only male animal out of 4 hens, 2 cats and 2 turtles. He's pretty little for now, only 15kg but will grow quite quickly. I wished I had taken a photo of the road up to the property that we got him from, it was very steep, almost 4wheel drive, scary but we got to the top to be greeted warmly by two slightly bemused pig farmers. No 1 son drove back down the hill! Its such a cold night for him to go to a new home but he has a good shelter with a pile of hay and a pea straw bale to make it cosy.

Space invaders

I try my very best to keep my backyard spray free, which means that I haven't used round up for about 3 years and with the help of the chickens I don't have much of a weed problem. There are however two weeds that cause ongoing problems, convolvulus and buttercup. You will see that the chickens have neatly trimmed the buttercup around my glasshouse but they are no match for the convolvulus.

Looks harmless enough aye, but the roots can travel very deeply and cover a long distance. They find the nearest thing to climb up and begin to smother.

Last year my whole trellis was covered. My strategy so far this year is to dig up roots, leave in the glasshouse to die and try to get to the climbing shoots before they take hold, OK if you don't turn you back on it!

Time for some fresh air

Mary off the nest. She knows not too leave it  long so that the eggs don't cool down.