"Balmoral Park" farm garden

The weather throughout Autumn has been just glorious. Mild temperature, clear blue skies, little or no wind. Beautiful gardening weather. There are so many pretty pictures in our garden at the moment. The ornamental grapevines have almost covered the trellis and frame my kitchen window. It gives me joy every time I look out the window. The leaves have turned an amazing deep red. I have been taking photos at all different times of the day to try and get one that does justice to the magnificent color. I dont think I have altogether succeeded but these give some idea. This is taken from inside through the kitchen window. Another view of the Grapevine. I have been working on this little area under the trellis and think it is starting to look very pleasant. Our old chimney is one of the few external features of the house that I actually really like. We are lucky it is still here as the man who renovated the kitchen told me the previous owners had planned to demolish it when they remodeled t...

During the past week it has turned quite cold here, at least in the nights. The days are still reasonably warm. The leaves on our few deciduous trees are starting to color and the ornamental grape is a magnificent red. All this leads me to believe that it wont be long until the roses shut down for the winter. We have been picking roses since October so that is not a bad run. They are at their best here in the late Autumn when the fierceness has gone out of the sun. We have been very pleased with the development of our rose garden this year and will plant about another 20 I think this winter. The oldest of the rose gardens, these are mostly two and three years old. Here you can see the three rose gardens, the Joey's in the foreground (this is the garden we planted for Jemima when she was born last year. like her they are one year old), to the left the pink and yellow roses and to the right the white garden Some Joey's, they have grown quite well despite a pretty tough start wit...

Yesterday was a day for just pottering around in the garden. Doing the things that needed to be done that took my fancy! So I moved a few things, separated and planted out some rhubarb crowns prepared a new bed for strawberries and thinned out some Vegetable seedlings. As a result we had some beautiful baby Veg for our dinner. As well as the baby carrots, leeks and beetroot there were a few potatoes. The little tiny ones are delicious! I have tried growing sweet potato with no success a few times so have been really pleased to get a few vines established from a sweet potato that sprouted in my cupboard. I did think it was a bit late in the season and that I wouldn't get any tubers before it got cold. So I was really pleased to find this sweet potato while I was weeding around them. I still don't think I will get many but will try and keep a vine going over winter and hopefully if they start growing early enough we will get a good crop next year. A nice dinner from the garden a...

Every time I look at the blog I think the view from the back door has really changed since I took that picture. The far corner near the back sheds is getting towards our vision for the garden. Lots of drought tolerant plants that require little or no additional watering and no bare spots. We have been busy propagating lots of these plants to fill up all the spaces. I pruned the Rosemary on the weekend and found another seven plants that had layered themselves and developed good root systems. I have planted them to another area of the garden as our back path has a row of Rosemary and Lavenders for its entire length now. I must say I find propagating very satisfying. I have got five healthy pink rosemary's growing from cuttings. The original one cost $12, so five new plants for nothing!

Well I am not sure if rhubarb is a fruit, but this morning i picked the best lot of rhubarb I have had since we moved here. The rhubarb grew like a weed in my old garden, surviving long periods of neglect. It has been quite hard to establish here so I was pleased with this harvest. Just wash and cut into chunks, toss in sugar and cook in a cast iron pot in the oven for half an hour. Delicious!! I am very proud of my quince harvest as well. Three lovely quinces from my young tree. No coddling moth. hopefully a big harvest next year.

We have two old pear trees that were here when we bought the place. One a William variety I think and the other a Beurre Bosc. The second year we were here there was a massive crop. However they were all infested with coddling moth. The next year a smaller crop and I tried various things to defeat the coddling moth to no avail. Earlier this year an old local gardener published a remedy for coddling moth in the Eugowra news. Quite simply it involves mixing treacle or molasses with wine and putting this mixture in traps made of old soft drink bottles in the trees when they are flwoering. I did this and later on put fruit fly excluding bags on the fruit as we only had a very small crop due to the drought. Two weeks ago I picked three dozen perfect William pears with no coddling moth! They tasted terrific. Lets hope for a bigger crop next year.

During our long, hot dry spell in January most of the summer vegetable crop died. Cucumbers and Zucchinis wilted and vanished into dust. After s light shower of rain in late January two of the Trombocino vines reemerged. With good rain in February and March they have grown into the most enourmous vines and are cropping prolifically. They are pleasant too eat, firmer than a Zucchini and less watery, nice steamed or grated through pasta. They also make good fritters. We have given lots away, frozen some and eaten them practically every day for two months. i am sick of the sight of them. This is yesterdays harvest! A laundry basket full! I will have to find some more ways to use them. Maybe I can turn them into soup and freeze them.