It's winter, pretty much...

So I thought I'd have a wander around the garden to see what's going on.
It's been wet recently, we've had some rather spectacular rainy days, so it's all a bit boggy out there!
As you can see the trees have turned! This is a Japanese Maple and every year it puts on an amazing display for us.

And it's camellia time of year. We have camellias round the deck of the house, white ones at the front and pink ones at the side. They are spectacular right now.

Next it was a wee wander round the veggie garden. It's a bit of a sorry sight right now. I decided not to do any winter planting in here at all, except for some Aldermans Peas which are the most amazing heritage pea, ever! These grow very well up here, even over winter.

The rest of the veggie garden beds are empty, fertilized and mostly under hay! The asparagus bed needs the ferns cut down now, and fed and covered, but even though these berries are poisonous, I think they look really pretty.

I purposely left a few sweetcorn plants for the birds to have something to eat when it got colder. It's amazing. They open the cobs themselves and just eat further down each day. Impossible to photograph them actually going it though, which is a real shame.

Next into the citrus orchard. This year our keffir lime if covered in limes, which is brilliant as they are totally amazing to cook with. And the smell is gorgeous.

Bananas! This year has been a spectacular year for them. I think they really enjoy the droughts. We'll let these get a bit bigger then take them off to ripen. We just ripen them on the deck.

 Here you can see how they form from the flower. What you can't see is how many bees are buzzing around the pollen!

Then I went into the greenhouse, where I am growing things over winter.  Since this is my first year of having the greenhouse it's all very experimental for now. As you can see the second I went in there the camera lens instantly fogged up because of the heat!

This, I am very excited about. I grew some tomatoes from seed a few weeks ago - I did a bit of research and found Sub Arctic Plenty, and Oregon Spring. I think these are my best hope of having winter tomatoes.  The plants are growing beautifully and if you look closely - through the fog - you can see wee flowers starting. It remains to be seen in I can actually ripen anything.

I've also planted some herbs that would normally die back in the herb garden over winter. Coriander and basil, we use these all the time.

And the chillies! They are still growing like wild triffids. I trimmed them back hugely a couple of weeks ago, and already there are lots of new leaves growing from the ends of the cut bits.

Here's some of the garden markers I made at pottery - just cos!

And the sudras - remember the rogue, self seeded chilli I found in the veggie garden and potted up and put in the greenhouse? Well, its growing up a storm. These are so pretty and really long. Lloyd assures me they have a lovely flavour.

Then I thought, I haven't taken any photos of the chickens recently...
My girls really do do us proud, in the 7 years I've had them we've never had to buy eggs, and this year they've almost paid for their own food too!
You haven't met Gerald yet! He's my white leghorn boy, he was one that hatched at the beginning of the year. He's very handsome. Still young though.

This is Beatrice, she's one of my Barnvelders. They're very pretty and lay really lovely dark brown eggs.

Here's some of the gang having some scratchy -  there's Barnvelders, NHRs, Barred Rocks, Araucanas, Leghorns, a Campine, Wyandottes, and some mixtermaxters!

This is Sparrow, shading herself, she's a cross between a NHR and a Leghorn

 
Here's Maude. She was my very first chicken and she's 7. See how grey she's getting. She's not laying right now as she's just coming out of a moult, but she still lays regularly. She's my best girl!

This is one of Gerald's sisters. She's Glinda ( the good witch!) Not laying yet, too young.

So there you have it! What's going on here.

I've been invited to take part in The Garden Share Collective. It's a monthly post and it should be very exciting! The next one will be on the first of July - I'm just getting you all ready!!