garden growth update

The weather is certainly heating up but we are all accustomed to that - 36 and above for the next 4 months. Oh well - we did have such a lovely october!

The mulberry trees have all but finished fruiting. Plenty of citrus fruit still hanging on though. i think my cut off date is late november to have them all picked - due to the fruit fly.

A few things are starting to feel the heat. was disappointed to find that the french beans had nothing much on them - i think due to the heat. will look again this weekend to confirm that. i did have a few set backs with those - rabbits eating them etc. i think if you plant hem at the beginning of august with no set backs you should get a good crop from them.

The pumpkins are growing rampantly as are the other melons and a few setting fruit. Still no bees as the red gums are still flowering. I'll have to keep hand pollinating them!

Gourds and snake beans are growing well while the cabbages look fine but i'm wondering if they will not have tight heads due to the heat??

The sorghum crop is progressing well. the amaranth continues to grow rampantly - almost everywhere.



like a weed it seems to be able to utilise things in the soil that other plants are unable to extract - it might be a good green manure crop because of this trait, making minerals etc more available to the following crop. The rabbits seems to be going for it as much as any of the other greens i'm feeding them at the moment.

I have a large male rabbit seperated in a chook tractor. At the moment he is living of the fat of the land with no supplementary pellets. He gets Ruby saltbush, Mulberry leaves, amaranth, mint, general weeds and the grass on the lawn. He hoes into this stuff much more so than when he had pellets. Certainly the growing rabbits are eating much more and i'm not sure i could keep up with their food demands with the hours i have left in the day after everything else. So they'll have to stay with their beloved pellets for now.

Dispatched 3 rabbits on the weekend. All safe in the freezer now.