Rain is forecast for tomorrow. So, I'm going to the market to stock up on goodies. Then go for a gorgeous brunch. Then a browse in a bookshop or two. Then back home to stow away goodies and cook up a storm. Oh..and I have to go out in the evening. It's a hard life. ;)

Sunday? If it fines up I might plant out all my tommies.
I planted out all my zucchinis, melons, squash, cucumbers yesterday.
Or I'll just munch on my freshly-baked chocolate chip biscuits. On the sofa. With a good book. In front of fire. And a good cup of coffee.
Mmmmhh...life is good.

Hi Spatzola,
Can I tag along? I didn't know you had a brunch scene? I would have invited myself along earlier.

I bought five new books today. Have a look at Tracks by Robyn Davidson, published by Picador. One woman, four camels, a dog and 17,000 miles of Aussie desert and twice as many of self examination. Very good. None too heavy. Wowed the critics. I like it a lot.

Great to hear of some Spring rain down your way. Pretty hollow promises on that front here. Forecast light rain = three drops.

Grubby, we sure have a brunch scene. Delicious grub there, I can assure you.

I liked Tracks. It's a great book. What are the other books?

It rained heaps the whole day today. Plenty of rain. Both water tanks are overflowing. The ducks are happy. The dam is full. Everything is growing like mad. Especially the weeds and grass.

The Florence Fennel sprang up (sowed it a few days ago, just to give it another go), so did the Kohlrabi (not sure why I sowed that one), and the Scorzonera (hoping for big things there), the Muenchner Bier Radish is growing nicely, too.

Hope your weekend is a very productive and satisfying one! :)

The other books? Okay, they are a bit cliched in some ways. Thing is, I look at words 24/7 or so it seems, but, when I get on a boat for a week or so, as I will soon, I just love to read. So I'm a late bloomer. These are mostly unusually parochial for me.

I detest Robert Hughes for various reasons, but I did buy a soft cover version of The Fatal Shore. I know I know, passe. But could be good for a better sense of my grounding. When you're doing it tough, or so it seems, it's good to put it in perspective and lear what tough really is or was.

John Banville's The Sea. Oh my. This one is bought for style. He has a way with words. Beautiful prose. And I'm interested, in my line of work, in improving my ability to explain the sensations of coastal things. This looks really good and could be my best purchase. But you never know, right?

If the sea is getting to me, well, I can escape with Tracks. Desert. 1/2 way in. What a foil!

Last but certainly not least is Robert Drewe's latest "Grace" I love his other WA-based bestseller, shark or summer something. It's in the library over there. I bought this one for Ms Grub, who is in transit, about to endure 12 days of life aboard a boat in the Great Barrier Reef.

Better head to the other house now to make my dinner of spag, olive oil, homegrown rocket, chilli, garlic, melted anchovies, homegrown parsle, basil and oregano, grated homegrown lemon rind, and Pinto Gris. Bought that, of course.

Ranting. Ciao. Speak soon. Chooks asleep. Bon nuit, as Ray would say ;)

Saturday:
Check tomato seedlings;
Finish trellised bed for rockmelon, cucumber and pumpkin;
Sow same in peat pots and stick in hot house;
Check tomato seedlings (I'm in the hot house anyway so might as well);
Sow more buckwheat as frost killed off first lot;
Remove chinese cabbage as it all bolted and replace with spinach;
Clear green manure pea crop from around onions;
Check tomato seedlings;
Sunday:
Check tomato seedlings and rest!

Saturday, wait and see if its dry enough to do any bloody thing.
Love the rain but,(confession here. I left the hose from the new tank running to top up the fish pond last night. This morning, I went out to take the covers off the tommies and the hose was still running. DOH), where was I, oh yeah.
I am nearly through "The last chronicles of Thomas Covenant", the last in the series by Stephen Donaldson.
I am a sci fi reader mostly and have read all the 12 books in the Dune series. I hope Frank Herberts son and his mates write some more. Those machines will come back, I just know it....
Carry on
Mantis

wow, another sci fi freak. I've only read dune 14 times and seen the film 27.
You must be an Aquarian, or in need of medication.
This weekend, check tommies, count flowers in bloom. count bulbs come up, check tommies, thank God the chinese cabbage is gone, and spinach is there now.
Try to talk Ray into growing 120 plants of tommies, check tommies. Count Petunias again , check tommies.

Sounds like a great weekend all round. Coming to you from FIL's computer.Wow! Broke in. Dabbled a bit w/Arthur C. Clarke. It's good to discover there are readers out there. I thought I was the only one ;)

Have you read all the 12 books Adam?

Chocolate! Did I hear chololate? Home made chocolate chips cookies.....yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Today I'll be praying as they are forecasting hail down here. (this gardening stuff is starting to do strange things to me).
Not to witness my babies being bombarded we decided to disappear for the week-end. Going test-driving a few 4WD's this morning and then off to friends at Phillip Island for the night. Good food, good wine and good company....my kinda thing :)

Hope you all have a nice week-end
LynLyn

Saturday. Brisbane 37 degrees.. no sign of rain... I'm not going out side unless I have to :)

I hope you guys appreciate your rain and relaxing times. I'm planning on putting up a new fence around vegie garden to try and stop dogs, bandicoots, soccer, tennis balls, etc attacking my plants. The predicted temp is expected to be 38C with hot, gusty NW winds, extreme fire danger and still no rain. I will be thinking of you all. Better half was planning on going to golf in afternoon but cancelled because it will be too hot - poor baby!

Nothing as its will be too hot, maybe go for a swim as I am looking after the neighbours pool.
If my arm is OK I may see if I can pick up one of these computer mags I got from the Library and have a read
But seeing its the Week-end the nothing is sounding really good if it gets to be as hot as they say.

How is the heat now? Windy here. Had overnight rain. Prepared another bed, cut salad, played with chooks, turned compost piles, Nothing too fabulous. But you've just got to love the weekend. Might wander down to the organic markets a few hundred metres down the road and buy some of that wildly delicious fruitloaf.

Take care with 37-38C!

Best, Grub

Winter came back to Melbourne.:((

Has rained most of the day in eastern suburbs and have the heater on as its b........cold outside. Was thinking about mulching lots of areas but it was too miserable (14c) so hope to do it in the morn.

Light reader here....Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy......will while away the rest of the day finding out 'who did it'

Cathy

ps Would love some of your warmth.:)

Wild weather here. 30 mm of rain since 9am, wind is blowing bits of trees everywhere. Lets hope the trees can all withstand this storm. Seedlings in ground are alright so far, hope they won't fly away. If you find some pumpkin, melon, cucumber, zucchini, etc. seedlings in your garden all of a sudden, they are mine. Let me know, I'll tell you what varieties you can expect. :)

adamus - aquarian?? not me - maybe the medication

love the dune (trilogy??) was it a trilogy that turned into 27 books? got to admit my ultimate sci fi love for the jitch hikers guide to the galaxy - and most recently for the Battlestar Galactica series - even resorted to watching channel bittorrent to keep up to date with the latest american releases.

maybe we need a scifi freak garden web??

I was supposed to be at the markets today selling olive oil, they were cancelled due to the high winds & rain.
I spent the day recovering from a night out with one of the girls from work, she certainly knows how to have a good time. She won the meat platter & I won the seafood platter in the raffle so we're well stocked up.
I've just finished The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, very interesting, I thought it would make me very depressed but it actually left me feeling that most of the solutions to global warming are there it just needs the will to affect the changes.
Tomorrow I shall be doing some weeding, potting up the Tommy seedlings & will sadly also have to do some housework!

Yesterday was the coldest day we have had here for the year. 9.3 deg at 11:30 am, and then it just got colder, spooky.

But today is quite nice. We've been planting herbs, finishing our Big Patch Turnaround project and now have 4 beds ready for planting. Digging in green manure from the winter, making paths between the beds and lining the beds with untreated sleepers. Checking tomatoes, taking some baby photos a little later today. We'll probably plant out the seedlings around Cup Day, that seems to be the Melbourne Tomato Planting-out day.

Planting comfrey.. we got a pack of 25 cuttings and they're now very nicely gown in pots. Think I'll ring the fruit trees with the comfrey to bring up the nutrients and break up the clay soil.

Checking the potatoes - Dutch Cream and Royal Blue. They're just poking their headds above the straw and manure. A few are a little waterlogged... hope they recover!

About to have a very late breakfast of bacon & eggs with some Yellow Romas I bought from the supermarket... not bad but mine will be SO much better in Jan/Feb :-)

Grub, forgot to say - your Kelloggs Breakfast and Brandywine (we picked the Suddeth's Strain of yours from last year to plant) are going great guns! The Brandywine are unusual - round leaves... pics soon. You'll be a proud grandfather in a few months :-)

Have you grown those two before Mabb. They were my favourites last season. All the women in the family loved the KB's.
Mantis

Mabb,
The Brandywin Sudduth has Potato Leaves, round, not that productive but sublime flavour. The best tomato I have ever eaten bar none Great news.

Here's the new bed I built today. 8ft x 3.3ft. Will rest it for 2-3 weeks then put eight more tomatoes in it. That gives me six beds each with eight = 48 plus 10 in pots = 58, plus three in the front garden - 61!

I'm freaking mad. With the bed I used double stakes to make grooves where I drop in the hardwood boards. Too easy.

Here is a link that might be useful:

This is looking back the other way.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Another view, west to east. The babies are working on their tan in the foam cups and box resting on the kohlrabi bed, which I removated yesterday. I have a fridge full of kohlrabi and still another bed of them to go.

In the background is the salad bar lined with carrots. It will all have to go in a few weeks to make way for you know what :)

Here is a link that might be useful:

Looking good Grub. The girls look ok.

We went to our annual Spring garden show today and of course I came home with more plants that I had to find room for. A Jalapeno pepper, zuccini, squash and more flat leaf parsley. Also planted out two Hercules pumkins. I just need to decide which tomatoes to put in my last three cages hmmmmm.
They are talking frosts again tonight so I will have to cover everything again. I dont recall having this much crappy weather in spring before.
Mantis

Strange cold snap for you guys. Frosts would kill the babies. I hope the ones Spatz planted out are okay. It's just been super windy here all weekend.

The girls do look good in this shot. One is 100 per cent. The other will come back to her peak fitness (and hopefully egg-laying prowess) for sure.

Hey Mantis if you let one or several of your parsely go to seed and let them fall where they are you will have ten times as much Continental Parsely for nix. I have it growing out of every crack, pot and even in the lawn.

Good stuff. Love munching on the bolting tops which are tender :)

Rained all w/e at Marysville. Had to remove all the raspberry suckers in the vegetable area so gave them a dose of a very nasty chemical (shudder!); not good conditions for it but they started to curl up overnight so it's working.
Took up some tommy seedlings for a little sale day later this month but so cold that I had to get a friend to look after them - couldn't leave them alone. Could well be a frost.
Checked the tomatoes in the ghouse when back in Melbourne, pulled a few weeds from around the baby onions, checked the tomatoes again. Do I need to get a life!!

It's all looking good Grub, I just can't wait to start a new garden!

This is your life Lomatia!

Grub, great pics. Almost no lawn. I love it.

Fever overtook me and I planted 3 very tiny seedlings. I couldn't help it. Honest!

No. Must do that Oz. A remarkable author.

Mantis, I haven't grown either, but chose them for this year based on everyone's recommendations here. Looking forward to trying all the new ones we've got this year :-)

Grub, v. nice pics. Surely you could put another bed where that hoist is :-)

Too true re the hoist, Mabb. It has to go. Need to see if an optional wall-mounted number is big enough :)

Monday morning. Sigh. At least I achieved my weekend goal.

At least it didn't get as hot as predicted. If we didn't need the rain so desperately it would have been near perfect the last couple of days. Around 30C with a light breeze, my ideal temps. Too good to be indoors. Now for some of that rain (without the cold)

Got my fence up and spread several barrow loads of compost, tidied up the kids vegie gardens, fed and topped up mulch on various vegies, strawberries, pumpkins, etc and set up a watering system for some of the vegies.

As for reading material, I like "who done its" and similar mystery types. Just finished Jonathon Kellerman's Therapy Saturday night. Not bad but a little slow. Have some more Kellerman to read yet, hopefully they're at least as good. I don't mind Kathy Reichs but Jeffery Deaver would have to be my favourite at the moment.