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Look good to me, I wish I could grow things like that up here now.
I have heaps of tomatoes, cukes, sp onions but would rather have your pickings.
Thats a decent lot of veggies there. Happy eating ....Cheers..MM.

Up ya go!!!!. Pretty impressive haul, and Flowers to boot. !!!!!!

The climate differences are a great way to discover our diversity. We'll be picking new potatoes, peas, onions, salads, celery, and beans in time for our Christmas dinner and the tomatoes and cukes and other salads won't be ready until January/February. We'll be picking the broad beans and other child friendly plantings in the next fortnight when my whirlie-girlies have finished with their Saturday ballet. They love to pick and shell them. Our summer is short but as soon as the soil warms up it's like nature accelerates and the next three months will be intensive cropping before we have to set out winter plants. I love tropical fruits but can't travel when its hot because of my health, so just paid $3.95 for a mango! We will be having a bumper crop of peaches this year in time for the holidays.

Linda

What a fresh, healthy looking harvest. Yum. So green. I'm jealous , too.

Would you be shocked if I told you we pay $3-$4 for a mango here unless you go looking in out of the way places, where you may pick them up for $2:50, I only have 5 mango's on one small tree and two on the other but I will enjoy them believe me. You enjoy your peaches at 6-7 dollars a kg here they are not in my budget.Your Christmas dinner sounds delicious....Cheers..MM.

That does surprise me - I would have thought roadside stalls would be dripping with mangos and custard apples and the like in season. Peaches ( imported from somewhere on the north island) are $10 a kilo in Woolies at present and by Christmas everything will be mega priced including tomatoes which get up the $12 just before the day. It gives me the sh**s when I see fresh food priced out of the range of a lot of people at that time of the year just for profit because there is no reason to inflate and over the Christmas period much of it is thrown out. That's my rant...........Linda

It's so true L. Bloody Disgrace. People are forced to eat pre-prepared crap coz they can;t afford a decent vegetable.
I thought Christmas was for Giving, Not Ripping Off.

Captured customers I think. They all save their 'frequent shopper' dockets to get a $50 'bonus' and think Woolies are doing them a favour. Woolies would starve for me - I buy corner store on principle as much as I can. Adam, when I was a kid everybody had a veggie garden. We were dirt poor - my Dad hardly ever worked, 7 kids and loads of barefoot cousins off the boats from Ireland - Mum worked as a midwife out all hours and there was no social security expect emergency funds and my parents would have rather died of shame than use it. Even in the short season in England we never went hungry and always had plenty of vegetables - not a lot of meat and sugar and a chicken was a real treat. We swapped veggies with neighbours when we had gluts and people used to travel by bus for an hour to buy my Dad's hothouse tomatoes ( yes it's genetic) at 2 shillings a pound. That was Dad's fund for Christmas season of maudlin Irish sentimentality and the odd sherry. We kids lined up at the gates of our street in a council estate with shovels because when the rag and bone man, or the milk cart horse dropped a load outside someone's house you got the droppings! With up to four kids we got to spread out and stand in front of gates where no kids lived! Big social issue! But now it's Maccas and Bratz dolls and lots of food additives to create mental disorders. No wonder we have social and health problems with kids. Veggies can be grown in little space, so there's no excuse - the predatory big business is only doing what it does - exploiting the exploitable and in many cases it's poor family financial management and fear of kids not loving the parents if they are denied anything, that causes the problem at the bottom line. There, I'd better go work of this ire!
Linda

The little kid down the road was looking over my veggies the other day, and asked "What's That Thing?", .
He was pointing at a LETTUCE!!!!!!
He's nine years old. I gave him one to take home.
Can't wait 'til he finds the slug and the grit!!!!!
Oh well, at least he knows now where MACCAS comes from.
I'm afraid i didn't have any of the 11 chemicals they use to keep theirs fresh.
I"m Sorry, I won't start.

Managed to find a big Kensington Pride Mango at the Fruit shop for $2 today Yum that I will enjoy.
But I was shocked at the price of the humble onion at the supermarket $3.95 kg.
Only $2:95 for 2 kilos at the fruit shop a big difference.
You would have rocks in your head to shop for fresh fruit and veggies at the Supermarket.
And I bet the poor Grower does not even get a fraction of that.
Any wonder people cant afford to eat healthy, then they say we are a fat nation well I wonder why.
Cheers..MM.

Yeh, the price of fruit and veg is at an all-time high, I reckon. And there have been good rains around in general. I think the supermarkets have upped their profit margin. Quality of produce still sucks. And they've moved to pre-prepared salads and oodles of packaging. Today I saw 125g lettuce mix for $3.95. 125g of lettuce equated to a tablespoon in your stomach.

What I'm lacking is diversity. I have 70 tomatoes in the ground, lol, and four foam boxes of baby seedling rocket and mescalun and lettuce. Heaps of parsley and herbs. And eventually tomatoes. But if I had more room I would have cukes, pumpkin, onions, zukes, squash, eggplant, capsicums and more.

Sadly, presently I'm tossing all my eggs because the chook that got attacked by a dog is seeing a vet ($120 will be the final bill!) coz of complications. And I don't want to eat an egg from a chook on antibiotics. But there's the humane side of Grub. If I were a farmer I'd probably dispatch of it. But here in the city it's a pet.

And bloody Coles has stopped stocking the RSPCA approved chook scratch. Hell and damnation! - Grub.

It's like the Organic stuff we get up here. The farmers get such a small premium to grow organic, it's just not worth them doing it. Thank God some of them do it anyway.

So, Linda. What did you do with your Artichokes?

Hi Guys - Adam - the photo is just as I imagined!

Spatz - what did I do with the Artichokes? I ate them what else? With a garlic and butter dressing with just a touch of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of Nigella.
Misty that is a disgusting price for onions, they are so easy to grow. Farmers here spray them with an amazing list of chemicals. They get about 50c a kg for 'perfects' and the rest get trashed. So some of them might put in 5 acres and if they are not uniform in size or don't get the right proportion of skin,they will only get paid peanuts.

Today I'm bouncing with my best news. Ten days ago I had a full body bone scan. Got the results today - no indication of spread of the cancer in the bones. Just arthritis. 99% of me knew it, 1% has not got much sleep. I knew my 3 years of only eating my own grown veggies would do it. So today I've been out on the tiles for some beautiful melt in the mouth calamari in a gorgeous coriander dressing, followed by a dream ricotta cheesecake accomanied by a couple of bottles of Lost Block Semillon! So, yes, Christmas is a time of high prices and exploitation, commercialism and Bratz dolls, but I'm bloody glad to see another one.
Cheers
Linda

That is such wonderful news Linda..Fantastic actually...Well done, I wish you a Healthy and Happy Life.

On a duller note .........I forgot to add that those onions have lots of mould on them too..Yuk thats something I cannot handle I may start growing them myself I have the room, dont know how they would go here with all this rain at once though, even in the raised garden beds.

We have had rain 8 of the past 9 days and on looking at my tomatoes this morning loaded down with fruit they are starting to get those terrible brown leaves again, next will come the splitting or the fruit flies and all my hard work will end up in the wheely bin. But thats OK too as I would gladly give up some of my veggies for more rain as it has been so dry here the past five months, and the last six years we have hardly had any so called "Wet Season"
Cheers...MM.

PS..Plenty of cucumbers though the neighbours love them, isn't is great to be able to give things away to others when you have surplus