Gardener Needed

Day17  January28th
I've been so busy being mindful of and photographing my garden that I fear I may have been neglecting to take care of it.  As I walk around it is telling me that it is time to do some actual gardening, and in particular some weeding. Rain plus sunshine = weeds.  These are particularly nasty.  They're not ugly. In fact they may have been planted as a ground cover by neighbours.  They send out shoots under the soil.  When they are small they pull out easily.  As they grow they become tougher and develop prickles.  These will require heavy gloves to pull them out.  I may even need to clip them.  They are very strong.
 The moral is vigilence. A few weeks ago  this would have been a bend and pull as I walk by job.

Sunshine?

Day 16   January 27th

The germination and early growth went well, but everything seems to have stalled.  One or two of them have sickly grey leaves. So I have started to put them outside to get more sunshine.  I bring them in at night.  One gulp from a moderately hungry caterpillar would demolish any one of them

Seedlings

Day 15  January 26th
I've never had much success with seeds. Whenever I tried in the past, after several weeks of cossetting, the fledgling plants would attract the curiosity of children or pets and end up seperated from their pots.
Earlier this year I bought a tray of mixed tomato seedlings.  Only two plants two grew well.  One was a  variety of Roma tomatoes.  What was exceptional about them, was that I did not have to pick them slightly before they were perfectly ripe in order to get them before whatever else fancied eating them.  Perhaps this should be a concern.  Why doesn't anything else want to eat them?  I decided to block this concern; I was so pleased to find a non cherry size tomato that I could pick intact. 
The others were striped green tomatoes.  I ignored them for a while, waiting for them to ripen. Then I remembered that one of the varieties in the pack had been green; so I could wait forever for it to turn red.  They turned out to be delicious and very sweet.
Unfortunately I couldn't find either type in the nurseries.  If I wanted more, the only solution was to take seeds from the tomatoes I still had. The early stages went very well. I soaked the seeds and sieved them to get rid of the gooey stuff, then planted them in small pots. When they grew two sets of leaves I trasplanted them into larger pots.
Since then there has been little development. I don't have any idea what to do next.

Slendour in the Grass

Day14  January 25th

The rain has meant that the lawn has turned into a meadow.  It's impossible to mow so all sorts of wild flowers have been able to grow. I prefer it like this, but we don't have cows or a goat to prevent it becoming waist high so it will have to be mown.

I tripped over a heavy boot a few days ago and bruise my little toe. It's a little swollen and extremely uncomfortable to wear shoes and even worse sandals. As a result I've been going ouside barefoot. I don't usually do this as Australia is home to several extremely venemous snakes plus a few spiders. If I do accidentally tred on something nasty I would prefer to be shod.  So walking barefoot in the grass was a novelty which transported me back to my childhood. I can't imagine that I went barefoot too often in England.  I can only conclude that the allure of cool grass caused me to shed my shoes whenever the chance arouse. The sensations were the same: cool, soft and prickly at the same time, and slightly damp. The smell was the same too.  I can't think of the words to describe it, just summer grass. I should probably have laid down to stere at the clouds, but I didn't.  I didn't do cartwheels either.

Artificial Insemination

Day 13  January 24th

The bees can't always be relied on to turn up for work.  A soft paintbrush can do the job. The pollen is a bright yellow colour. I wonder if it were mixed with a little oil, would it work as paint.

Day12   January23rd Not all the potential fruits grow to maturity.  Some of them rot on the stem like this one. I have heard it is because they were not fertilised.  There is a lot of luck involved.  First the female flowers have to bloom on the same day as male flowers. If that happens then the bees need to be around to do the pollen carrying. This often doesn't happen if it is rainy.

Finally a Girl

Day11  January 22nd

 Finally a female flower. What's more there are a couple of males out today too.  All we need now are some bees to do the job.