Castle in the Mud

It is now nearly 2 years since we moved here. There were some fruit trees here and we have planted lots more but they are still in their infancy.

The vegie garden is a work in progress as is the whole garden. There is lots to do so will be plenty for me to tell you about.

We live at 400 metres elevation in SE Qld and our block has a temperate climate, good soil with a sunny north-east aspect for the vegie garden and an average annual rainfall of 1800mm so we are blessed in that we can grow almost anything.

A quick overview of our fruit trees:

• Existing trees when we moved in - avocado, orange, lemon, apple, custard apple, banana and pawpaw (all bearing) and mango, lychee, loquat and ?macadamia - have not borne fruit in nearly 2 years :(
• Planted 18 months ago - mandarin, orange x 2, kaffir lime, Tahitian lime, grapefruit, mulberry, nectarine x 2, peach x 2, blueberries x 2, kiwifruit x 2 and raspberries x 2 canes.
• Planted 6 months ago - avocado, mango, fig, blueberries x 4, apricot and Davidson plum.

We harvested about 300g raspberries this year - enough to use in a trifle for 12 people! The mulberries have been a great success. I am about to go and pick some more and will have enough to make jam. I will let you know how that turns out.

In the vegie garden I have successfully grown tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, rocket, peas, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, spinach, capsicum, pumpkins and basil. At the moment I have lettuce, zucchini, capsicum, basil, potatoes, tomatoes, bok choy and beetroot all in progress.

Must do the jam now. I will post some photos later.