I've been overwhelmed with my vege patch.  It's so big and I can't seem to remember what is path and what is garden.   We brought home a ute load of red bark and got a huge pile of cheaper brown chips deliveed.  We've been creating paths with red bark all over the place.  I'm really loving it.  I'm even using the gate to get into the garden now rather than attempting to break my neck many times a day climbing over the wall.

I love the contrast in colours as well.  I'm enjoying the patch a great deal at the moment.

I've got a section each of brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage.  The entire back line is green manure.    I think I'll put in a section of carrots next.  I have punnets of seeds waiting but they aren't growing very well.

Here's some of the prunings we have from our work on our fruit trees.  I'd love to see it mulched or used for a hugelkulture bed.  I'm not quite ready to do either of them though.  Perhaps we should just have a bonfire?

Our sheep can climb quite well.  Lew and Felicity dropped off this big bail of hay last week and the sheep are enjoying nibbling on it.   I think this shows how easily our sheep could escape into the house yard if they wanted to.

Usually at this time of year I look at the basil and tell myself I need to harvest some to freeze for the winter.  This time I actually have done it.  I chopped this all up and put in muffin trays in the freezer  It made about 20 large portions.  I dried some previously so we should be right for quite a few months.

I gave this camelia a good hair cut to keep it in a boxey shape, and it's rewarded me straight afterwards by coming out in bloom.  It's looking really great now.

So this is what is left of the huge apple tree at the drive way.

Here's the before picture:

This pruning exercise is a huge effort.  I hope it'll be worth it and that in the future we'll have much more control over our garden and the trees.

We've been on a bit of a bark/woodchip rampage around our garden.  We watched the documentary 'Back to Eden'

This article summarises the method.  Basically the wood chips provide a skin for the soil and protect it.  

I actually haven't come into gardening thinking I need to 'till the soil'  infact I am really a believer in leaving the soil alone and trying to add as much organic matter as I can to help it be a strong ecosystem.

I planted these pretty crysanthemums, some violets and barked over the area.  I'm hoping we can take control of our driveway gardens.  We'll still need to weed the bark areas but it looks lovely.

I have seen this guy a few times.  I think he lives in our front garden somewhere.  I should get some rocks for that garden so he can stay safer inside.  I've also seen a few skinks around the place, plus the frogs we see.  I'm really happy to see these critters around. I think it means we're doing some things right.

We visited the Creators Art gallery on the Lincoln Causeway last night.   The works on display there at the moment are all creations of the members.   They are all really great! I think it's worth a visit.  I was very tempted to buy atleast two of the works.