Tomato Wonderland

The tomato plants are flourishing. I was so excited that I forgot to post about the first few grape tomatoes I harvested the other day. There are more on the way!

Then there are the new little flowers that have appeared on the Black Krim in the last couple of days:

And plenty of lush green growth on the others - no flowers yet though.

The sticks mark a few rainbow silverbeet seeds that I have just planted. I received them in my welcome pack from the Diggers Club. I let my old membership lapse two years ago, but joined up again in my flush of gardening enthusiasm a few weeks ago. I am stoked to get these seeds as I was planning to buy the exact same ones. Fingers crossed I will have better luck with them this time. It looks like the main thing is to not let them dry out, and apart from today and yesterday being very hot (high 30s) we seem to be having cooler weather than usual so far this summer.

Free range plants

A very thoughtful gift from my friend Tess!

Emerging from the jungle

How lovely to have a fresh start in the garden, thanks to my wonderful brother and sister-in-law. Unfortunately I didn't take a "before" picture but trust me, it was a mess. Here's Nic just after he pulled the grass jungle out of the raised bed:

If you look closely you can see the weeds still in the bed next to the fence; Nic pulled them out as well. I have since planted another bougainvillea which I hope will become as big and beautiful as the one further down.

I was so thrilled to have my raised bed back that I made myself a promise to maintain it carefully to prevent it from sliding back into buffalo overgrowth, and promptly whacked some tomato seedlings into it.

In two weeks, they have flourished, from this

to this

And today I rummaged around in my fridge and found some rocket seeds and tomato seeds I vaguely remember saving from a couple of years ago. I bunged them in with crossed fingers. No idea if they are still viable, but I'll give them a couple of weeks and if nothing comes up I'll try something else.

In the pics you can see my new compost tumbler - that's the black spherical objet d'art in the right hand corner just under the bougie flowers. It's making me nervous already, but it can't work out any worse than the worm cockroach farm or the "sniff-it-and-puke" bokashi bucket.

Oh yeah - I started a couple of jars of sprouts (mung and alfalfa). So I'll have some fresh crunchy goodness to add to my salads in a little over a week! Yay! Just in time for the hot weather.

Perth's forecast for the next week:

Forecast for Friday   
Sunny. Moderate S/SW winds, freshening during the afternoon.

Precis:      Sunny.                             
City:        Min 18     Max 30 
Mandurah:    Min 19     Max 28 

UV Alert:    8:00 am to 4:30 pm, UV Index predicted to reach 13 [Extreme]  
Fire Danger: Coastal Plain: LOW-MODERATE
             Hills:         LOW-MODERATE

Saturday     Sunny.                                 Min 18     Max 32
Sunday       Sunny.                                 Min 17     Max 31
Monday       Sunny.                                 Min 16     Max 32
Tuesday      Sunny.                                 Min 18     Max 33
Wednesday    Sunny.                                 Min 19     Max 34
Thursday     Sunny.                                 Min 21     Max 34