I literally do have turkeys in my garden and a pet blackbird, along with others, when I was growing broccoli I would spend time squashing caterpillars but I couldn't keep up. I guess it doesn't help being surrounded by farmland. There is a kale paddock just across the road that is just swarming with white butterflies, starlings, doves, blackbirds and sparrows 

I would spend time squashing caterpillars but I couldn't keep up. I guess it doesn't help being surrounded by farmland.

Damn I would love to have open land trees  with far more birds around..
As murphy would have it, brought a broccoli head in yesterday, missus found , for the 1st time in long time a ting little caterpillar.. ans a tiny little slug in one of the iceberg lettuce..
And havnt seen a dreaded stink bug in the beans this yr, come to think of it.
Lots tiny tiny little white butterflies in the evening, always have them around, dont think they are a problem at all, or dont see one.

 Self seeding.. messed with that few yrs back, even selecting seeds from (eg) tomatoes  with good size flesh and strong plants ...and the results quickly became disappointing over couple yrs. When looked into it, most of our veggies are hybrids and dont seed true. And when go thru several generations tend to revert back to original ... which the hybrids now have already improved on..
 I knew this with the pond gold fish, which is why we always took the small brown ones out..
 And the hybrid coloured fresurs (bulb flowers) over the yrs reverted to the wild yellow and pale yellow

I think when get a new garden, its different soil, weather etc, so its a matter of at 1st trialing different hybrids to find what grows, produces best...and what works for different seasons. And trialing grafted sort of confuses things..

And big crap, just as I thought, this rain is going down the side of the country...no big soak, so far lucky to have 2 to 3mm rain in last couple days..

Oh and just to clairffy, so dont give wrong impression here.. yes our old gardens , where on the large side for a urban garden... I actualy measured our current garden , now family left home etc..  its approx 3.5m X 4m and a row up the fence 3.5m X 0.3m

it’s amazing what you can produce from small gardens. My larger size I’m aiming for 80-100% meals home grown and chuck in crays and fish I have a number 100% foraged or grown meals, no chemicals plastic food miles blah blah. It’s good feeling knowing you can feed yourself. Oh I didn’t grow the olive oil in the pan and mashed vege.

My three sisters - don’t know if this is good or not. Heritage tomatoes are good - average about 250g each. Corn small & few. Lebanese cucumbers and scallopinis plentiful.


Metre rule provides perspective.
My tomatoes got too big and heavy for the corn very early on.

interesting results and good work on the Tom’s Keith. 

Reel Deal, thanks to the 350mm of rainfall in December, I haven’t had to water anything in my veg patch until I started watering the tomatoes about 2 weeks ago. Some cucurbits have really done well producing from mid-December whilst some, like gem squash & melon, failed and are only coming into flower now.

Been a very different season. Tomatoes have been particularly good.

man the amount of fish frames and guts in garden over the past few months! Next year should be a beauty! Yes lots of egg shells from worm farm getting pumped into gardens also put around new planted seeds to stop, we’ll slow down slugs and snails.

With 12 tomato plants the birds aren't a problem. Yeah tomatoes are doing especially well this year. I've never had much luck with black krims but they are doing really well this year and are now my solid favourites.

A fair bit of mine goes to my animals and to family. It's great to have a choice though!

Not pretty but absolutely delicious.