Pumpkin palace is growing brilliantly with the warm weather! Although we had a run of days in the high thirties and even up to 41.3C one day, the garden has survived, despite an unfortunate set back with our bore pump deciding to give up. We went for one week with no watering at all, and the following week with limited water until we had the new pump installed. We had some losses during that time, but most of the veggies hung in there and bounced back with a few good soakings.

We have an abundance of beans, zucchini and daikon radish already, and the pumpkin, rockmelon and cucumbers are well on their way. In fact, for the first year we have decided to try growing zucchini vertically to save space, and so far it is working brilliantly!

The aquaponics has been mixed, with some things growing like crazy but others not surviving the onslaught of the slaters. Tomatoes, laksa leaf and galangal in particular are taking over!

It has taken us a while to get the berry beds set up the way we wanted them, but they are now going well also, with the raspberries in particular enjoying the location! We have started picking the odd berry, but soon there will be more ready to eat!

And finally, the quail roosters were dispatched and processed for the freezer- a very straightforward job compared to other animals. The place is a lot quieter now- they certainly made a lot of noise for such small birds!

The girls are laying away like crazy, so we are giving away quail eggs as well as pickling heaps to eat later.

All in all, a very productive end to spring!