The seed sowing was quite successful with most things growing in the new shade house! It won’t be long before they will all be able to be planted out into the veggie garden that the chooks have been scratching around in for the past few months, adding extra ‘fertiliser’ as they go through the scraps.

Seeds sprouted!

Fortunately, there are also a few natives we have managed to repot from other areas, so once the rains come we will be able to revegetate small areas that were burnt out in the fire.

We also have had a rush of field mushrooms come up in the paddock…a sign of the cooler weather!

Mushrooms grown in the paddock

We have had a few visiting heron over the years, but not many as photogenic as this one!! We had mixed feelings seeing it- on the one hand it is lovely seeing the wildlife visit, on the other we knew it would be after the Silver Perch we put in the pond!!

White-faced Heron searching for silver perch!

We have just finished planting out a native/bush-food garden at the front of the house. Previously there was a massive philodendron that was starting to look tatty, way too big, and was burnt by the sun every summer.

This was pulled out (no mean feat!!) with the poor, long suffering 4WD dragging the  boat anchor (many times) through its roots until all were removed. Then the area was landscaped with a truck load of soil and another of bark chips, and then planted out. We purchased three grass trees from Replants, then numerous other natives from Australian Native Nurseries (choosing bush foods as much as possible).

Some of the  philly still lives in pots, the rest ( like all our branches and cuttings) went down to help re-greening elsewhere by covering some bare sand in one of the back paddocks (the old horse arena)—there to act as a temporary sunshade and catchment for self-sowing native plants to  take hold and thrive in.

Newly planted bush foods garden

Now we just need it to grow!