Things of note

Today I noticed:
* that our loquat tree has started to flower. I'm really excited to see this as it's the first time since we transplanted it out of it's pot and into it's final position. For anyone who doesn't know what a loquat is they are well worth trying. Ours was producing fruit while in it's pot within a couple of years. The fruit is kind of egg shaped and when ripe a lovely apricot colour and best of all tastes very good. They also seem very easy to grow from seed. I've got some seedlings underway from fruit from this tree.

Loquat tree in flower

*that the tadpoles I'd seen turned into very small black frogs are in fact seemingly turning into lovely small green ones, I found a whole heap of them on the leaves of the water plants in that pond. This is a tremendous relief because I had seen my second only cane toad in the yard as I was walking back late from the beach one night and I had started to wonder. They are well camouflaged amongst the pond's greenery, well enough that hopefully the kookaburras who take the occasional baths here won't notice. I have noticed an increase in the number of frogs around both ponds, I don't know whether the small LED light I placed in each pond is attracting them, or perhaps a supply of insects by night for them to feed on, or maybe it's just the dry summer heat is attracting them to stay closer to water.

You can see three frogs on the stalks here and one on the leaf above.

Look how many are hiding amongst the leaves here.

*Another banana tree has just come in to flower. That will be the third one, as another two are well under way with bananas gaining size each time I see them.

* I spotted a small praying mantis, another "good" bug for the garden. After reading about good bugs versus bad bugs I like to celebrate every new good bug that arrives. Every insect brings a better diversity to the garden and an opportunity to fight off the bad bugs without resorting to chemicals in a garden where I'm trying to remain as organic as possible.

Can you spot it? It's almost invisible against the bark on the tree trunk.

Around the garden

A quick update on what's happening in the garden at the moment. After all the rain we've had things are really happening. The grass has grown to super huge proportions in the side gardens. We are guilty of letting it go while we've worked on the wicker gardens and retaining walls at the far end of the garden so it's not surprising it's now hard to tell there was once garden beds all the way along here. We've started to chop it down, pull it out or dig it up, but it's not going to be a quick job. I'm looking forward to the Easter long weekend to hopefully get a chance to get a good go at it.

The rain has given the apple trees a spur along and they have flowers on and the start of new fruit, as too does the passionfruit vines.

The apple trees are flowering and you can see the start of an apple next to this one. The trees are now about three years old so they are at a size where we should start to see some resulting fruit.

I love the unusual flowers of the passionfruit.

Passionfruit on the vine, and now we wait...

The loquat tree is a mass of flowers heralding signs of a good feed to come and the little mandarin tree is covered in tiny fruits.

This loquat tree only stands as tall as me, but these flowers will probably produce anything up to 50 small fruits across the tree. Normally we just stand there and gobble.

This mandarin is about two years old now. We've had a couple of small fruit that were so tart the only thing we could do with them was make jam. But the fruit look like they are holding well this time, fingers crossed.

Some things that I thought were finished for the season have suddenly sprung back to life. The kale and basil are bigger than they've ever been and to think I almost pulled them out. The chillies have started flowering all over again, just when I thought there would be no more.

Kale on mass at the top, basil brought back to life at the bottom and sides. Pesto here we come.

Flowers mean chillies. These are my favourites, they aren't too hot. I missed out on getting many this season as the chickens suddenly decided after living with them for over a year that they'd try them and really took a shine to them, so much so it's one of their first stops on their rounds when they are let out each day.

Not everything is blossoming however. Regardless of the rain and the sun in between, the water chesnuts haven't been confused about the season and just seem to know it's time to die back. Harvesting them soon will have to go on the to do list.

It's not all about fruit and veg now though, the rose hubby was given for his birthday last year is in flower and the smell is divine. I love roses, but never dreamed I'd have any success with them. This one might just change my mind.

And of course my garden wouldn't be complete unless all this rain brought out the frogs as well. These are one of my favourites, I'm not sure what they're called but they are only about the size of my thumbnail at biggest and although they are green, they shine gold in the sun.

Thanks for sharing my pleasure in my garden at the moment. How is your garden looking with your weather at the moment?