The garden

Is both very good and very bad.

I'll get the bad out of the way first. The zucchinis were all going fantastically after their early bout of mildew. Then, just before harvest, they all got end rot, then succumbed to yellow mosaic virus (I think anyway, it's all self-diagnosed). So did the pumpkins, bar one golden nugget, and the squash. So they all went in the bin. The tomatoes were taking ages to ripen for some reason I haven't yet determined, so all got infested with fruit fly. In the bin. I'm still not having much luck in the herb department, I really don't think i'm meant to grow them. And I ended up realising that our ladybugs are the plant eating type, but not before they decimated the potato plants.

In positives, we've got lots of corn and banana capsicums nearing readiness, and are eating quite a bit of silverbeet and shallots. We got a lot of potatoes even though they were attacked, and the garlic is nearly ready. Parsley, basil, stevia and apple mint can all be munched on infrequently. One pumpkin is still going, fingers crossed it'll remain healthy. I've also germinated fenugreek, marjoram, coriander and chives inside and hopefully continuing to have them under my nose will mean they'll survive. There's also a sweet potato on the kitchen bench in a tray of water in dire need of planting, there's tendrils up to the ceiling that are growing over a foot a day-but it's pretty fun to watch and I have nowhere to put it!

We're concentrating now on leafy, heat tolerant plants as the temperature is hovering around 30, so more silverbeet, some leaf lettuces, malabar spinach and shallots, plus some beetroot. I've got a couple of the quickest maturing cherry tomatoes in and plan to hurry them along to avoid more fruit fly. And I couldn't resist melons, but i'm sticking to one of each (water, rock and honey) for now. Plus just one straightneck zucchini, it did the best. Hopefully sticking to small and manageable for now will mean a better success rate!