Day 178

Its the middle of winter but today is a gorgeous sunny day.  I thought I should take some pictures to show whats going on in the patch at the moment.

A delicious firm, white cauliflower almost ready for picking.

This is pak choi.  Grown from seeds and it should only be a few weeks before we'll be able to start enjoying these.

In the foreground is spinach and broccoli, in the back is broad beans.

Beans flowering pink and red.

Snow white flowers of the snow pea.  Maybe thats where the name is derived from.

A great sight to see at this time of year, a bee coming to enjoy the patch as much as we do.

Day 172

Yes we are still here.  In fact today is the shortest day of the year.  A real celebration as it means we can only look forward from this point on.  I've learnt that veggie gardens slow right down at this time of the year.  The things you can grow plus how slow they grow.  We are still getting a bit out of the garden but not a lot.  We haven't given up... just slowed our pace.  

Day 160

The cold wintery days show just how much previous generations must have relied on preserving their winter crops.  Our system has slowed right down and we are just slowly watching things grow.

We still have some great picks of cauliflower, beans and silver beet but they are growing slowly.  We took out quite a bit and replanted recently too which has meant we have less mature plants.   On the up side the butter beans are stretching their yellow toes and it won't be too long before we have an abundance of those.

Our broad beans are starting to flower but as of yet no beans are showing.

We are however using a bit of our preserved summer crop which is great.  We are even considering taking another step with our "patch" and getting a couple of chickens.  They will assist us with our compost from the leaves, stems and things we have left after we pick our yummy veggies and also provide us with eggs.

Day 156

Today I thought I'd show you the engine behind the whole aquaponics system - the fish.  We currently have 2 types.  Murray cod and Rainbow trout.  

The trout grow so quick but the Murray's are very slow.  Without these little beauty's our system would not do well at all.  The look so healthy as well which is a way we test how the system is performing.  Healthy fish + Healthy veggies = Healthy AP System.

Rainbow Trout

Murray Cod