Banana Jumbo Pumpkins

The unidentified cucurbit that self-seeded from the chooks' scratchings, that was growing over the chook house, was a prolific bearer of Banana Jumbo pumpkins. A large part of the final harvest is shown, stockpiled in the "spare" chookhouse. The weird-looking one hanging in the wire of the chookhouse grew like that through the wire. The pumpkins are as tough as old boots - reckon I could cut them with an axe more easily than with a kitchen knife - so getting that one out of the wire presents a problem. I don't want to risk slashing myself with the kitchen knife by trying to cut it out; don't want to cut the wire and have to mend it; don't want to even think about attacking it with an axe. In the meantime it's a good talking point. We've eaten the two biggest already, one was over 2 feet long. I think starting with the biggest first was a wise move, we're struggling to get through large amounts of pumpkin soup, and even pumpkin scones are starting to pall, I'm told. Still, these pumpkins have a lovely flavour and hold their shape when baked, but also make gorgeous soup. Can't see that I'll want to grow any other pumpkin next year, they're my favourites!

I CAN grow carrots, see!

Yesterday's harvest. Please note my successful carrot harvest (see, I can grow more than just rhubarb!). The seeds for the purple carrots came from Diggers Club in Victoria. The big creamy thingies are turnips, we're in for a bumper crop of home-made stews and pasties soon, there's that many already in the fridge, and that many more to come. In the blue bag are some snippets of green sprouting broccoli and a few purple king beans that were hiding, still healthy, under the otherwise frosted foliage. Sitting on the plastic bag between turnips and spud box are a few telephone peas.

So ... I had a craving for cheese on toast tonight *sigh* - will get into stew and steamed vegies mode tomorrow.

Water catchment nearly doubled

It's been operating for a couple of weeks now, and just in time. The carport downpipe is draining to the house tank, yahooie! Rainfall has started its pattern of winter sparsity already, after bumper figures in January and February. Buggerdammit :( Dave did a sterling job of welding the frame together. Getting the "fall" right involved some creative glueing of downpipe elbows. I think the curve of the downpipe has a distinctively architectural - possibly even sculptural - quality. The house is tiny, 8m x 8m (plus eaves on two sides, plus the angle of the roof, so probably 8m x 10m effectively) and the carport is 6m x 8m, so water catchment area has increased by over 50%. Lovely.