Two days of lovely warm sunshine ... and the washing still isn't dry. Add to to-do list - move clothesline!

One of the problems with these mass-produced lego-land houses is that they have a couple of set designs to choose from and they just whack 'em up in a matter of weeks regardless of whether or not they are suited to the block of land. The upstairs of this place offers gorgeous lake views; too bad there are only two windows to view it from, one of them being the step-kids room that only gets used once a fortnight!

This also means that the position of the house causes three-quarters of the backyard to be in shade for three-quarters of the day during the winter months. Not exactly ideal gardening conditions. I've wiled away many an hour dreaming up the perfect house design for this block ... sun drenched winter patios to the north laced with the decorative bare wood of grape vines that become cool green shade houses in the summer ... if only we coud convince the Matriach to bulldoze ... LOL!

So the backyard is still like swamp lands. I did tug on the old faithful gumboots and wander down the back late this morning and was happy to see the lone tomato plant fruiting like mad, despite having absolutely no attention. I even found a couple of pumpkins hiding under a tangle of vine and grass.

This is all I have to call a 'vege garden' at the moment. >>> Pretty sad really. I built it in my second trimester when I was full of energy. It's a no dig garden; I started by chopping up the ground a bit with a mattock to make it easier for the worms to get up, then I put down newspaper to smother all the grass. I covered that with some horse manure, then some semi-rotted compost (hence the self-sown pumpkin and tomato) , and finally a layer of pea straw. Then the heat of summer kicked in and floating around in the pool with a big belly seemed much more appealing than struggling to bend over and plant seedlings and lugging a watering can down to keep it alive.

Now that I can see past my belly button, It's time to get going again.

My aim is to mulch this whole area and make it a big a garden/orchard.

<<<<

This will be my hard core food production area.

I think I need to start sourcing bulk supplies of garden ingredients.

It gets all day sun, even through winter...

Better make a spot for the clothes line too!