Winter is far from a quiet time in my garden. There are many jobs to be done. Some are needed to keep the kitchen busy now and many for the future.
After the first good hard frost, which tradition dictates in my temperate climate, to be ANZAC day is the time put the long johns on and to collect the pumpkins from the garden.
These I store in an old green house no longer in use.
It is also the time to prepare a bed for my garlic which has started to sprout little green shoots that tell me its time to put them into the ground.
I keep the largest bulbs to one side for this purpose.
This bed has been mulched. The Black hose is for watering, it has holes in it about 15 cm apart so that the bed can be watered from my rain water tanks.
Here the mulch is being made.
The Jerusalem artichoke bushes begin to die back telling me that all that goodness they took in over summer will be stored in their tubers.
Not long after the first frost the Broccoli will flower and will be ready to pick.
Another job is to dig the chicken pens out and put this litter on beds that will be used in spring and summer. It will take about three months for the heat to be removed from this litter so it is important that this job be done over winter.
The gate to my pen is too small for the wheel burrow so I use the little red trolley to get it from the pen to the burrow.
Another bed ready done.
By mid June, I use June long weekend as a guide it is time to prune my fruit trees.